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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Trial of ex-Argentine dictator underway

The trial of former Argentine dictator, Reynaldo Bignone, has started in Buenos Aires for the human rights violations he committed during his 1976-83 rule.

Bignone, 81, is accused of kidnapping and torturing 56 people who were held in secret detention centers at the Campo de Mayo military base, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, during Argentina's "dirty war" against the leftists.

In 1983, after seven years of repressive rule, Bignone handed over power to social democrat Raul Alfonsin, the country's first elected president.

In addition to the kidnapping and torture charges, the former army general is accused of stealing the children of some of the kidnapped detainees.

Nearly 5,000 prisoners were held at the Campo de Mayo barracks when a military junta headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri enforced a totalitarian rule.

According to human rights groups, about 30,000 Argentines "disappeared" during Bignone's military rule, and some 500 babies, born during their mothers' captivity, were taken away, only 97 of whom have discovered their true identity.

Al-Alam network taken off air by 2 Arab satellites

Al-Alam News Network says two satellites operators based in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have stopped broadcasting the news channel without prior notice.

Al-Alam authorities said Tuesday that the channel was taken off air earlier without any prior notice by the contractors, NileSat and ArabSat satellite operators.

According to the network authorities, the move is in violation of the contract with the two satellite companies.

No further details have been released yet.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110364§ionid=3510212.

Czech president signs EU reform treaty

By KAREL JANICEK, Associated Press Writer

PRAGUE – A charter meant to transform Europe into a more unified and powerful global player passed its last major hurdle Tuesday and looks set to become law within weeks.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who has been highly skeptical of increasing the EU's powers, signed the Lisbon Treaty at the Prague Castle hours after his nation's Constitutional Court struck down a complaint against it.

Klaus has been tirelessly attacking and stalling the document, claiming it would hand too much power to European Union institutions in Brussels. He was awaiting the Brno-based court's ruling before deciding whether to endorse it.

"I expected the decision of the Constitutional Court and respect it," Klaus told reporters Tuesday afternoon, but added he vehemently disagrees with the verdict.

"The Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign state," once the treaty enters into force, he said.

Klaus was the last obstacle to the full ratification of the treaty, which was bogged down in negotiations for almost a decade and has been ratified by all other 26 EU nations.

The Swedish EU Presidency said the treaty will enter into force on Dec. 1.

European leaders welcomed news of the signing.

"President Klaus' decision marks an important and historic step for all of Europe," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement.

"Today is a day when Europe looks forward, when it sets aside years of debate on its institutions, and moves to take strong and collective action on the issues that matter most to European citizens: security, climate change, jobs and growth."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted during a speech to the U.S. Congress in Washington that, with the new treaty, the EU "will become stronger and more capable of acting, and so a strong and reliable partner for the United States."

"On this basis, we can build stable partnerships with others, above all with Russia, China and India," she added.

Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who has worked to seal the Lisbon Treaty under the Swedish EU presidency, said he would call for an EU summit as soon as possible.

Klaus' "signature ends a far too long period of institutional focus within the EU," Reinfeldt said in a text message sent from Washington. "It opens up for a more democratic, transparent and efficient Union."

Earlier in the day, the Constitutional Court's chief judge, Pavel Rychetsky, said the Lisbon Treaty "does not violate the (Czech) constitution" and that all formal obstacles for ratification "are removed."

In Brussels, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he was "extremely pleased" with the court's verdict.

"I hope that we can now move forward as quickly as possible on the nomination of the president of the European Council and vice president of the Commission High Representative," he said, referring to the newly created post of president, who will chair EU summits, and the bloc's new foreign policy chief, who will represent the EU abroad.

Once the Lisbon Treaty becomes law, more policy decisions would be permitted by majority rather than unanimous votes at European summits. Those policies would then increasingly be shaped by the elected parliaments of each nation and the European Parliament, which currently has little say.

EU leaders say such new voting rules are needed to promote stronger policies in combating cross-border crime, terrorism and ecological threats.

Projecting this more decisive EU abroad would be a new fixed-term president — in place of a decades-old system that rotates the presidency among governments every six months — and a new foreign minister.

Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament, had appeared confident Klaus would sign the treaty, adding it should now enter into force by the end of the year.

Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said he was grateful Klaus finally initialed the document following the court's verdict, saying it sent an important signal to the rest of Europe.

"I am glad that the Czech Republic finally confirmed that it is a trustworthy partner for other member states," Fischer said.

The court was asked to rule by a group of senators who filed a motion arguing the treaty was not in line with the constitution. Last year, the court dismissed a similar complaint.

Failure of the treaty would send the EU into an unprecedented crisis. Negotiators say its reforms — creating a new EU president post, giving more power to the foreign policy chief and streamlining EU decision-making — are needed to make the EU more effective.

Last week, EU leaders agreed to Klaus' last-minute demand — an opt-out from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights in return for his signing of it. Klaus said he was not planning to make any further demands.

The Czech leader asked for the option over worries of property claims by ethnic Germans stripped of their land and expelled after World War II.

But it was considered Klaus had used the demand for the opt-out to try to scuttle ratification of the treaty, which he opposes.

Dubai to appoint female muftis in 2010

Gulf emirate’s grand mufti urges qualified candidates to apply for training program.

DUBAI - The Gulf emirate of Dubai plans to appoint female muftis by the end of next year in an unprecedented step that could trigger opposition from Muslim conservatives, The National newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Six Emirati women are being selected for a training program that starts early next year, the newspaper quoted the emirate's grand mufti Ahmed al-Haddad as saying.

Haddad issued a religious edict or fatwa in February authorizing women to become muftis and in May he called on qualified candidates to apply for a training program that includes instruction in sharia law and legal thought.

"A woman who is learned and trained in issuing fatwas is not limited to her role of issuing fatwas that relate to women only, but rather she is qualified to issue on matters of worship, jurisprudence, morality and behavior," the paper quoted him as saying.

