Ethiopia seeks urgent food aid for 6 million

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya – Ethiopia said Thursday it needs emergency food aid for 6.2 million people, an appeal that comes 25 years after a devastating famine compounded by communist policies killed 1 million and prompted one of the largest charity campaigns in history.

The crisis stems from a prolonged drought that has hit much of the Horn of Africa, including Kenya and Somalia.

Drought is especially disastrous in Ethiopia because more than 80 percent of people live off the land. Agriculture drives the economy, accounting for half of all domestic production and most exports.

Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia's state minister for agriculture and rural development, appealed to donors Thursday for more than $121 million. In January, he had said that 4.9 million of Ethiopia's 85 million people needed emergency food aid.

Ethiopia has long struggled with cyclical droughts, which are compounded by the country's dependence on rain-fed agriculture and archaic farming practices.

In 1984, Ethiopia's famine drew international attention as news reports showed emaciated children and adults with limbs as thin as sticks. The crisis launched one of the biggest global charity campaigns in history, including the concert Live Aid.

This year's drought appears to be slightly less severe than the one last year, which was exacerbated by high food prices. A year ago, Mitiku appealed for aid to feed 6.4 million people affected by drought.

But many humanitarian groups have said in recent years that they believe the number of people affected by hunger is higher than government estimates.

Because of Ethiopia's large size and poor infrastructure, independent observers have difficulty collecting data. The worst-affected areas in the country's east are the site of a fierce insurgency and are off-limits to journalists. Aid groups say their movements in these areas are limited by military restrictions.

In a report marking 25 years since Ethiopia's famine, the aid group Oxfam said countries must focus on preparing communities to prevent and deal with drought and other disasters before they strike, rather than relying on importing aid.

According to the U.N., nearly two-thirds of Africa's agricultural land has been degraded by erosion and misused pesticides. In Ethiopia, where bad farming practices have led to massive erosion, 85 percent of land is damaged.

"The current humanitarian situation underlines our belief that while food aid — much of it donated by foreign donors — is important and can save lives, we need greater funding for longer-term solutions, which can begin to tackle the underlying causes that make people so vulnerable to disasters," said Oxfam's Ethiopia country director, Waleed Rauf.

Another batch of 400 hajis from Jammu and Kashmir leaves for Jeddah

Srinagar, Oct 22 : Another batch of 400 pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir today left for Jeddah to perform Hajj 2009.

Official sources said the pilgrims, including women and children, in Ahram (white dress) were taken in special buses to Srinagar International Airport from Haj house at Bemina where their documents were checked by the authorities.

The pilgrims were also checked for swine flu, they said, adding later the pilgrims left for Jeddah in two flights.

With this, 1198 pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir left for Jeddah since October 20.

Source: New Kerala.
Link: http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-135943.html.

Hajj Pilgrims leave for Hijaz from Lahore, Quetta

22-10-2009

LAHORE (Pakistan Link): PIA has launched its Hajj flights in advance.

First PIA flights from Lahore to Jeddah carried 466 pilgrims, as 322 pilgrims from Quetta have also left for Hijaz.

Sources at PIA informed that pre-Hajj operations will continue till November 21st, whereas post-Hajj operations will commence from December 2nd till 1st January 2010.

PIA will commute 111,000 Hajj pilgrims in 259 special flights to Jeddah, while 15,000 pilgrims will travel in 32 direct flights to Madina.

EU prepares sanctions, arms embargo for Guinea

By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS – The European Union is preparing to impose an arms embargo and visa ban to punish Guinea's military rulers for a massacre at a pro-democracy rally, an official said Thursday, in the latest effort to step up international pressure on the junta.

The move comes days after West African leaders said they were placing an arms embargo on Guinea, where presidential guard troops opened fire on tens of thousands of demonstrators late last month. A Guinean human rights group says 157 people were killed, while the government said 57 died.

The EU is still drawing up a list of Guinean leaders to be included on the visa ban list, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official decision is pending. EU officials also are looking at whose assets should be frozen.

Once completed, a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg starting Monday will impose the sanctions, the official said.

In a draft conclusion for Monday's foreign ministers meeting, the EU said the violent crackdown in Guinea "resulted in gross violations of human rights, including many deaths, injuries and rape."

As a result, the draft conclusion said that the member states "have decided to adopt measures targeting the members of the (junta) and individuals associated with them, responsible for the violent crackdown."

Two EU officials said they did not expect any changes in the draft before it gets approved by the foreign ministers.

Frederik Kolie, a Guinean government spokesman, said Thursday he was waiting to see the official EU document before commenting on the sanctions.

Human rights and opposition groups in Guinea applauded news of the proposed embargo and visa ban.

"We hail this pressure and hope that the sanctions will be put into place very quickly so that justice will be done and the people of Guinea can leave this spiral of violence that haunts us day-to-day," said Mamadou Bah Baadikko, president of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, an opposition party.

Dr. Thierno Maadjou Sow, president of the Guinean humans rights group that first reported 157 people were killed in last month's violence, said they backed sanctions "that can bring about the junta accepting its departure."

"We support these sanctions on the condition that they don't cause suffering to the people, but the perpetrators of crimes and their accomplices," he said.

On Wednesday, a senior U.N. official said Guinea's military ruler has promised to cooperate with an international commission to investigate last month's crackdown.

Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara seized power hours after longtime dictator Lansana Conte died last December. Camara initially said he would not run in elections scheduled for Jan. 31, 2010, but recently indicated that he may have changed his mind.

The violence in Guinea has drawn widespread condemnation, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling for Camara to apologize and step down.

West African leaders said Saturday that the regional bloc known as ECOWAS would impose an arms embargo on Guinea and would try to stop Camara from running in the upcoming election.

Holbrooke's plea for talks with Taliban leader

Thu Oct 22, 2009

US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke had requested talks with Taliban's leader Mullah Omar during his July visit to Pakistan.

During the visit, Holbrooke, accompanied by the US ambassador to Islamabad, asked Pakistani officials to make the effort in bringing either the Taliban leader or his special representative to the negotiating table, a Press TV correspondent reports.

Holbrooke's request is currently being considered in Taliban's leadership council by Mowlavi Abdul Kabir and Mowlavi Abdul Latif Mansour, the report adds.

According to a member of Taliban's leadership council, during his Islamabad visit in July, Holbrooke opposed suggestions by Pakistani officials that his appeal for talks with the Taliban leader should be made public.

Holbrook then demanded that the issue must be pursued covertly, adding that in case Taliban's response to his request was affirmative, then the US would decide how to carry on the matter.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that Taliban leaders have also embraced the idea of Saudi Arabia brokering of talks between the US and Taliban.

In a supposed effort to curb the violence in Afghanistan, which has also spread to Pakistan, the US announced earlier that it was open to the idea of reaching out to “moderate elements” within Taliban, another fascinating American idea that has only helped intensify terrorism in the region during its eight-year intervention.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109321.html.

China, Russia praise Vienna nuclear talks

China and Russia have praised the talks between Iran and the three major world powers, which has led to a draft nuclear deal proposed by the UN nuclear watchdog.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said the draft agreement has been sent to Iran, Russia, the United States and France for final ratification.

"We noticed that some progress has been achieved in Iran nuclear-fuel talks and we welcome the gradual implementation of the consensus in Geneva meeting," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.

Ma says China will continue its 'constructive role' to remove through dialogue disagreements over Iran's nuclear program.

Representatives from Iran, the United States, Russia, France and the IAEA came together in Vienna to discuss the ways for providing the country with high-enriched uranium for using in a research reactor in Tehran.

Russia also praised the talks, saying 'consultations are still continuing'.

“The talks testify that we can resolve in a civilized and mutually respectful manner the questions that are a matter of interest for the participants," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko.

"Consultations are still continuing. Let's wait for their end and an announcement of concrete results," he added.

135 illegal immigrants caught in western Turkey

Security forces have arrested 135 illegal immigrants in separate operations in the western Turkish Aydin province and the southwestern province of Antalya as they were attempting to cross Turkish borders with Europe.

The detained immigrants came from Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia and Sri Lanka. They will be deported from the country once the legal proceedings are completed, according to a report released by the state-run Anatolian news agency.

Positioned on the frontier between East and West, Turkey has always been a major crossroad for refugees and illegal immigrants traveling from their economically strapped homelands in search of work and a better life in Western Europe.

A recent report issued by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) shows that there are more than 1 million illegal immigrants in Turkey. It adds that over 300,000 illegal immigrants enter Turkey per annum.

The report also states that the illegal immigrants in Turkey come from 163 different countries. While half of the illegal immigrants work as servants or babysitters, many choose to work as sex workers, construction workers, waiters or cooks.

Kashmir solution will emerge only through talks: ANC

Srinagar, Oct 22(PTI) The Awami National Conference today said that a solution to the Kashmir issue would emerge only through conferences in which people from all the regions of undivided state participate.

Vice-President of Awami National Conference Muzaffar Shah, who left for London to attend a two-day conference being organized by Kashmiris living there told reporters.