Haddad played down the prospect of a major backlash from religious conservatives.

"The controversy over female muftis is not necessarily over this point, but about whether or not a woman should be appointed as the grand mufti of a state," he said. "And this is not what we're trying to do at this point."

Last year, Egypt appointed its first female Islamic notary with the ability to perform marriages and divorces.

Since 2006, Morocco has trained female guides known as "mourchidates" who advise Muslims, especially in prisons, hospitals and schools.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35468.

Kuwait MPs order probe into proposed arms deals

32 lawmakers urge independent Audit Bureau to investigate three planned arms deals with US, France.

NICOSIA - Kuwait's parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to ask the Audit Bureau to probe three planned arms deals with the United States and France that one lawmaker said are worth billions of dollars.

The decision, requested by 32 MPs and not opposed by cabinet ministers present at the parliamentary session, calls on the independent Audit Bureau to investigate whether the acts were "in line with Kuwaiti laws."

The contracts concern the planned purchase of an unspecified number of US Hercules transport aircraft, an ammunition factory and up to 28 French-made Rafale warplanes.

Islamist MP Jamaan al-Harbash alleged that Defense Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah, who did not attend the session, has kept parliament in the dark regarding these arms deals.

He said that the minister has refused to answer his questions about the three deals, which are "worth billions of dollars."

Some opposition MPs have claimed the value of the possible deals was inflated.

No details were provided in parliament about the deals or their value.

Last month, Kuwait and France signed a new defense agreement in Paris and discussed details about a possible sale of Rafale war planes.

Sheikh Jaber said after talks in Paris that Kuwait would be "proud" to have the supersonic Rafale jet for its armed forces at some point in the future.

He said he had given the Rafale the green light and passed the matter to technical teams for detailed scrutiny.

"We hope to get the Rafale for our air force," he said, without saying how many planes Kuwait might acquire.

During a Gulf tour in February, Sarkozy said discussions had begun with Kuwait for the sale of between 14 and 28 of the Dassault-made fighters.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35475.

Norwegian Uni mulls academic boycott of Israel

NTNU institute professors call for academic boycott of Israel due to its occupation of Palestinian land.

OSLO - The Norwegian University of Science and Technology will decide next week whether to launch an academic boycott of Israel due to its occupation of the Palestinian territories, officials said Tuesday.

The NTNU institute, Norway's second biggest university located in the western town of Trondheim, said it would consider on November 12 a proposal initiated by more than 30 professors.

In an open letter, the group called for a freeze on academic and cultural cooperation with Israel "until guaranties (sic) are issued that the occupation of Palestinian land will be terminated".

"We, who have signed this letter, believe that it is time that academic institutions contributed to an international pressure against Israel so that real negotiations between Israel, democratically elected Palestinian authorities and the international society can begin," the letter said.

"Israeli universities and other institutions of higher education have played a key role in the policy of oppression," it added.

Anne Katherine Dahl, an adviser to the president of NTNU, said the university's board of directors had agreed to consider the motion.

"The board of directors thought it was legitimate to examine the issue, that does not necessarily mean it will agree with the signatories," Dahl said.

The board is composed of 11 members: four representatives of the state, four from the university staff, two student representatives and one from the temporary staff.

The Norwegian initiative follows similar campaigns launched in recent years in Britain and the United States, and is along the same lines as an academic boycott against South Africa during the apartheid era.

Sheikh Khalifa re-elected UAE president

UAE's Supreme Federal Council selects Sheikh Khalifa for second five-year presidential term.

DUBAI - Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan was re-elected president of the United Arab Emirates for a second five-year term on Tuesday, the official news agency WAM announced.

The Supreme Federal Council, made up of the rulers of the seven emirates in the UAE, selected Sheikh Khalifa, 61.

He first rose to the presidency as oil-rich Abu Dhabi's ruler in 2004 on the death of his father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who founded the Gulf state in 1971.

The council designates both the president and vice president.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is also the country's prime minister, defense minister and ruler of Dubai, has served as vice president since 2006.

The UAE, an OPEC member which produces 2.2 million barrels of oil per day, held its first indirect legislative election in 2006 to designate 40 members of the consultative National Federal Council.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35456.

Ambush kills 3 Yemeni soldiers, 2 top officers

Yemen says "unknown gunmen" have killed two of its top security officials and three other soldiers in an ambush east of the country.

"Brigadier General Ali Salem al-Ameri, the security chief in Wadi Hadramut, and Ahmed Bawazeir, the head of the state security in the area, and three security men were killed in an ambush," a Yemeni official told AFP on Tuesday."

He said the attack took place at 3:00 pm (1200 GMT) in the area of Khashm al-Ein, in the district of Al-Abr, northwest of Hadramut.

Citing a witness, the news agency reported that the five were traveling in a single car when they came under fire.

"The car went up in flames,” he said. “The bodies were charred."

They reportedly were returning from a visit to Wadayah, a border crossing into Saudi Arabia, said another witness.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110351§ionid=351020206.

Voters elect governors in NJ, Virginia

The Republican and Democrat voters in the US states of New Jersey and Virginia have gone to polls to choose their new state governors.

The results will be closely watched by the Republicans and Democrats who see it as a test of their parties' standing one year after Barack Obama was elected president.

"The results will be taken by some as a referendum on President Obama's first nine months in office," the BBC said.

Two Congressional seats are also up for grabs in New York and California. New York is among the cities choosing a mayor.

The election outcome could give some clues as to the national mood a year after Obama was elected president and a year before 2010 congressional elections that will represent the first clear referendum since Obama term began.

In Virginia, Democratic party candidate Creigh Deeds is battling a former attorney general, Republican Bob McDonnell, for the post of governor.

Opinion polls suggest incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine and his Republican rival Chris Christie are running neck and neck in New Jersey.

New Jersey polls close at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT Wednesday) but it could be some hours before the outcome is clear. In Virginia, voting ends at 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT) and the winner could be known a few hours later.

Voters in Virginia surprised some analysts last year when they chose Obama in the presidential election, making him the first Democratic candidate to carry the state since 1964.

UK student union boycotts Israeli goods

November 2, 2009

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Following a landmark referendum, students at the UK's Sussex University in Brighton this week voted to boycott Israeli goods.

The decision comes in line with the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which calls upon Israel to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The referendum received messages of support and thanks from Jewish and Israeli academics and non-governmental organizations that oppose Israel's occupation. Author and scholar Norman G. Finkelstein described the referendum result as "a victory, not for Palestinians but for truth and justice."

According to Iyad Burnat, head of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil'in, "We hope even more people all around the world will follow by our example so that we can put an end to the Israeli occupation and dismantle the apartheid wall."

Taliban Decline US Offer Of 6 Provinces for 8 Bases

By Aamir Latif

US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases

IOL, November 2, 2009

ISLAMABAD – The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed.

"US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast," a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net requesting anonymity for not being authorized to talk about the sensitive issue with the media.

He said the talks, brokered by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, continued for weeks at different locations including the Afghan capital Kabul.

Saudi Arabia, along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, were the only states to recognize the Taliban regime which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Turkish Prime Minister Reccap Erodgan has reportedly been active in brokering talks between the two sides.

His emissaries are in contact with Hizb-e-Islami (of former prime minister Gulbadin Hikmatyar) too because he is an important factor in northeastern Afghanistan."

A Taliban spokesman admitted indirect talks with the US.

"Yes, there were some indirect talks, but they did not work," Yousaf Ahmedi, the Taliban spokesman in southern Afghanistan, told IOL from an unknown location via satellite phone.

"There are some people who are conveying each others’ (Taliban and US) messages. But there were no direct talks between us and America," he explained.

Afghan and Taliban sources said Mutawakkil and Mullah Mohammad Zaeef, a former envoy to Pakistan who had taken part in previous talks, represented the Taliban side in the recent talks.

The US Embassy in Kabul denied any such talks.

"No, we are not holding any talks with Taliban," embassy spokeswoman Cathaline Haydan told IOL from Kabul.

Asked whether the US has offered any power-sharing formula to Taliban, she said she was not aware of any such offer.

"I don't know about any specific talks and the case you are reporting is not true."

Provinces for Bases

Source say that for the first time the American negotiators did not insist on the "minus-Mullah Omer" formula, which had been the main hurdle in previous talks between the two sides.

The Americans reportedly offered Taliban a form of power-sharing in return for accepting the presence of foreign troops.

"America wants 8 army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of Al-Qaeda network," the senior official said.

He named the possible hosts of the bases as Mazar-e-Sharif and Badakshan in north, Kandahar in south, Kabul, Herat in west, Jalalabad in northeast and Ghazni and Faryab in central Afghanistan.

In exchange, the US offered Taliban the governorship of the southern provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Hilmand and Orazgan as well as the northeastern provinces of Nooristan and Kunar.

These provinces are the epicenter of resistance against the US-led foreign forces and are considered the strongholds of Taliban.

Orazgan and Hilmand are the home provinces of Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Omer and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"But Taliban did not agree on that," said the senior official.

"Their demand was that America must give a deadline for its pull out if it wants negotiations to go on."

Ahmedi, the Taliban spokesman in southern Afghanistan, confirmed their principal position.

"Our point of view is very clear that until and unless foreign forces do not leave Afghanistan, no talks will turn out to be successful."

The ruling Taliban were ousted by the United States, which invaded Afghanistan shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Since then, the Taliban have engaged in protracted guerrilla warfare against the US-led foreign troops and the Karzai government.

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=59657&s2=03.

Ex-moderate Muslim to form 'anti-Zionist' party in Sweden

A once moderate Muslim spokesperson who last year came out as an Islamist radical has announced plans to start a political party uniting all of Sweden’s anti-Zionists.

According to Mohamed Omar, a 34-year-old author and commentator born in Uppsala in eastern Sweden, he is prepared to welcome all political stripes into his new party – from the radical left and Islamic extremists to neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists – as long as they subscribe to the party’s core principles.

“We’re going to focus not on Islamic questions, but solely on anti-Zionism in order to reach out to as many as possible,” Omar told the Sveriges Radio (SR) documentary program Kaliber.

On his website, Omar denies that the Holocaust happened and refers to Judaism as "a parasitic culture of greed".

The Omar of today is a far cry from the measured and moderate man who once edited one of Sweden’s most respected Muslim publications, Minaret magazine, and condemned protests by Muslims angered by the 2007 decision of Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda to publish a drawing by artist Lars Vilks depicting the head of Muslim prophet Muhammad on a dog's body.

“I think the demonstration is counterproductive and will only serve to reinforce any prejudices people have about Muslims," Omar told The Local in August 2007.

“Nerikes Allehanda published the picture to illustrate a story. It's irrational to regard their decision to publish as being offensive to Muslims.”

According to Omar, Israeli incursions into the Gaza strip in the second half of 2008 played a key role in his radicalization.

“Last week I joined a protest against Israel for the first time,” Omar wrote in an opinion article published in the Expressen newspaper on January 9th, 2009.

“The latest bloodbath was simply too much. I felt compelled to take a public stance. But not only that. I decided to support Hamas and Hezbollah – the Islamic resistance movements.”

He concludes by declaring, “I’m a radical Muslim. And I say that with pride.”

Soon thereafter he began arguing that Zionism was to blame for a number of Sweden’s problems, including the disturbances which plagued the Rosengård neighborhood in Malmö in December 2008.

“Besides, the big threat today is the Zionists. Today there are Zionists collecting money for the Israeli murder machine which used the money to burn children,” Omar said on the Sveriges Television’s Aktuellt news program broadcast on January 29th.