"The basic stand of ANC is that peaceful and honorable solution to the Kashmir issue could be found only through intra-Kashmir conferences," he said adding that he will acquaint the participants about viewpoint of his party on the issue.

This is for the first time that ANC, which was formed by former Chief Minister late GM Shah, has been invited for such a conference.

Pakistan braces for attacks as offensive continues

By Augustine Anthony

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Suspected Taliban militants shot and killed a Pakistani army brigadier and his driver in the capital on Thursday as the military continued a major offensive against the insurgents in their strongholds near the Afghan border.

Exposing the country's frayed nerves, the stock market dipped nearly three percent on false reports that a bomb had been found and shots fired at a courthouse in the capital, Islamabad.

The false alarm came as the country remained on high alert for possible retaliatory strikes by Taliban militants while the army attacks their strongholds in South Waziristan.

The offensive is a test of the government's determination to tackle Islamic fundamentalists, and the campaign is being closely followed by the U.S. and other powers embroiled in Afghanistan.

On Thursday, suspected militants shot and killed Brigadier Moin-ud-din Ahmed, deputy force commander of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), who was on vacation in Islamabad.

"Everyone in the mission is very shocked," Kouider Zerrouk, UNMIS spokesman told Reuters.

UNMIS, one of the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping missions with around 11,000 personnel, was set up to monitor and support the 2005 peace deal than ended the two-decade civil war between Sudan's north and south.

Ahmed, whose rank is equivalent to a U.S. brigadier-general, one step below a full one-star general, is the second senior officer to be killed in less than two weeks following a commando-style raid on army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

A shopkeeper, Naveed Haider, said he saw a man running, his face covered with a yellow cloth, before he heard gunshots.

"A man with a motorbike was waiting for him on the street. He sat on it and they fled," the witness said before taken away by police for questioning. Police said Brig. Haider's driver was also killed and a bodyguard wounded.

Pakistani forces launched an offensive on Saturday to take control of lawless South Waziristan after militants rocked the country with a string of bomb and suicide attacks, killing more than 150 people.

Analysts have warned of the possibility of more urban attacks as the militants are squeezed out of their strongholds, with the Taliban hoping bloodshed and disruption will cause the government and ordinary people to lose their appetite for the offensive.

On Tuesday, two suicide bombers attacked an Islamic university in Islamabad, killing at least four people, and the next day authorities ordered schools and colleges to close across the country.

The KSE-index fell three percent on Thursday's false rumors of an incident at a courthouse, but recovered to close down 1.01 percent at 9,154.00 after falling 3.36 percent on Wednesday.

"Investors are very jittery at this point due to the law and order situation," said Sajid Bhanji, a dealer at brokers' Arif Habib Ltd.

Remote and rugged South Waziristan, with its rocky mountains and patchy forests cut through by dry creeks and ravines, is a global hub for militants.

About 28,000 soldiers are battling an estimated 10,000 hard-core Taliban, including about 1,000 tough Uzbek fighters and some Arab al Qaeda members.

The army said 24 militants and two soldiers were killed in the fighting on Thursday.

Foreign reporters are not allowed anywhere near the battle zone and it is dangerous even for Pakistani reporters to visit. Independent confirmation of casualty figures has not been possible.

More than 100,000 civilians have fled the area, with about 32,000 of them leaving since October 13, the United Nations said.

The army has launched brief offensives in South Waziristan before, the first in 2004 when it suffered heavy casualties before striking a peace pact.

EU probes mismanagement in prized Spanish wetland

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer

MADRID – The European Union has launched an investigation into a prized Spanish wetland that has turned bone dry through mismanagement of water resources and is now on fire underground, white smoke now rising from areas where fish once swam.

The EU wants the Spanish government to explain how it plans to save Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park in the central Castilla-La Mancha region, European Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The park, one of Spain's few wetlands, is classified as a UNESCO biosphere site and an EU-protected area because of its birdlife.

But it has been drying up for decades, largely because of wells dug by farmers on the edges of the park to tap an aquifer that feeds the wetland's lagoons. Many of the wells are illegal. Environmentalists call this case a particularly glaring example of how a natural resource can be abused.

In August, intense summer heat and parched soil caused the peat just under the surface of the soil to spontaneously ignite. Now, several areas of the park are on fire underground and white smoke seeps out of deep cracks in the parched soil.

"We have seen a situation where there is continuous degradation of territory," Helfferich said from Brussels.

The EU told the Spanish government about its investigation last week and Spain has 10 weeks to explain how it plans to respond to the crisis, Helfferich said.

"Underground fires at the moment cannot be extinguished," she said, adding that the 27-nation bloc has asked Spain how it plans to deal with it.

In a worst-case scenario, the EU could punish Spain with a hefty fine if it deems that the government's management of the wetlands was insufficient.

Josep Puxeau, the Environment Ministry's top official on water issues, said the government has an emergency plan to pump in torrents of water from a river to put out the fires and restore the acquifer.

It will also continue with a policy of buying up land and farms outside the park to halt water being drawn from wells, he told reporters.

The park lies 90 miles (150 kilometers) south of Madrid. Not all of it is wetland. The area capable of holding water covers about 4,500 acres (1,800 hectares) but less than 1 percent of that actually has water.

Park ranger Jesus Garcia Consuegra, who grew up in the area, remembers lusher times. He would go fishing there as a boy, venturing out at night in a rowboat equipped with a lantern to draw fish to the surface.

"It was so clear you could see to the bottom. You could see the fish there. You could watch them and it was simply marvelous," he said in a documentary on the park's Web site.

Jose Manuel Hernandez, spokesman for the environmental group Ecologists in Action, placed the blame for the wetland's demise squarely on excessive use of underground water tables for irrigation. He said climate change has nothing to do with the problem because La Mancha is dry anyway and rain levels have not dropped that much.

Rather, the culprit is a government policy over the past 20 years that allowed farmers to shift from non-irrigated crops like olive groves and wheat to thirsty ones like grapes and melons, he told the AP.

The Guadiana River, for instance, which once flowed through La Mancha, has essentially vanished for this reason and peat fires like the ones in Las Tablas de Daimiel have been common in that riverbed for years.

"The Guadiana has been burning for 20 years," Hernandez said. "People are just waking up now because the fires have cropped up in a national park."

He called the idea of bringing in huge amounts of water to put out the fires and restore the acquifer a pointless stopgap measure: the land is so dry and the water table now so low that water brought in from outside will simply get sucked up by the soil and not reach the acquifer.

It is artificial to try to save a wetland this way, and better to manage the existing water more efficiently by cutting down on use of wells, Hernandez said.

"What we need to do is recover the dynamics of the ecosystem."

Iran: Uranium deal will expose West

Iran says the yet to be signed uranium deal with the West will be a test of the participating countries' commitment to peaceful nuclear work.

"The Vienna talks are a new chapter in cooperation between Iran and the other participating states… We will be waiting to see whether they will stay true to their words and promises," Tehran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog told Al-Alam news channel.

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be a witness to the other states' behaviors when it comes to technical cooperation on using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes," said Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh.

Soltaniyeh had the interview with the Arabic news network on Wednesday night, following talks with diplomats from France, Russia and the US in Vienna on a deal to supply highly-enriched uranium for the Tehran research reactor.

The second round of the October talks ended with IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei sending a draft of an agreement drawn up by the Agency to the governments of Iran, Russia, the United States and France.

The Tehran reactor requires uranium enriched up to 20 percent supplies medical isotopes for treating cancer to more than 200 hospitals in Iran.

ElBaradei said the countries have until Friday, October 23, to inform the UN nuclear body whether or not they accept the deal.

In a similar Wednesday interview with the American news channel CNN, Soltaniyeh said that Tehran had accepted the offer 'in a general sense' to build confidence.

"In principle we have in fact accepted this offer for this Tehran ... reactor in spite of the fact that we are capable of producing the fuel," said Soltaniyeh.

"But we decided to welcome this offer in order not only to show our transparency and cooperation but prove that all activities are for exclusively peaceful purposes."

Iranian weightlifter sets new record

Iranian heavyweight lifter, Saeed Ali-Hosseini, has set new records in the snatch, clean and jerk and total categories during his training session.

The 21-year-old athlete lifted 485kg in the total category during his training session in Chaboksar in northern Iran on Wednesday.

Ali-Hosseini lifted 215kg in the snatch category and 270kg in clean and jerk.

Iran's Hossein Rezazadeh is the current world record holder with 213kg in snatch and 263.5kg in clean and jerk.

The Iranian lifter is preparing himself for the 2009 World Weightlifting Championships to be held in South Korea in November.

Ali-Hosseini stands third after Germany's Matthias Steiner and Russia's Evgeny Alexandrovich Chigishev in the latest International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) rankings in the +105 kg category.

NATO 'decomposing' in Afghanistan

Thu Oct 22, 2009

Former Canadian chief of defense staff has sharply criticized the mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan's controversial war.

In his new book, Rick Hillier said, “There was no strategy for the mission in Afghanistan” when he took command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"NATO had started down a road that destroyed much of its credibility and in the end eroded support for the mission in every nation in the alliance," he wrote.

"Sadly years later, that situation remains unchanged," the retired general was quoted as saying by AFP.

“Afghanistan has revealed that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse, decomposing” and in need of 'lifesaving' or 'the alliance will be done', he said.

NATO is vulnerable to 'any major setback' in Afghanistan and faces extinction unless it can 'snatch victory out of feeble efforts' thus far, according to Hillier.

Canada sent 2,000 troops to Kabul in August 2003, and assumed command of ISAF in February 2004. Some 2,800 troops will remain in Kandahar province until 2011.

The former general also accused NATO of being 'dominated by jealousies and small, vicious political battles', adding that the alliance's 'lack of cohesion, clarity and professionalism was ominous' at the start of the Afghan mission.

He lamented that many alliance members are focused on 'building their own little fiefdom' instead of preparing troops for deployment.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109318.html.

US Muslim detained for 'terror plot'

US security forces have apprehended an American Muslim citizen over claims of his 'conspiracy' to kill the country's politicians, soldiers, and civilians.

American security forces arrested Tarek Mehanna, a US pharmacologist of Egyptian descent, around Boston on Wednesday over accusations of his conspiracy to carry out 'terror' attacks against Americans.

Mehanna has been charged with plotting to kill US citizens at shopping malls and to assassinate politicians and troops in collusion with another US expat, Ahmad Abousamra, and a third unnamed accomplice, AP has reported.

Despite a lack of evidence incriminating the US citizen, Mehanna was accused in a federal tribunal of supporting 'terrorism' for his 'anti-US' stance.

The court arraigned the 27-year-old doctor and Islamic teacher of seeking 'terrorist training' during his 2004 trip to Yemen.

He also stands accused of allegedly telling a friend that it was 'unfathomable' for America to have military bases in the 'heart of the Muslim world' and that the 'land of Mohammad [the prophet of Islam] ... is being used as a military base to attack Muslims', the report adds.

Mehanna reportedly sought to kill Americans for their support of the system and for being 'nonbelievers'. Moreover, the court indicted him of plotting to 'kill, kidnap, maim or injure' troops and two unidentified politicians.

The young US citizen defied the accusations during the court proceedings while his father, Ahmed Mehanna, a professor at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, called the latest episode 'a show'.

Turkish producer rejects Israel hate claims

The producer of a Turkish TV series, which depicts Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children, has rejected accusations of inciting hatred against Israel.

The first episode of the drama Separation: Palestine In Love and In War went on air on October 13, portraying Israeli forces as shooting innocent Palestinian civilians, insulting and ridiculing them.

It also showed Israeli soldiers killing a newborn baby, a little girl and an elderly pilgrim on his way to Mecca.

The moving scenes drew a fiery attack from Israeli officials who accused the program of inciting 'hatred against Israel' and said it was 'not worthy of being broadcast even in an enemy state'.

On Thursday, the series producer Selcuk Cobanoglu dismissed the Israeli accusations, stressing that the series' main theme was love.

"This will become more obvious in the upcoming episodes," he said.

The producer, however, said Turkey's state broadcaster TRT has censored scenes from the second episode which show Israeli soldiers shooting a row of blindfolded Palestinians.

Speaking to Milliyet daily newspaper, Cobanoglu said he and his team respected the broadcaster's decision, which came on the heels of Israel's sharp-tongued protests at the program.

"Each broadcaster has its own regulations of supervision... We don't have objections to this situation," he said.

The series topped disputes between Ankara and Tel Aviv, whose bilateral ties had already strained due to Turkey's exclusion of Israel from joint military exercises the week before.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later said the decision was in compliance with the wish of his people in protest at Tel Aviv's three-week onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 1,400 Palestinians.

Turkey has said bilateral ties will not recover unless Israel ends 'the humanitarian tragedy' in Gaza and moves toward the revival of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Negotiations stalling Jordan's first wind power plant

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) Progress on the Kingdom's first wind power plant has been stalled in negotiations, a senior energy official said on Wednesday.

Proposals for the plant at Kamshah, near Jerash, have been rejected twice over the price of electricity tariffs quoted by the winning bidder, Greek firm Terna Energy SA, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khaldoun Qteishat told The Jordan Times yesterday.

Last year, the tender for the 30-40 megawatt (MW) plant garnered interest from two international companies, a Russian firm and Terna, with whom the government entered negotiations several months ago.

The main obstacle to concluding the agreement are the high tariffs and prices quoted for electricity included in the proposal, the minister said, indicating that the prices were based on the economic situation and high oil prices when it was crafted late last year.

According to Qteishat, the ministry is close to either reaching an agreement with the company or ending negotiations, with an option to negotiate with the second bidder or reopen the tender should talks fall through.

The plant, which was to be constructed on a build-operate-transfer basis with financing provided by the World Bank, was scheduled to be operational next year as the Kingdom's first wind power plant.

Plans are also in place for an 80-90MW wind plant in Fujeij, near Wadi Musa, by 2011, and wind turbine stations at Al Harir, Maan and Wadi Araba to produce 300-400MW of electricity.

Known for its affordability and relatively quick construction period, wind power has been seen as a key part of the Kingdom's strategy for greater energy independence.

The energy strategy calls for Jordan to meet 29 per cent of its energy needs from natural gas, 14 per cent from oil shale, 10 per cent from renewable energy resources and 6 per cent from nuclear energy.

In addition to 600MW of wind and 300-600MW of solar energy, the government is looking to generate 30-50MW of biomass by 2020. With the advancements in wind power technology, the ministry has previously expressed its intention to meet its goal of 600MW of wind energy by 2015, five years ahead of schedule.

By Taylor Luck

Shoura member: Saudis need attitude adjustment

(MENAFN - Arab News) Well-known columnist, prominent businessman and Shoura Council member Najeeb Al-Zamil has urged his fellow Saudis to open a channel of communication with expatriates in order to improve the image of Saudis.

"Now is the time to be honest about ourselves. Yes, we Saudis suffer as a result of media manipulation and Western stereotypes, but then, why is it that we are misunderstood and hated by people living among us?" he asked recently during an exclusive interview with Arab News.

"These expatriates who have come here to make a living and to improve their lives � why do they not like us? Things are so bad that if you are Saudi and you smile, people get confused. 'Are you sure you are Saudi?' they ask. And if you tell them, 'Yes I am a Saudi,' they say: 'No, come on! Maybe your mother is from Palestine or Sri Lanka or Africa.' This is because Saudis are known for always putting on a grim face. Of course we cannot control the global media. But why do these people who work and live among us, why do they have this bad opinion of us? Why? I am a businessman. Expatriates who work for me, they see me more than their wives or their families back home, and yet they don't like us."

Al-Zamil says this requires some serious consideration on the part of Saudis. "We have to think about this rotten state of affairs. If you are a doctor, then you cannot heal a patient or treat him unless you have correctly diagnosed the problem or the disease. The problem is with us - with our attitude," he said.

"I can't blame expatriates for having an incorrect opinion of us. This disease afflicts me, and so I need the medication. I have to initiate something to rectify the situation. Correct diagnosis led us to the discovery that people don't like us because they don't know us, and they don't know us because we have put walls around us. They (the expatriates) are living on an island. We haven't made any effort to reach out to them. We haven't created bridges to get to their islands, and because they don't know us, they have all kinds of things in their mind. They think that beyond their islands live monsters. They all have vague ideas about us; they are afraid of us. To them, we are mysterious people."

Al-Zamil recently announced the creation of an informal forum called the Saudi-Expat Forum. He offered the facilities of Al-Zamil House, which has hosted many debates and discussions on a range of topics of local, national and international interest, as the staging center for this forum. "This forum is to encourage Saudis to open their doors to communicate, to engage the expatriates � to allay their fears. They are in our country; they are in our society; they are our guests. We should show them generosity. We should tell them we are modest. We should demonstrate our modesty," he said.

What Al-Zamil says about Saudis can also be true of expatriates. Most of them have been living in Saudi Arabia for ages and have made no effort whatsoever to reach out to Saudis, to speak their language ... These expatriates are not aware of the local culture and make no efforts to make friends with Saudis. What does Al-Zamil say to that?

"The problem is we don't encourage them. We have never encouraged them. If I go to India or Pakistan, people make an effort to get to know me. Expatriates have been here for so long, and we have not made the effort to know them, to understand their problems, to communicate with them on a human level. Since they are in our country, we have to make the effort. Let me be honest: Saudis suffer from attitudinal problems. Many of us think, 'Oh they have come here to work. They are workers; they are beneath us.'" Al-Zamil doesn't use the word racism, but he says this attitude prevails everywhere. "It happens in Germany. It happens in America. In Germany, Asians are berated and sometimes insulted. However, in their case, their feeling of superiority is understandable. The world admires the Germans for their Mercedes, BMWs, Audis and Volkswagens. They have technology. They have machines. What do we Saudis have? Nothing - only ourselves as human beings."

He said Saudi elitism was something neither the Kingdom nor its citizens needed. "This attitudinal change occurred a few decades ago. A conscious effort was made to drill into our psyche that we Saudis are different, that we are the best, that we are special people, that we don't need to work. This work is for that Indian and that Pakistani or that Bangladeshi to do. I don't have to work. I am Saudi. I have to be the boss, nothing else. We were taught such stuff for decades."