A number of former allies have distanced themselves from Omar following his radicalization, including the current editor of Minaret, Abd al Haqq Kielan.

“He’s basically become a full blown extremist, seasoned with a bit of Islamic spice, but he doesn’t represent Islam in any way,” Kielan told Kaliber.

Members of Sweden’s pro-Palestinian movement (Palestinarörelsen) are also keeping their distance from the new Omar.

“Today he functions as sort of a front man for fascism in this country and he pushes the most egregious anti-Semitic propaganda that I’ve seen in a long time,” said commentator and Palestinian movement supporter Andreas Malm to SR.

“What upset me most is that he’s trying to dress it up as pro-Palestinian.”

Omar is short on details about his planned anti-Zionist political party, simply telling Sveriges Radio that “we’re working on it”. He added that he has drawn inspiration from France’s Parti Anti Sioniste, another anti-Zionist party.

Historian Henrik Bachner, an expert on anti-Semitism in Sweden, is concerned that the country remains fertile ground for extremist views like Omar’s.

“The danger with what Mohammed Omar and those close to him are trying to say with their propaganda today is that there may be a larger readiness among certain strands of opinion to latch on to it,” Bachner told SR.

Source: The Local.
Link: http://www.thelocal.se/23052/20091103/.

China air force talks space supremacy

The commander of the Chinese Air Force has described dominating the space as an imperative for the country's security.

The commander of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLA), Xu Qiliang, said on Monday superiority in space could give a nation control over war zones both on land and at sea, AFP reported.

Speaking to the army newspaper, he said, "As far as the revolution in military affairs is concerned, the competition between military forces is moving towards outer space... this is a historical inevitability and a development that cannot be turned back."

China, however, has joined forces with Russia proposing a treaty which banned the use of weapons in space.

The two states came up with the idea after the US Navy gunned down an 'out-of-control' satellite in February 2008 amid reports that the orbiter harbored nuclear material.

Beijing and Moscow interpreted the move as an attempt at testing 'anti-missile defense system's capability to destroy orbiting satellites'.

"The PLA air force must establish in a timely manner the concepts of space security, space interests and space development," Qiliang said. “Only power can protect peace."

Indonesian maid given six-year jail term for attempted murder

Kuala Lumpur - A Malaysian court has sentenced an Indonesian woman to six years' jail for attempted murder after she laced her employer's coffee with poison, a news report said Tuesday. Nurhayati Ahmad, 22, from Lombok island, pleaded guilty to poisoning the coffee and vegetable soup of her 77-year-old employer with herbicide last year.

The employer was having lunch with her daughter when she suspected something amiss as her coffee and soup had a bitter taste and an overpowering smell, the New Straits Times daily said.

Mother and daughter then lodged a police report, and police discovered two bottles of herbicide stashed in the kitchen, it said.

Nurhayati begged the court for leniency, claiming that she was the sole breadwinner for a family of eight back in Indonesia.

The judge ordered her to serve out her sentence from the date of her arrest in July last year.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/292968,indonesian-maid-given-six-year-jail-term-for-attempted-murder.html.

Fiji expels New Zealand and Australian diplomats

Wellington - Fiji's military ruler Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama gave the senior diplomats of New Zealand and Australia 24 hours to leave the country on Tuesday and ordered his country's high commissioner in Canberra to return home. In a televised address from the capital Suva, he accused the envoys of waging a negative campaign against his military government, which seized power in a bloodless coup in December 2006.

Shutdown in India's Punjab over anti-Sikh riots

New Delhi - Traffic was disrupted and schools closed in several towns in India's northern state of Punjab Tuesday due to a day-long shutdown called by radical Sikh groups to protest alleged inaction against those involved in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, news reports said. More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed, largely in Delhi according to official figures, in riots following the assassination of then-prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards.

To date, 20 people have been convicted of murder during the 1984 riots in which Sikh activists claim more than 4,000 were killed and thousands left homeless.

"We have not got justice for Sikhs in the last 25 years. We want the deaf government in the centre to listen to our demands," Dal Khalsa leader Kanwarpal Singh was quoted as saying by IANS news agency.

Dal Khalsa activists stopped trains in the town of Amritsar where the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden temple, is located.

Several long-distance trains originating from the towns of Amritsar, Ferozepur and Ludhiana were canceled as protesters squatted on tracks and set up blockades on the mainline linking Delhi with the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Shops, petrol pumps and a few banks remained closed in several towns in Punjab. Schools were shut by authorities as a precautionary measure. Public transport was affected by road blocks.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal urged people to hold peaceful demonstrations. "We will ensure that law and order is maintained. People can protest peacefully," Badal said.

While Punjab state is governed by Akali Dal, a regional party representing the Sikhs, the Congress party, to which Gandhi belonged, is the leading partner in India's federal coalition government.

UAE to appoint first female muftis next year

Dubai - The United Arab Emirates will appoint the world's first female muftis next year, according to media reports Tuesday. The Gulf state's Grand Mufti Ahmed al-Haddad said that six Emirati women are being considered for the training program, which will last several months and commence early next year, the UAE's The National newspaper reported.

In May, al-Haddad called on qualified Emirati women to apply for

the program, which includes instruction in Sharia law and legal thinking.

"We continue to accept new applicants until we begin the training," said al-Haddad. "It is already part of the 2010 budget."

Appointing women as muftis has caused controversy in the Muslim world, especially at Egypt's al-Azhar University, which rejected the idea.

"The controversy over female muftis is not necessarily over this point, but about whether or not a woman should be appointed as the grand mufti of a state," he said. "And that is not what we are trying to do at this point."

Although women currently serve as religious advisers at the Abu Dhabi fatwa center, their role is limited to advising women on "women's issues".

In February 2008, Egypt appointed the Arab world's first female marriage registrar Amal Soliman. In November, the UAE appointed Fatima Saeed Obaid al-Awani as that country's first female marriage registrar.

A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who issues a fatwa, or religious decree, which is an opinion derived from Islam's sacred text the Koran or from Islamic tradition.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/292996,uae-to-appoint-first-female-muftis-next-year.html.

Pakistan Taliban: 'We are prepared for a long war'

By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press Writer

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A Taliban spokesman denied Tuesday that Pakistan has won a series of battlefield victories in its offensive in tribal South Waziristan, saying the militants are drawing government soldiers into a trap.

"We are prepared for a long war," Azam Tariq told an Associated Press reporter by telephone. "The areas we are withdrawing from, and the ones the army is claiming to have won, are being vacated by us as part of a strategy. The strategy is to let the army get in a trap, and then fight a long war."

Tariq also denied army claims that hundreds of militants have been killed, saying only 11 have died so far.

In mid-October, the Pakistani government launched an offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region, viewed as the main stronghold in the country of both the Taliban and al-Qaida. The military says it has pressed deep into Taliban territory and captured some Taliban strongholds. The offensive has drawn retaliatory militant attacks across Pakistan.

A few hours after Tariq's claim, the army announced that 21 militants had been killed in the past 24 hours in South Waziristan and that government forces were continuing to press into Taliban territory. It said in a statement that one government soldier had died in the past day.

Much of the fighting was in Sararogha, a Taliban base where militant leaders have long operated openly, occasionally even using it for news conferences. The army said it killed 16 fighters there as it tried to clear the town of militants.

What is actually happening, though, is impossible to confirm.

Pakistan has effectively sealed off the tribal areas, semiautonomous regions where the central government in Islamabad has long had only minimal authority. Journalists have only been allowed near combat areas on carefully choreographed military trips.

Huge Galaxy Cluster Hints at Universe's Skeleton

A gigantic, previously unknown set of galaxies has been found in the distant universe, shedding light on the underlying skeleton of the cosmos.

"Matter is not distributed uniformly in the universe," said Masayuki Tanaka, an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) who helped discover the galactic assemblage. "In our cosmic vicinity, stars form in galaxies and galaxies usually form groups and clusters of galaxies."

But those collections of matter are just small potatoes compared to larger structures long-theorized to exist.

"The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called 'cosmic web,' in which galaxies, embedded in filaments stretching between voids, create a gigantic wispy structure," Tanaka said.

These filaments are millions of light-years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe: Galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest.

Scientists have struggled, though, to explain how the filaments come into existence. While massive filamentary structures have often been observed at relatively small distances from us, solid proof of their existence in the more distant universe has been lacking until now.

The team led by Tanaka discovered a large structure around a distant cluster of galaxies in images they had taken earlier. They have now used two major ground-based telescopes to study this structure in greater detail, measuring the distances from Earth to more than 150 galaxies, and, hence, obtaining a three-dimensional view of the structure.

The spectroscopic observations, detailed in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Journal, were performed using the VIMOS instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile and FOCAS on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

With these observations, the astronomers identified several groups of galaxies surrounding the main galaxy cluster.

The researchers were able to distinguish tens of such clumps, each typically ten times as massive as our own Milky Way galaxy — and some as much as a thousand times more massive — while they estimate that the mass of the cluster amounts to at least ten thousand times the mass of the Milky Way.

Some of the clumps are feeling the fatal gravitational pull of the cluster, and will eventually fall into it, the data suggested.

This information will allow scientists to explore how galaxies were affected by their environment at a time when the universe was much younger.

The filament is located about 6.7 billion light-years away from us and extends over at least 60 million light-years. The newly uncovered structure does probably extend farther, beyond the field probed by the team, and hence future observations have already been planned to obtain a definite measurement of its size.

Glowing green mice light up Iran's Royan Institute

Iranian scientists have created green-glowing mice to demonstrate their expertise in sophisticated genetic-engineering techniques.

"Our main purpose of such experiments is to display the abilities of (our) genetic researchers, something that our country has successfully accomplished," the Director of Iran's Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research told Mehr news Monday.

"One of the activities that our researchers have conducted at the Rotyan Institute is producing green mice. In this project, a specific gene is inserted into the stem cells of a fetus," Dr. Hamid-Reza Tayyebi said.

"The gene has a characteristic that allows it to change colors to purple when exposed to light," he explained.

Dr. Tayyebi said that after inserting the DNA parts, the fetus is placed inside the womb of another mouse, which would give birth to a fluorescent green rodent.

The leading Iranian researcher added that the ability to create such animals demonstrates how far the country has progressed in genetic sciences.

Producing green mice was a method first adopted by scientists in 1999. The achievement proved the efficiency of a technique that uses sperm to insert new DNA.

Iran's Majidi to lead Silk Road filmfest jury

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi has been selected to serve on the jury of the 2009 Silk Road Film Festival in Turkey.

Majidi will lead the International Golden Karagoz Feature Film Competition Grand Jury of the festival, which will be held from Nov. 14 to 22.

The 50-year-old director will be joined by Atilla Gigor (Hungary), Marie Jaoul de Poncheville (France), Cansel Elcin (Turkey), Fadik Sevin Atasoy (Turkey), Velissarios Kossivakis (Greece) and Andrey Karanikolov (Russia).

Majid Majidi is the first Iranian filmmaker to receive an Academy Award Nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film with his 1997 Children of Heaven.

He started his cinematic activities with acting and appeared in numerous films, including Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 1985 Boycott.

His first feature-length production was the 1992 Baduk, which was presented during the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival and received several awards in Iran.

Majidi's Children of Heaven was nominated for the 1998 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the 96-minute Song of Sparrows represented Iran at the 81st Oscar Awards.

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts also awarded Majidi the 9th annual ILEX Foundation Award for Excellence in Iranian Cinema.