It is a fact demonstrated by some of the Kingdom's economic statistics. "Who would believe that we have unemployment? That is precisely because our people don't want to work. Islam encourages people to work hard. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said a working hand is much better than an idle hand and that an idle hand will only unite with evil. Work is sacred. Work is divine. Saudis have to change.

"They have to lead from the front and let these expatriates know us better so they will go and bat for us and speak for us. If we beat our own chest, nobody will believe us. It is when others say good things about us that the image will change," Al-Zamil said.

By Siraj Wahab

Source: Middle East North Africa Financial News (MENAFN).
Link: http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093278329.

State Park visitors participate in effort to catch, band owls

BY JANNA ODENTHAL, POST-TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT

Huge, round, yellow eyes pierced the darkened room. Some onlookers gasped, others sighed, as photos of a northern saw-whet owl were projected onto a large screen at the Indiana Dunes Nature Center.

A group gathered there recently for a free public program about owl banding.

Brad Bumgardner, the state park's interpretive naturalist, explained that out of 20 types of owls in the United States, only eight live in Indiana. He walked around the room with a stuffed, mounted northern saw-whet owl to give the group a closer view.

The smallest native owl, adult northern saw-whet owls are about the size of a human fist. This tiny bird hides in white cedar swamps and feasts on small mammals throughout the summer. Coniferous forests provide safe breeding grounds.

Banding the owls helps naturalists learn more about them, Bumgardner said. He explained the process of determining the bird's age, weight and sex, tracking migratory patterns and more.

"One of the things I like about this is that it's educational, it's research and it's fun, too," Bumgardner said.

A recent evening of light winds, clear skies and cold air created an ideal setting for catching the nocturnal animal. Participants drove to the park's Tremont shelter. They hiked through the darkened woods, trampling through mud, leaves and sticks, in hopes of finding the elusive owl and to check on nets set to catch it.

A homemade device, OWL-E, consisted of an MP3 player attached to a 400-watt amplifier hooked up to a car battery. It lures the owls into 36-foot-wide, 18-foot-high nets with pockets that gently catch and hold the birds.

Tim Stoltz, 15, of Valparaiso said he liked walking through the woods.

"I never heard of owl banding. It's pretty cool," he said. "The net was big, and you couldn't see it at night."

Between net checks, the group returned to the Nature Center to look for other species of night flyers. Bumgardner attracted an eastern screech owl to a nearby tree. He also discussed other varieties of owls and mimicked their calls, using his voice.

Individuals were encouraged to participate in the adopt-an-owl program, which gives a certificate, a picture of the owl, the band number, a matching band and e-mail updates about the owl.

Sara Wilmsen, 15, of Chesterton, volunteered to help with future owl banding.

"This summer was my first time helping with bird banding. It would be fun to do the banding my entire life," she said. "I just like getting real close to something that most people don't."

Bullet-proof vests for Germans in World Cup

A German security firm responsible for protecting the country's football squad has asked the national team to wear bulletproof vests at next summer's World Cup in South Africa.

BaySecur, which watches over the country's football players in away games, also recommended players not stray too far from the team's hotel in Pretoria.

Germany's football players are expected to wear bulletproof vests, and be accompanied by armed bodyguards if they venture away from the hotel during their stay in South Africa.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee strongly criticized the private security company's suggestions.

“That security company is exaggerating and over-dramatizing issues to get the attention of the German football federation,” said the Organizing Committee's chief of communication Rich Mkhondo.

Mkhondo reassured the participants about the security situation of the 2010 World Cup and said there would be more than enough security personnel during the matches.

“We will show them the kind of security preparations we have — 41,000 security personnel. They will be police officers and will be deployed in and around the stadiums,” said Mkhondo.

India, China sign climate change deal

India and China, known as the leading polluters as well as players in fighting global warming, have signed an accord to cooperate on ways to tackle climate change.

According to the memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday in New Delhi, the two sides emphasized that the 'United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol are the most appropriate framework for addressing climate change'.

China and India say wealthy nations, including the US, should reduce emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and that they ought to share technology with poorer countries to help them tackle climate change.

"There is no difference between the Indian and Chinese negotiating positions, and we are discussing further what the two countries should be doing for a successful outcome at Copenhagen," Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

“The differences are not important for China and India when it comes to climate change. Both are collaborating for a fair and equitable outcome at Copenhagen in keeping with the Rio Declaration of 1992, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Bali Action Plan. An outcome that fully protects and promotes the interests of developing countries,” Ramesh said.

Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese minister for national development, said the accord 'will usher in a new scenario and take cooperation on climate change between the two countries to a new level', PTI reported.

Representatives from more than 190 countries are set to meet in Copenhagen from December 7 for the final round of negotiations on a climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Kuwaiti women win passport right

Kuwaiti women have won the right to obtaining their own passport without requiring the consent of their husbands, following a ruling by the country's highest court.

In the latest advancement for women's rights in Kuwait, the emirate's constitutional court has ruled that women do not need to obtain their spousal approval before obtaining a passport to travel.

The ruling has revoked a 1962 passport law whereby women could not be granted a passport without the consent of their husbands.

Unlike their peers in highly conservative neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, women in Kuwait can vote, serve in parliament and drive.

Kuwait granted women the right to vote four years ago amid the opposition of tribal and conservative members of parliament.

It was not until 2009 that Kuwaiti women managed to put an end to the men-only era of their country's parliament by winning four seats.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=109311§ionid=351020205.

Second H1N1 death in Jordan confirmed

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) More than 600 new instances of H1N1 (swine) flu were recorded over the past week, including the Kingdom's second confirmed death related to the virus, health authorities said on Wednesday.

The swine flu-related fatality was an Amman resident who also suffered from other ailments, according to the ministry's weekly report received by The Jordan Times yesterday.

The 60-year-old man suffered from heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, which weakened his immune system prior to his infection with the virus, according to the report. The patient passed away in Prince Hamzah Hospital.

The Kingdom's first confirmed swine flu death, which was announced last week, was a 26-year-old man who was also receiving treatment for a lung infection and tuberculosis.

Over the past week, health authorities registered 663 instances of swine flu, raising the total number of cases in the Kingdom to 1,695.

The new cases represent the greatest weekly increase in H1N1 infections, Health Ministry Primary Healthcare Director Adel Bilbeisi told The Jordan Times, stressing that authorities are expecting similar increases this winter.

According to the report, 55 per cent of the newly confirmed cases were males. Of the total, 655 cases were Jordanians, while the remaining eight were foreigners.

Prince Hamzah Hospital Director Ali Hiasat told The Jordan Times that the number of people visiting the hospital to be tested for swine flu is on the rise "as the disease has become like the seasonal flu".

He noted that around 1,900 people were tested for the virus at the hospital over the past two days.

Private Hospitals Association (PHA) President Fawzi Hammouri said hundreds of people are also being tested at the country's private hospitals.

"We receive some 500 people daily and 75 per cent of them are under the age of 19," Hammouri said in a press conference yesterday, adding that 30 per cent of the cases tested positive.

Meanwhile, the first shipment of 100,000 doses of the swine flu vaccine will arrive in the Kingdom during the first week of November, a ministry source told The Jordan Times yesterday.

The first batch of the 2.25 million vaccine doses purchased by the government from international companies was originally expected to arrive this month.

The vaccines will be exclusively for pilgrims, who will be inoculated ahead of the Hajj, upon a Saudi request.

By Khetam Malkawi

MYANMAR: Rohingya youth face bleak future

MAUNGDAW, 21 October 2009 (IRIN) - Hla Moe, 25, has a university degree but it is worthless in the eyes of Myanmar's military government. Thus, he and other Rohingya youth have no choice but to till the land just as their ancestors have done for generations in Northern Rakhine State.

"There is no difference between the educated and uneducated young men here," Hla Moe said, outside his parents' farm near the town of Maungdaw, not far from the Bangladeshi border.

"We [Rohingya youth] have two options: live a suffocating life or flee the country."

There are some 800,000 Rohingya in Rakhine today, most of whom live in abject poverty. Barred from civil service jobs, as well as from traveling freely to secure work elsewhere, most are casual laborers, farmers and fishermen.

Although the Rohingya comprise about 85 percent of Rakhine's population - this ethnic, linguistic and religious minority is de jure stateless, according to the laws of Myanmar.

A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says forced labor and expropriation of property are a daily reality.

"The state orchestrates violence either directly, to force the Rohingya to leave, or foments discriminatory attitudes and practices whose ultimate aim is to push the Rohingya out," the report states.

Restrictions

While many young people do try to leave - often via smugglers to Bangladesh, Thailand or elsewhere in the region - those who remain struggle to eke out a living under very challenging conditions.

In addition to arbitrary taxation, the Rohingya require permission for everything from traveling from one town to the next to carrying out simple home repairs and marriage.

Many couples attempt to flee the country, while others marry in secret, running the risk of prosecution and even imprisonment.

"We applied for permission three years ago, but we still haven't heard," one 24-year-old Rohingya in Maungdaw said.

Their children - they are only allowed two - may have even fewer opportunities in Myanmar.