Spanish opposition takes narrow lead over ruling party in poll

Spain's opposition Popular Party (PP) took a narrow lead over the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), according to an opinion poll published Monday.

The poll, carried out by the Center for Sociological Investigation, showed that should a general election be held immediately, the PP would win 41 percent of the vote, while the PSOE would poll a 37.7 percent share.

The approval rating for the PSOE took a further dip compared with the result of an opinion poll in July, when the support ratings for the PSOE and the PP were 39 percent and 40.2 percent, respectively.

Turkish ruling party votes in decline, survey says

Turkish ruling party is losing the support of the electorate because of the economic downturn and its move to solve the Kurdish issue, a survey revealed in local press on Tuesday.

Sonar Research Company concluded that unemployment is a leading problem in Turkey, followed by economic issues and high prices. The Kurdish issue was the third, a report in Daily News said.

Hakan Bayrakci, head of the survey company's administrative board, said that Turkey has been under pressure since the economic crisis began to unfold, and the return of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, members could have resulted in decreased electoral support.

The governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is losing votes while the main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, and the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, have increased electorate support, according to the survey.

The survey was conducted with 3,000 people who reflect the Turkish electorate between Oct.5 to 25.

However, Metin Heper, a political scientist from Bilkent University, voiced caution over the survey's results. "These kinds of studies are not accurate predictions of electorate behavior."

The report in the paper quoted Heper as saying that "Had there been a significant event on the day of the poll, this (event) would have affected results."

Heper was doubtful of the large change in the percentage of electoral support between parties. "Two parties that have 15 or 20 points of difference between them cannot suddenly catch up because of one or two events."

Czech court lifts last legal hurdle to EU treaty

By KAREL JANICEK, Associated Press Writer

PRAGUE – A Czech court struck down a complaint against the EU reform treaty on Tuesday, removing the proposed charter's last legal hurdle and intensifying pressure on President Vaclav Klaus to sign it.

The Constitutional Court's chief judge, Pavel Rychetsky, said the Lisbon Treaty, which has already been ratified by other member nations, "does not violate the (Czech) constitution."

At the end of the ruling, whose reading took almost two hours, Rychetsky said all formal obstacles for ratification "are removed."

Klaus is the last obstacle to the full ratification of the treaty, which is designed to transform Europe into a more unified and powerful global player. The charter, which was bogged down in negotiations for almost a decade, has been ratified by all other 26 EU nations.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he was "extremely pleased" with the verdict.

"Together with the commitments given by all member states to the Czech government at the European Council last week, I believe that no further unnecessary delays should prevent the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty," Barroso said.

"I hope that we can now move forward as quickly as possible on the nomination of the president of the European Council and vice president of the Commission High Representative," he said, referring to the newly-created post of president, who will chair EU summits, and the bloc's new foreign policy chief, who will represent the EU abroad.

"The decision clears the way for President Vaclav Klaus to sign and finalize the ratification of the treaty and I am very confident he will do so," said Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament. "The Treaty of Lisbon should now enter into force by the end of the year."

Klaus was awaiting the Brno-based court's ruling before deciding whether to endorse the treaty. It is not clear when that could happen.

Prime Minister Jan Fischer welcomed the verdict.

"The last hurdle has been cleared," Fischer said in a statement. He said he now expects Klaus to sign the treaty. He previously said he hoped Klaus could do that by the end of the year.

The court was asked to rule by a group of senators who filed a motion arguing the treaty was not in line with the constitution. Last year, the court dismissed a similar complaint.

Failure of the treaty would send the EU into an unprecedented crisis. Negotiators say its reforms — creating a new EU president post, giving more power to the foreign policy chief and streamlining EU decision-making — are needed to make the EU more effective.

Last week, EU leaders agreed to Klaus' last-minute demand — an opt-out from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights in return for his signing of it. Klaus said he was not planning to make any further demands.

The Czech leader asked for the option over worries of property claims by ethnic Germans stripped of their land and expelled after World War II.

But it was considered Klaus had used the demand for the opt-out to try to scuttle ratification of the treaty, which he opposes. He fears the treaty would hand over too many national powers to EU institutions in Brussels.

Both houses of the Czech Parliament already have ratified the treaty.

Tropical storm Mirinae kills 11 in central Vietnam

By TRAN VAN MINH, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam – Tropical Storm Mirinae unleashed severe flooding in parts of central Vietnam, killing 11 people, leaving two missing and forcing families onto rooftops, disaster officials said Tuesday.

Floods in Phu Yen province killed 10 people after the storm hit, drenching the region with heavy rains Monday, said disaster official Duong Van Huong.

Several villages in neighboring Binh Dinh province suffered the worst flooding in four decades after the Ha Thanh River surged over its banks, said disaster official Nguyen Van Hoa. One man drowned in Binh Dinh and two others were missing, Hoa said.

Local authorities asked the central government to send helicopters to rescue people who were still trapped on rooftops a day after the storm, which lost force as it moved inland.

"We have received many calls for help from people who are still stranded," Hoa said by telephone.

Soldiers in speedboats navigated to submerged areas and ferried out residents.

Mirinae hit the Philippines with typhoon strength over the weekend, killing 20 people before losing strength as it moved across the South China Sea toward Vietnam.

Both Vietnam and the Philippines were still recovering from Typhoon Ketsana, which brought the Philippine capital of Manila its worst flooding in 40 years when it struck in September. Ketsana killed 160 people in Vietnam.

In the Philippines, Ketsana and two later storms killed more than 900. Some 87,000 people who fled the storms were still living in temporary shelters when Mirinae struck.

In a separate incident in northern Vietnam on Monday, one woman drowned and five others were still missing after a whirlwind toppled two boats in the northern province of Quang Ninh, disaster official Le Thanh Nam said.

Sixteen other passengers managed to swim to safety after the boats sank, Nam said.

Africans protest low emissions targets at UN talks

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer

BARCELONA, Spain – African countries boycotted meetings at U.N. climate talks Tuesday, saying industrial countries had set carbon-cutting targets too low for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

The action forced several technical meetings to be canceled, while the 50 or so African countries said they would only discuss pledges submitted by wealthy countries.

Delegates to this week's U.N. climate talks in Barcelona warned that, unless the African protest was settled, it could set back the timetable for concluding a new climate change pact at a major U.N. conference next month in Copenhagen.

The African countries say they are the most vulnerable to climate change yet the least responsible for the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere that is causing global warming.

A landmark 2007 U.N. report based on the work of about 2,000 scientists predicted Africa would suffer the most from drought, agricultural damage, rising sea levels threatening coastal areas and the spread of tropical pests and diseases.

Scientists say industrial countries should reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, but targets announced so far amount to far less than the minimum.

Talks were under way Tuesday to try to resume the closed-door meetings on technical issues related to emissions reductions, including identifying new greenhouse gases to be regulated and setting rules by which rich countries might offset emissions with green technology investments in poor countries.

In London, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted Tuesday that the climate change treaty may not be resolved this year, as nations may be unable to commit to firm emissions limits at Copenhagen.

"Copenhagen will be a very important milestone. At the same time, realistically speaking, we may not be able to agree all the words," Ban said after holding talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Ban said he would push leaders to strike a pact in Copenhagen, but that it was more likely to be an agreement on principles — rather than specific targets for cuts.

"We need at this time the political will — if there is a political will, there is a way we can come to a binding agreement in Copenhagen," Ban said.

The Copenhagen deal would succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called on 37 industrial countries to reduce emissions of heat-raising gases by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. It made no demands on major developing countries like India and China. The United States was the only major greenhouse gas emitter to reject the Kyoto accord.

The U.S., which says it wants to be part of the Copenhagen deal, has been criticized for delaying any announcement at this week's climate talks of its emissions target. The U.S. delegation says it is waiting for Congress to finish work on climate and energy legislation. Those bills suggest the U.S. would cut emissions only about 4 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.

On Monday, the U.S. came under renewed pressure to declare its intentions at the U.N. talks before the decisive Copenhagen meeting from Dec. 7-18.

Denmark's minister for climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, noted that President Barack Obama would be in nearby Norway accepting the Nobel Peace Prize while the Copenhagen conference is under way. She said it was "hard to imagine" that Obama, who was cited by the Nobel committee for his climate-friendly policies, would send his delegation to Copenhagen empty-handed.

Iran has 1.2m addicts with 15m at risk

Head of Iranian Drug Control Headquarters says there are 1.2 million addicts across the country and 15 million others are at risk of drug dependence.

“Iranians' addiction to drugs has been recorded at around 1.2 million people. Unofficial figures, however, suggest the larger population of 6 million people around the country,” Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam told Mehr News Agency.

Iran's Drug Control Headquarters' latest figure shows about 140,000 inmates held in Iranian prisons, are mostly convicted for drug-related crimes. The ages of the majority of these prisoners range from 24 to 32.

“Illegal drugs in Iran have reached alarming levels and is a major factor holding back the country from achieving its vision of a clean-living and productive society,” Ahmadi-Moqaddam said.

Illegal drugs and smuggling puts 10 to 15 million of the country's youth, the largest demographic, at risk of coming into contact with banned substances.

“Older youth and adolescence are in serious danger of exposure to drugs and narcotics. Youngsters should be under close observation by their families, schools, in the workplace, and society,” he continued.

With a 900-km (560-mile) common border with Afghanistan, Iran lies on a transit corridor between opium producers in Afghanistan and drug takers in Europe. The UN credited Iran for the seizure of 80 percent of the opium netted around the world in 2007.

Calif. man gets prison for aiming laser at planes

LOS ANGELES – A Southern California man who aimed a laser beam at two airliners as they approached an airport has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for disrupting the flights.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles says Dana Christian Welch of Orange, who was sentenced Monday, was the first person in the nation to be convicted at trial of interfering with pilots by aiming lasers at their planes.

Authorities say the 37-year-old aimed a handheld laser at two Boeing jets as the passenger planes were about to land at John Wayne Airport on the night of May 21, 2008.

The laser beam struck one pilot in the eye, causing "flash blindness," and interfered with pilots' ability to land the other plane.

Leader: Iran not seeing US-promised changes

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution says the US approach toward Iran has been in contradiction with the slogan of bringing 'change' to its policy.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran decided from the very beginning not to prejudge and to instead consider the slogan of 'change'. But what we have witnessed in practice during this period of time has been in contradiction with the remarks that have been made,” Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei told Iranian students on Tuesday.

The Leader added that the US was seeking its own predetermined results from the talks.

“On the one hand, Americans talk of negotiations. On the other hand, they continue to threaten and say the negotiations must have our desired results or we will take (punitive) measures.”

Ayatollah Khamenei added that “such relation [with the US] was that of 'sheep and wolf', which the late Imam (founder of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini) said we do not want.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday called on Iran to accept an IAEA-backed proposal for nuclear cooperation, reiterating that the offer will not be changed.

"We continue to press the Iranians to accept fully the proposal that has been made, which they accepted in principle because we are not altering it," Clinton said.

The Leader however reiterated that the Iranian nation will not bow to any conditions which would undermine its rights.

“If anyone intends to violate the rights of the Iranian nation, the nation will firmly stand up to them and will make them kneel down.”

Ayatollah Khamenei added that as long as the US wanted “to turn back the time and seek dominance over Iran”, it could by no means compel the Iranian nation to retreat.

Under a proposal discussed in Vienna in mid-October, the United States, France and Russia wanted Iran to send most of its domestically-produced low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad to be converted into more refined fuel for the Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.