"Young people don't see a future for themselves or for their children in this country," Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, an NGO involved in research-based advocacy in the country, said.

Education is possibly the greatest obstacle, as it is often poor or sub-standard, even though it is available at primary and secondary level, she said, and attendance is low due as additional school costs are often too high for many Rohingya families.

Many families spend between 80 and 100 percent of their income on food and other basic essentials. Others routinely keep their children at home to help with household chores, or to contribute to farm work or other activities to supplement the family's income.

As the Rohingya speak a dialect of Bengali with no written form, some 80 percent of the population is estimated to be illiterate - leaving them no choice but to learn the Burmese or Rakhine languages.

Travel restrictions

The ongoing travel restrictions imposed by the government have a particularly onerous impact on young people seeking education and employment opportunities outside the state.

One 19-year-old Rohingya girl was repeatedly denied permission by the authorities to register for university entrance exams - so she works in her parents' shop in Maungdaw instead.

Even if they gained admission as well as the necessary travel permits to attend classes, under Burmese law they are effectively barred from studying certain subjects, including engineering and medicine.

In 2008 alone, more than 400 Rohingya students were prevented from attending colleges and universities, according to the Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO).

"Lives have become unbearable and suffocating for the Rohingya," Nurul Islam, ARNO president told IRIN, citing instances of young people being arbitrarily detained or arrested, often on trumped-up charges for extortion purposes.

Source: Alertnet.
Link: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/1b83157e57e12f9e5264c06aa026f3be.htm.

Lebanon's refugee waiting room

By Andrew Wander in Beirut

"We thought we would be here for a few months," says Huda al-Rukun, her red-rimmed eyes flicking around the tiny space she shares with her husband and five children. "No-one believed we would stay this long."

Twenty-three years after they were forced out of the nearby Shatila refugee camp during a particularly bloody phase of the Lebanese civil war known as the War of the Camps, the Palestinian al-Rukun family are one of hundreds still living in a disused hospital in south Beirut.

The conflict may have finished 19 years ago, but many of those who fled the fighting have not been allowed back. Rebuilding was only permitted on the original site of camp, so those who had lived in the unofficial settlements attached to Shatila found themselves homeless.

Instead of returning to the camp, those families have spent the past quarter of a century squatting in the hospital complex, known locally as the Gaza buildings. This "temporary" shelter has become a permanent slum, housing almost a thousand people.

It is just a short taxi ride from downtown Beirut, but the buildings' crumbling rooms make the city's bright lights and trendy beach clubs seem a distant memory. Some of its residents live without running water, others without regular electricity. All are desperately poor.

Particularly vulnerable

The community is known as a "gathering," the name given to any informal Palestinian settlement outside Lebanon's 12 official camps.

Officials say that almost half of the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon now live in gatherings, where they are particularly vulnerable to poverty and ill-health.

"Palestinians in Lebanon live with a very high unemployment rate, and have limited access to public services and to the job market. This makes them poorer than Palestinians living in other countries," says Hoda el Turk, a spokeswoman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Lebanon, which is tasked with providing services for Palestinian refugees.

She says those living outside the camps are not eligible for some of the essential services provided by the agency. "They cannot have their shelter rehabilitated by UNRWA because they are outside the camps, where UNRWA has no mandate to work," she explains.

As a result, living conditions in Palestinian gatherings are often dire. The EU recently paid for improvements to the Gaza buildings, but walking through the main entrance to the al-Rukuns' building, you would not know it.

Electricity cables loop from the ceiling in the corridors, dropping dangerously close to the puddles of stagnant water that gather on the bare concrete floors. Rubbish piles up in the disused lift shafts, infusing the place with a permanent stench of decay, and a trickle of foul-smelling liquid drips down the staircase from an unseen source.

Inside the family's two spartan rooms on the fourth floor, there have been efforts to brighten things up. A threadbare rug lies on the floor, and a carefully placed picture frame covers the worst of a crack in the wall. But it is hard to escape the squalor of the buildings; refuse is piled up on the flat roof outside the window, rotting in the late summer heat.

"The only good thing about this place is that we don't pay rent," Huda says, watching her youngest children playing together on the floor.

'No life'

The mother of five fears for their future. "There is no life here for my children," she says. "They have no privacy. There is no dignity. They get sick all the time."

But they have nowhere else to go. The camps are full and poverty is rife. UNRWA is facing serious funding problems, and the possibility of cutting services and scaling back operations is never far away.

Meanwhile, figures released in June show there is a greater proportion of designated "hardship cases"- a status given to particularly poor or vulnerable refugees - in the Palestinian population of Lebanon than anywhere else in the region, including the Gaza Strip.

It is a sign of the desperate conditions that many Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have found themselves in.

For those living in the gatherings, accessing UNRWA services can be difficult. Most of UNWRA's facilities - schools, clinics and welfare offices - are inside the camps, and while in theory they are open to all registered Palestinians, regardless of where they live, in practice getting from the more remote gatherings to the camps can be difficult.

Even in the Gaza buildings, which lie close to the facilities of the Shatila camp, almost a quarter of the children do not go to school and the residents rely on local NGOs rather than UNRWA for essential services.

'Not sustainable'

Rita Hamdan, the director of Popular Aid for Relief and Development, a local NGO, has been involved in helping residents of the buildings since they arrived in 1986.

"These people have been deprived of many direct services," she says. "We are raising awareness on health issues, and provide sanitation services. We also run a clinic, and a community development centre where we do youth activities."

She believes that money would be better spent on moving the residents of the hospital than on endless maintenance projects.

"The best solution is not to improve the Gaza buildings," she says. "There is no sustainability there. It was not built to accommodate all these people. They shouldn't be made to stay there for ever."

But back in the gloom of the disused hospital, Huda says she does not expect to leave the damp rooms that have become her home any time soon.

"I have no hope for the future," she says, looking to the door and sighing. "Maybe what I haven't had in this life, I will be given in the next."

Shelling in Somali capital kills 20, wounds 60

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Islamic insurgents fired mortars at Somalia's airport as the president was boarding a plane Thursday, sparking battles that killed at least 20 people. The president was unhurt and his plane took off safely, police said.

Somalia's capital sees near-daily bloodshed as a powerful insurgent group with links to al-Qaida tries to overthrow the fragile U.N.-backed government and push out some 5,000 African Union peacekeepers. Both sides of the conflict have been accused of indiscriminate shelling.

"We have seen at least 20 dead bodies lying in the streets, most of them civilians," said Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service. He said about 60 people were wounded as mortars slammed into residential areas.

Thursday's shelling started soon after insurgents fired toward President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed's plane, said police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise.

"The mortars hit the perimeter of the airport," he said. "The plane carrying the president took off safely."

Somalia has not had an effective government for 18 years, since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. The warlords then turned on each other, plunging the Horn of Africa nation into chaos and anarchy.

Somalia's lawlessness also has allowed piracy to flourish off its coast, making the waterway one of the most dangerous in the world.

Pakistan brigadier killed in attack

Thu Oct 22, 2009

Two security officials have been killed when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a military vehicle in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Police official Tahir Alam said Brigadier Moin Haider and his driver were killed and a guard was also wounded in the shooting, which happened early Thursday.

"Witnesses have told us two men came on a motorcycle and opened fire," city police official Abdul Qadir was quoted as saying by Reuters.

No group has yet claimed the responsibility of Thursday's attack.

The incident came after a wave of bloodshed has killed more than 170 people in Pakistan over the past three weeks, pressuring the military to launch an offensive in the volatile South Waziristan on Saturday.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109295.html.

US drone kills three people in Pakistan

Thu Oct 22, 2009

At least three people have been killed as a result of a US drone firing two missiles at a house in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The missiles struck Spalaga near Miranshah in the North Waziristan tribal region killing three people, a Press TV correspondent reported on Wednesday citing local sources.

Pakistani officials claimed that the three were pro-Taliban militants; however, independent sources did not confirm the allegation.

Intelligence officials also claimed that Abu Musa al Misri, a top al-Qaeda leader was among the five people who were killed in a blast in North Waziristan.

The five who were mostly foreign nationals, were killed when a bomb planted in a vehicle that was allegedly to carry out a suicide attack went off in the village of Palga, near the main town of Miranshah.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/109287.html.

New platform guarantees enough energy for winter

After launching an offshore platform at the Phase 7 of the South Pars gas field, gas production in three phases of the southern field has surpassed its nominal capacity.

The offshore platform has increased the gas production capacity in the phases 6 to 8 of the gas field to 104 million cubic feet, Pars Oil & Gas Company said in a statement.

Mohammad-Javad Shams, the manager of the the phases said that the launch of the offshore platform before the beginning of winter will guarantee enough gas supplies to meet Iran's need for energy during the cold season.

He noted that developing phases 6 to 8 of the South Pars gas field is considered as the greatest oil and gas project in Iran.

Small dinosaur species on show

The fossils of one of the smallest dinosaurs ever discovered has been put on public display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Fruitadens haagarorum is 70 centimeter long and less than one kilogram in weight.

The fossils have been housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County since being discovered in Colorado in 1979. Scientists only recently identified it as a new species of dinosaur.

While dinosaurs are said to be the largest species on the planet, researchers say fruitadens haagarorum, weighing less than a rabbit, is one of the smallest dinosaurs known to science.

The species was a fast runner and lived in the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago.

Examination of it the teeth show it to have been omnivorous — eating animals as well as plants.

Abbas urged to drop election plans

Palestinian socialists urge Mahmoud Abbas to drop a decision to hold elections without Hamas, urging a unilateral declaration on the borders of a Palestinian state.

"Let's benefit from the international atmosphere that supports a Palestinian state and urge a unilateral declaration on the borders of a Palestinian state," Palestinian People's Party (PPP) chief Bassam As-Salhi said on Wednesday.

The PPP has proposed the formation of a body comprising of members from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian National Council (PNC) to confront the 'constitutional crisis' of non-unity, As-Salhi said.

He said the proposal has been presented to acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and the head of the PNC, Salim Az-Za'nun.

The plan calls on the PLO Central Council to order the end of the term of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and the Presidency and form a transitional committee of existing PLC members.

The council would be in charge of holding elections in all Palestinian areas which under a 'unilateral announcement' would proclaim borders and also review all international agreements which will be held to a public referendum 'as was stated in the national conciliation document,' As-Salhi explained.

The plan would also urge the United Nations to recognize declared Palestinian borders, and help enforce an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and re-open Gaza ports and crossings.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday in Cairo, Abbas said that he would announce January 24 as the election date in a Sunday decree despite opposition from the rival Hamas party.

Hamas has refused a request for a yes or no answer to a Cairo-brokered reconciliation plan due to serious issues with the document, and has called for more talks on the reservations they still had with Cairo.

The Islamic group later asked Egypt to postpone an earlier announced date of October 26 after the Palestinian Authority delegation at the UN Human Rights Council initially dropped its backing for an immediate vote on the Goldstone Gaza report.

Vice-Chairman of Hamas Political Bureau Mousa Abu Marzouq on Tuesday said the Islamic movement would resort to other options if Abbas 'makes the mistake of holding the elections'.

Japan snubs US pressure on base pact

Tokyo is resisting Washington's pressure for accepting a military agreement between the two nations over the presence of US forces in the Asian country.

"I don't think we will act simply by accepting what the US tells us, just because the US is saying this, in such a short period of time," Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Thursday.

His remarks came after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday pressed the Japanese center-left government to quickly proceed with the deal.

Under the 2006 accord, the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base would be closed and a new US base built in a coastal area of Okinawa by 2014, with about 8,000 Marines transferred off the island to Guam.

The new government in Tokyo that came to power last month has taken a more independent stance towards Washington, saying Japanese people voted against nearly half-century conservatives as they opposed their plans.

"The will of the people of Okinawa and the will of the people of Japan was expressed in the elections," Okada said.

The foreign minister noted that Gates had 'pressed and said Japan and the United States had negotiated this issue for as many as 13 years'.

"But I told him that we, as an opposition party, had opposed the plan for those years," Okada told Tokyo Broadcasting System Television.

He predicted that the issue won't be resolved before US president Barack Obama's scheduled visit in November.

Okinawa hosts more than half of the 47,000 American troops stationed in Japan. Their presence has often caused friction with the local community, especially when American servicemen have committed crimes.

In February 2008, US Marine Tyrone Hadnott was arrested over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl on the island. The news, reminiscent of a similar case in 1995, jolted the US-Japan alliance.

New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama advocated reviewing the deal and suggested the base be moved out of Okinawa or even out of Japan.

At least 17 killed in Mogadishu shelling

2009-10-22

Exchange of mortar, artillery fire between Somali insurgents and African peacekeepers.

MOGADISHU - Seventeen civilians were killed and 58 people wounded Thursday in Mogadishu in an exchange of mortar and artillery fire between insurgents and African peacekeepers, medical sources said.

"At least 17 civilians were killed and we have counted 58 wounded," Ali Muse, head of the Somali capital's ambulance services, said.

"I can say this was the worst such incident recently in Mogadishu. Heavy shelling was hitting civilian populated areas, including Bakara market, Holwadag and Hodan," he said.

According to witnesses, the clashes started when insurgent fighters opened mortar fire on the airport as President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was flying out off the country for diplomatic visits.

Sharif was heading to Uganda for an African Union summit on refugees and internally-displaced people and boarding the plane when a hail of mortar shells started raining on the area, police officer Colonel Ali Abdullahi said.

Peacekeepers from the African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) fired back.

An alliance of the Shebab group and the more political Hezb al-Islam group on May 7 launched a countrywide military offensive aimed at toppling Sharif.

The Ethiopian army invaded Somalia in late 2006 to rescue Somalia's embattled transitional government and oust the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which controlled of much of the country's central and southern regions.

The ICU had ruled much of Somalia with relative peace and prosperity until the Ethiopian involvement.

Since then, ICU fighters have waged a deadly insurgency against the Ethiopian and the transitional government forces.

But Ethiopian troops’ retaliations have caused many casualties among Somali civilians.

Since the Ethiopian invasion, about one million Somalis have fled their homes. An estimated 6,500 civilians have been killed.

Aid workers estimate 2.6 million Somalis need assistance. That number is expected to reach 3.5 million by the end of the year if the humanitarian situation does not improve, according to the UN.

In May 2008, Amnesty International accused the Ethiopian troops in Somalia of increasingly resorting to throat-slitting executions, highlighting an "increasing incidence" of gruesome methods by Ethiopian forces that include rape and torture.

Since the ousting of the ICU, Somalia had plunged into unprecedented chaos, where warlords and pirates have returned to the scene.

Many in Somalia see the departure of Ethiopian troops as a precondition to peace negotiations.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35167.

Sesame Street seeks Gaza access

Educational organization wants to promote self esteem for Gazans, talk about peaceful conflict resolution.

JERUSALEM - Big Bird and his pals are trying hard to get access to the Gaza Strip to talk about peaceful conflict resolution and carry out some Muppet Diplomacy, Sesame Street announced on Wednesday.

"We know that it's an extremely volatile area, but we also feel that it's really important that we take these step forward to promote self esteem for Palestinians," said Gary Knell, president of the Sesame Workshop, the educational organization behind the popular children's series.

A Palestinian version of the series -- Sharaa Simsim -- is already shown in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but the signal does not reach Gaza, an impoverished and overcrowded territory struggling to recover from Israel's devastating military offensive at the turn of the year.

"We are going into production with new programmes now based in Ramallah that will focus a lot on peaceful conflict resolution," Knell said at a news conference in Jerusalem

He said he is particularly keen to send the famous Muppets to Gaza.

"We have felt it important to broadcast (Sharaa Simsin) in Gaza. We feel the children there are in need of positive programming in light of the circumstances over the past couple years," Knell said.

He said he hoped this could be realized within a year at most.

"We're going to work with the ministry of education in the Palestinian territories, the prime minister and others to build a really strong Sharaa Simsim, and it is our goal to have this broadcast in Gaza," he said.

"I believe the program needs to be seen and we'll use whatever means we can to get it to the children," he said.

He said he was considering broadcasting the programme to Gaza through satellite, but was also looking into asking the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) or non-governmental organizations to show it to the children of Gaza.

Sesame Street marks its 40th anniversary this year and is seen in more than 140 countries. That "has pretty much made it the longest street in the world," said Knell.

Dubai likely to house AAF headquarters

The Arab League's real estate body, Arab Appraisal Foundation (AAF), will be a self-financed entity, with a high probability for the headquarters to be in Dubai, said a top Arado official.

"I expect the real estate foundation to be self-financed. The money and the budget will come from different venues such as the fees and the donation of the different members," said Refat Abdelhalim Alfaouri, Director-General, Arab Administrative Development Organization (Arado) League of Arab States Cairo, Egypt.

"Everything is now under speculation and probably it is premature to talk about this, however, we are dealing with the real estate agencies in the Arab countries.

"There have been talks between Dubai's Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) and Arado. So far we are not getting any money from any other government or agency until we really legally establish this organization," Alfaouri told Emirates Business on the sidelines of the 'Second Arab Real Estate and Urban Development Conference' held in Dubai.

"Real Estate has been conducted in a non-professional way in the Arab world. Once this foundation is set up, we will look at it as the establishment of an institution to take care of real estate in all the 22 countries. Services will be provided to all the Arab countries. The location of the AAF is yet to be decided," he said.

He added the UAE, especially Dubai, was the "most advanced city" among Arab nations with respect to real estate regulations.

"The board of directors will take a decision on where the headquarter will be located... and Dubai has a 'high probability' of housing the headquarter." On Monday, senior members of the Arab League approved plans by Rera to establish the AAF.

Backed by the 22 states of the Arab League, the AAF has grounds to be considered the Arab equivalent of international property bodies such as the Appraisal Foundation in the United States and the United Kingdom's Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Real estate's share in gdp down
The contribution of the real estate and construction sector to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Dubai will be less than earlier, a top government official said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the "Second Arab Real Estate and Urban Development Conference, Hamad Buamim, Director-General of Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) said: "Dubai is already seeing signs of recovery. The backbone of Dubai is trade and commerce. We believe this is what will continue to be in the future. Contribution of the construction and real estate sectors to the GDP of the economy will be less. They will continue to be a part of Dubai's growth but not a major part.

"The construction and real estate sectors have grown very fast and it will take more time for these two sectors to recover," he said

The DCCI director-general called for an increased real estate evaluation system to be established in Dubai and welcomed the initiative to launch the AAF.

"We know the issue of real estate is all about value of land and assets which has to be recognized and regulated," Buamim added.

By Anjana Kumar

Source: Zawya.
Link: http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20091021034727/Dubai%20likely%20to%20house%20AAF%20headquarters.

Army officer, soldier killed in Pakistan capital

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – Suspected militants on a motorbike shot and killed a soldier and a senior army officer in the Pakistani capital Thursday, striking at security forces as they pressed ahead with a major anti-Taliban offensive in the northwest.

The assault in Islamabad showed the insurgents are able to hit the heart of the country despite ramped up security and deploy diverse tactics in their fight. In recent weeks, suicide bombings and raids involving teams of gunmen on a range of targets have killed more than 170 people.

The offensive in South Wazirstan is considered a critical test of the nuclear-armed Pakistan's campaign against Islamist extremists aiming to overthrow the state and involved in attacks on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Two gunmen Thursday fired on an army jeep in a residential area of the capital, police official Zaffar Abbas said. A soldier and a brigadier — a high-ranking army officer — were killed, while the driver was wounded, authorities said.

"Terrorists and extremists are behind this," Islamabad's top police officer, Syed Kalim Imam, told reporters.

The military is advancing on multiple fronts in South Waziristan, seen as a likely hiding place for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Over the past few days, they have been fighting for the hometown of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

The fight for Kotkai is strategically important because it lies on the way to the major militant base of Sararogha.

An army statement Wednesday said forces were engaged in "intense encounters" in hills surrounding Kotkai and had secured an area to its east. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said there was no significant fighting inside the town yet.

The army believes Mehsud and his deputy Qari Hussain remain in the region directing militants' defenses.

The statement Wednesday reported three more soldiers were killed, bringing the army's death toll to 16, while 15 more militants were slain, bringing their death toll to 105.

It is nearly impossible to independently verify information coming from South Waziristan because the army has closed off all roads to the region. Analysts say both sides have exaggerated successes and played down losses in the past.

The army has deployed some 30,000 troops to South Waziristan against about 12,000 Taliban militants whose ranks include up to 1,500 foreign fighters, many of them Uzbeks.

A pair of suicide bombings at a university in Islamabad on Tuesday prompted closures of schools across the country through at least the end of the week. An Interior Ministry committee is to review security at educational institutions and determine when they can open again.

China's growth accelerates to 8.9 percent in 3Q

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer

SHANGHAI – China's economy expanded 8.9 percent in the third quarter, pumped up by easy credit and massive government spending that have ensured a recovery while the U.S., Japan and Europe continue to flounder.

The world's third-largest economy grew 7.7 percent in the first nine months of 2009, bouncing back from a slowdown that began late last year. Officials say they are confident of reaching an annual growth target of 8 percent.

"We can say we have made obvious and remarkable achievements in our economic growth," National Statistics Bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao told reporters in Beijing.

"We have quickly reversed the economic slowdown. The momentum of the recovery is solid and overall, our economic performance is showing signs of improvement," Li said.

China fought off the global downturn with a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus plan involving massive spending on infrastructure such as rail and roads to boost the domestic economy as exports slumped.

The strategy paid off, with growth jumping to 7.9 percent in the second quarter of the year from 6.1 percent in the first quarter.

Since last spring, China's recovery has outshone still feeble signs of a turnaround in other major economies.

Industrial output rose 8.7 percent in the first three quarters of the year, and 12.4 percent in July-September — signaling accelerating demand, the statistics bureau said.

But while surging purchases of coal, iron ore and other materials have aided global miners like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, the impact of China's comeback has mainly been one of improving global sentiment than of actually driving growth, said Stephen Green, economist for Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai.

"Apart from commodities, there's fairly limited benefits for the rest of the world," he said.

Exports collapsed last year and with them imports, mainly of commodities and components used to assemble products for imports. While September data showed a slight improvement, a recovery will depend on stronger growth in the U.S. and other key markets.

Li, the statistics bureau spokesman, described the export climate as "severe."

"Exports remain the key weakness for the Chinese economy," Moody's Economy.com economist Alaistair Chan said in a report Thursday.

The latest data underscore the crucial role investment, accounting for nearly 88 percent of GDP growth earlier this year, is playing in China's growth. Investment in factories, construction and other fixed assets rose by one third in January-September to a record 15.5 trillion yuan ($2.27 trillion).

Even as the economy flourishes, some analysts warn that the heavy reliance on public works and other investment is masking or even worsening weaknesses that are bound to weigh down growth in the long-term.

"We'll see strong growth from China for the next six months, possibly another year," said Green. "The problem is what happens after another year and a half. What will be the growth driver then?"

On Wednesday, China's top leaders signaled their own concerns over imbalances in the economy, with the State Council saying policy will shift to dealing with waste and other problems of high growth.

"In the first three quarters, the pace of economic growth quickened," the State Council said in a statement after a meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao. "At the same time, we also are clearly aware that there are still difficulties and problems in the economic and social development of our country."

The focus in the next few months will be on curbing industrial overcapacity, promote new industries, maintain liquidity and lower unemployment, it said.

While they have ordered curbs on bank lending to some industries, China's planners are not facing any pressure from inflation: despite surging share and property prices, the consumer price index fell 1.1 percent in January-September from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said.

The worry is that wasteful and redundant spending on new factories and unneeded construction will worsen gluts of some products, while inviting financial problems as projects fail to pay off.

Li, the statistics spokesman, acknowledged the concerns, but noted that domestic consumption such as consumer spending accounts for a growing share of growth.

Emblematic of the rise in consumer spending: China's auto market has surged ahead to become the world's biggest, with sales up 34 percent to 9.66 million vehicles in the first nine months of the year. The streets of Shanghai, the financial capital, are full of shoppers, its restaurants busy as ever. Retail sales growth was 15.1 percent in the first three quarters, the bureau said.

"The Chinese are the biggest customers for many countries around the world," said David Cohen, director of Asian economic forecasting for consultancy Action Economics.

"They matter like never before," he said.

Blue whale washes ashore in Northern California

By SUDHIN THANAWALA, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO – A 70-foot, female blue whale that officials believe was struck by a ship has washed ashore on the Northern California coast in what scientists are calling a rare occurrence.

The whale was first spotted on shore near Fort Bragg in Mendocino County on Monday night, hours after an ocean survey vessel reported hitting a whale a few miles away, said Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine fisheries service.

Blue whales are the world's largest mammals.

Students from California State University, Humboldt, examined the whale's massive body Tuesday as it lay on its side in a rocky cove.

"I was personally jazzed just to see the animal," said Thor Holmes, a lecturer in mammology at the school. He has examined other whale species that washed ashore but never a blue whale.

The whale had two gashes on its back — at least one of which was deep enough to cut through the blubber down to the vertebral column, Holmes said. It otherwise appeared to be in good health.

It's unusual for blue whales to wash ashore, Cordaro said. Last week, another blue whale washed up in Monterey County after being hit by a ship.

Before that, the last time a blue whale washed onto a California beach was 2007.

The whales are "usually far offshore, deep water animals," Cordaro said.

Although blue whales are considered endangered, experts say they have recently made a comeback and now number several thousand.

Some blue whales feed in the waters off Central and Northern California this time of year then migrate elsewhere to breed, said Dawn Goley, an associate professor of zoology at the Humboldt campus.

Researchers have taken skin and blubber samples from the beached animal to see what contaminants it may have been exposed to and what population group it comes from.

Patience wanes for Israeli aggression

First person by Bouthaina Shaaban

The endorsement by the UN Human Rights Council of Justice Richard Goldstone’s report on the war in Gaza – despite American and British criticism, Israeli threats, delays and different interpretations – demonstrates that the world has changed.

It shows that those with free conscience have started to be fed up with criminals and their war crimes; particularly those committed by Israel’s rulers against unarmed Palestinians for over 60 years. It also shows that despite Israel’s efforts to prevent coverage by world media of what is happening in Gaza and Palestine, some facts have started to surface; and no human being with a free conscience can tolerate or accept them – even if they were Jewish, or friends of Israel.

It is remarkable that during the days preceding the vote on the report, Israeli authorities treated the whole world as if it were populated by unarmed Palestinians; warning of the threat to the peace process if the report was accepted. It is as if there were a peace process, and as if the world had not heard the statements made by Netanyahu and Lieberman refusing to stop illegal settlement, rejecting the right of return for Palestinian refugees; as if the world does not see the judaization of Jerusalem; Israeli bulldozers demolishing Palestinian houses and throwing families in the streets; bringing foreign settlers to replace the Palestinians expelled by Israeli oppressive authorities, who attack farmers and burn their olive trees.

What Israel is trying to do after it has been exposed on the international arena, is either to threaten to “torpedo the peace process,” which is already stalled, or level random accusations of “anti-Semitism.” These accusations are not convincing to anybody any longer. Israeli officials and officers have, from now on, to take account of international prosecution and accountability before they commit their crimes against civilians.

As usual, Israel, Jewish lobbies and their agents in the mass media, parliaments and political bodies start political, diplomatic and media mobilization whenever it is criticized and whenever reports expose the crimes it is committing against civilians. It imposes a comprehensive media blackout, prevents politicians from criticizing it in public, and prevents reporters from accessing the crime scene.

This is what happened when Swedish journalist Donald Bostrum published his investigative report about killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs, which aimed at initiating international investigations into this decades-old practice which affected the US itself: American Jewish rabbis were involved in building criminal networks for trafficking human organs. Israel raised a media-storm against the journalist. His country, Sweden, prevented him from entering Palestine in order to divert the world public opinion from this horrible crime. Not only that, it also called for prosecuting those who wrote about this crime and tried to uncover it and put an end to it.

Bostrum presented the names and photographs of some of the victims, hoping that the investigation would be completed in order to reveal the extent and ugliness of these crimes. This was necessary due to the lack of an Arab authority which could push this file through international forums and courts, and continue to expose such crimes and bring to justice their perpetrators: politicians, military officers or Israeli intelligence staff; responsible for assassination, torture, kidnapping, demolishing houses, shelling civilian areas, and killing demonstrators.

In this context, it is worth recalling the lies promoted by the administration of US President George W. Bush about Muslims’ hatred of the United States. His question: “Why do they hate us?” was a mere cover for his war on Iraq which killed a million unarmed Iraqi civilians and aimed to justify kidnapping, torture, and secret prisons. We can also recall the money spent and the efforts made by that administration in order to improve the image of the US in the world. Today, after a president who respects Islam and Muslims has been elected, it is shown that the problem was not in Muslims and the Islamic world, neither was it in the inevitable clash of civilizations some have promoted, but in the policies of the American administration which promoted wars, killing, torture and destruction.

As the American people discovered today that Bush’s acts were responsible for the distortion of America’s global image, conscientious people of the world have started to condemn crimes committed against civilian Palestinians by the rulers of Israel and try to stop them. Israel will no longer be able to hammer the world with its never-ending blackmail dating back to the Nazi era 70 years ago.

The same applies today to the noise made by Israel about a Turkish television series which shows clips of what Israel commits on a daily basis against Palestinians, like killing children, and the abuse and humiliation they exercise on their checkpoints, which have no parallel in today’s world.

Instead of feeling shame as a result of committing crimes, Israel resorts to its usual methods, summoning the Turkish ambassador to protest against broadcasting such scenes, not against the crimes themselves. It describes the series, not the crimes, as “barbaric,” British newspaper The Independent reported. The question here is: can a television series be barbaric, terrorist and violent; or is it the crimes of killing children, committed by Israeli soldiers every day, which are barbaric and shameful to those who commit them?

The game began to unravel when Israel started to concentrate on a lie which it invented, like the fake footage of an explosion in the village of Teir Fleisa in Lebanon, only to divert attention from the Goldstone report. The lie, regrettably taken on and promoted by some Arab media, was quickly and competently exposed. The lie was quickly buried.

Despite all the efforts made by Israel to cover up its crimes, its Foreign Minister Ehud Barak – implicated in assassination and war crimes against unarmed civilians – had to ask for special protection from the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in order to avoid arrest and imprisonment on a recent state visit. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, had to face a group of students at Chicago University calling for the cancellation of a talk he was to give, wondering how the university could receive a war criminal to give a lecture.

The conclusion is that the world has started to change, and that it will not wait for the Israelis to write proudly about their crimes as if they were achievements, as former Israeli security chief, Avi Dechter, did in his lecture about Israel’s role in destroying Iraq. The world has even started to bring Israel to account for its crimes. But this process should continue to the end, until it brings justice to the victims and help the Palestinians gain their freedom and salvation from the last form of slavery in the world.

Asec to run gold mine in Algeria

Egypt-based Asec Mining has said it will plan and manage operations of an Algerian gold mine held by GMA Resources, following a deal to buy 10% of the company, Reuters has reported. The acquisition aims to leverage Asec's relative liquidity and continue its expansion into North Africa, Asec said. Asec has broad operations in geology, mining and manufacturing across the Mena region and manages gold mining and exploration projects in Sudan, Ethiopia and Libya.

Settlers attack Palestinian family in Sheikh Jarrah, injure seven

International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

ISM, 20 October 2009

The settlers who have recently occupied the house of the Gawi family, forcefully evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah on 2 August 2009, launched an attack today on the Palestinians camping outside. According to local sources, seven Palestinians were injured and four arrested.

The attack started between 8 and 8.30pm, when a driver of a lorry delivering furniture to the occupied house, accompanied by four settlers, attacked a five year old boy from the Gawi family who was playing nearby. The settlers then attacked a small tent where the Gawi family have been living since the eviction. The tent was full of mainly women and children at that time. A Palestinian woman who was hit hard by the driver had to be taken to hospital. A fight broke out immediately, involving at least 15 settlers. Several members of the family sustained light injuries and a 15-year old girl from the neighborhood was hit by a falling TV as the settlers managed to tear down the tent.

When police arrived, they made no attempts to stop the settlers attacking the family and later arrested four Palestinians. Two were released and another two, Khalet Gawi and Saleh Diab have been taken to hospital and told to come back to the police station tomorrow for further questioning. Four settlers were taken for questioning and released immediately.

The Gawi and Hannoun families, consisting of 53 members including 20 children, have been left homeless after they were forcibly evicted from their houses on 2 August 2009. The Israeli forces surrounded the homes of the two families at 5.30am and, breaking in through the windows, forcefully dragged all residents into the street. The police also demolished the neighborhood protest tent, set up by Um Kamel, following the forced eviction of her family in November 2008.

At present, all three houses are occupied by settlers and the whole area is patrolled by armed private settler security 24 hours a day. Both Hannoun and Gawi families, who have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.

The Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah is home to 28 Palestinian families, all refugees from 1948, who received their houses from the UNRWA and Jordanian government in 1956. All face losing their homes in the manner of the Hannoun, Gawi and al-Kurd families.

The aim of the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Civilians Killed in Pakistan Offensive

The number no one's counting
Alan Fisher

October 20, 2009

The pictures are too gruesome to show. The charred bodies lie under a makeshift shroud. Someone near the camera holds up an identity card - giving one corpse a name, a history, a dignity that's now been stolen.

Nearby, the covered body of a child, no more than five or six. A victim of a battle the child didn't know even existed. In this place, at least four people have been killed. The figure could be higher. The army knows how many men it's lost. Every day it gives new figures for the number of Taliban it claims it's killed. But no-one seems to know how many innocent civilians are being killed in this conflict.

Exclusive pictures obtained by Al Jazeera show the damage the war in South Waziristan has brought to the town of Saroragha, which sits close to the Afghan border. These are the first images images of what's happening inside South Waziristan.

As the camera moves slowly from left to right, villagers are picking through the rubble of their homes, trying to recover anything of value. These are not Taliban fighters but ordinary people caught up in a battle they knew was coming but had no way of escaping. The army has been pounding positions here for months, using fighter planes and helicopter gunships. It insists the targets were Taliban. Homes have been wrecked.

It's hard to find out what's going on in the conflict zone. The army has sealed off the area to the media, but the pictures confirm it has gained ground in the area. Jundola is one of the gateways into the Taliban stronghold. It's clear the area is now under Government control. The fight to gain more ground closer to the centre of Taliban operations is going to be much fiercer and inevitably more bloody.

AQIM Seeks Specialists In Morocco

CAIRO [MENL] -- Morocco has determined that Al Qaida was seeking to bolster its network in the North African kingdom.

Officials said the Al Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb has sought to recruit specialists in bomb assembly and intelligence for the nascent network in Morocco. They said AQIM requested that North Africans fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia leave for Morocco over the next few weeks.

Algeria Plans New Energy Development

CAIRO [MENL] -- Algeria has approved plans for a major energy development project.

Algeria's state-owned energy monopoly Sonatrach has joined France's Total and Spain's Cepsa for the development of the Timimoun natural gas project. Timimoun, located in southwestern Algeria, was expected to produce 1.6 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Jordan receives 50 million dollars in new batch of US aid

Amman - The Jordanian government on Tuesday received 50 million dollars in a new batch of US economic aid to Jordan for 2009, the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation said in a statement. The installment brings to 143 million dollars the economic aid received by Jordan from the United States so far this year.

The new batch will be used to balance the public budget deficit, which is expected to hit an all-time high of about 1.5 billion dollars this year, the ministry said.

The United States so far pledged to extend 513.5 million dollars as economic aid this year to Jordan.

The ministry said that the government was establishing close contacts with European countries to speed up the payment of financial aid pledged by EU countries to Jordan for the 2009 budget.

Jordan is scheduled to receive 786 million dollars this year from non-Arab donor countries, including 365 million dollars to support this year's budget, the ministry said.