The world powers introduced the plan, which was first floated by the Obama administration.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday that Iran's 'technical and economic' concerns must be taken into account regarding the draft deal.

"We have examined this proposal, we have some technical and economic considerations on that," Mottaki told reporters in the Malaysian capital on Monday.

Mottaki also called for the establishment of a technical commission to review and reconsider Iran's stated issues.

NKorea raises threat to get US into direct talks

By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Tuesday it has reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and extracted enough plutonium to bolster its atomic stockpile, raising the stakes in an apparent effort to push the U.S. into direct negotiations.

Reprocessing the spent fuel rods would give the regime enough weapons-grade plutonium for at least one more atomic bomb, experts say. Pyongyang is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for half a dozen nuclear weapons.

The threat of an expanding North Korean nuclear arsenal comes a day after Pyongyang warned Washington it would beef up its nuclear stockpile if the U.S. refuses to hold bilateral talks.

North Korea has demanded direct talks with the United States to resolve the protracted standoff over the regime's nuclear program.

Washington has said it is willing to meet one-on-one with the North if the talks lead to the resumption of six-nation negotiations involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S. Discussions between a North Korean envoy and a U.S. official last week did not yield an agreement to hold talks, both sides said.

On Monday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry warned "if the U.S. is not ready to sit at a negotiating table with the (North), it will go its own way," an apparent threat to bolster its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea has long claimed it needs atomic weapons to defend itself against the U.S., which fought the North during the Korean War in the 1950s and has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea to protect it from any aggression.

The U.S. denies any intention of attacking the North.

But Pyongyang said it remains "compelled to take measures to bolster its deterrent for self-defense to cope with the increasing nuclear threat and military provocations of the hostile forces," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday.

The report cited "noticeable success" in weaponizing plutonium "for the purpose of bolstering up the nuclear deterrent."

The North agreed in 2007 to disable its main nuclear facility in Yongbyon — a step toward its ultimate dismantlement — in exchange for much-needed energy aid and political concessions. However, Pyongyang halted the process more than a year ago and later abandoned the pact as it faced international censure for a series of nuclear and missile tests.

North Korean officials restarted the nuclear facilities in April in retaliation for a U.N. rebuke of a rocket launch widely criticized as an illegal test of its long-range missile technology, and kicked out international nuclear monitors.

In September, the North said it was in the final stage of reprocessing spent fuel rods, and also claimed it succeeded in enriching uranium, a process that would give it a second way to build atomic bombs.

Israel destroys 2 more Palestinian homes

Israeli forces have demolished two more Palestinian-owned homes in Jerusalem Al-Quds as part of Tel Aviv's efforts to increase the number of Jewish settlements there.

Palestinian sources say residents of the buildings were forcibly evicted before Israeli bulldozers demolished their homes on Monday.

An old woman failing to leave her home was injured by Israeli forces and was transferred to a hospital.

Israeli officials say the structures were built without permits. Israeli bulldozers often go to destroy Palestinian homes without warning and give residents of the homes a few minutes to collect their valuables.

While the Israeli officials claim that the demolition orders are issued because the buildings lack permits, the residents argue that Israeli officials have either withheld the vital documents or refused to issue them. Palestinians believe that Israel uses policy of demolition orders to force them out Jerusalem Al-Quds.

The policy has made thousands of Palestinians homeless and instead increased the population of Jewish Israeli citizens there.

According to Israel's Association for Civil Rights, although Palestinians make up nearly one third of the city's population, Tel Aviv has designated only 7.25% of the city's land for their building projects.

Gazprom to develop Iran's Azar oilfield

Iran's Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDCO) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Gazprom for development of Azar oilfield, west of Iran.

In a statement posted Monday on the Iranian oil ministry's web site, PEDCO said it has given a three-months-deadline for the Russian company to offer a development plan for the oilfield.

"The signed memorandum was approved by National Iranian Oil Company," said the CEO of PEDCO, Naji Saadouni.

The head of the national oil company said earlier in October that drilling operations at the Azar oil field in southwest Iran could begin as soon as January.

Iranian officials say the field could produce as much as 55,000 barrels of oil per day.

The Azar oilfield lies in Ilam province in western Iran and is shared with neighboring Iraq. The Oilfield in Anaran Block may offer up to 2 billion barrels of crude oil.

Norway's Norsk Hydro and Lukoil worked together on an exploration contract for the oilfield and discovered oil there in 2005.

An Iranian oil official said earlier in May that as a result of Statoilhydro Company's waver, Oil Ministry officials have started negotiations with PEDCO for the development of Azar oil field.

StatoilHydro ASA is a Norwegian energy company, formed by the 2007 merger of Statoil with the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro.

Strong tremor hits western Greece

An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale has rattled western Greece, with no immediate reports of injuries or major damage.

The Athens Observatory's Geodynamic Institute said that the strong undersea tremor hit an area off the coast of the Zakynthos Island at 7:25 am (0525 GMT) on Tuesday.

It added that the quake, quite shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles (10 km) below the seabed, was centered in the Ionian Sea, 334 kilometers (208 miles) west of Athens.

Greece is among the world's most seismically active regions and accounts for half the earthquakes on the European continent.

The country's previous serious earthquake in 1999 killed more than 100 people and left many others injured or homeless.

3,000 Iranians contract swine flu, 28 dead

An Iranian health official says 3,000 Iranian citizens have been infected with the A-H1N1 flu across the country as the virus's death toll reached 28.

“Closure of 70 schools in Tehran and many other schools around the country is alarming for authorities,” Majlis Health Commission spokesman told Mehr News Agency.

“Majlis Health Commission will meet the country's Health and Education ministers on Tuesday to discuss the latest state of the fatal virus spread in the country,” Mohammadreza Rezaei Kuchi said.

The country's health officials urge parents to keep a child with flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough and sore throat at home until the symptoms are gone.

“Apart from children and students, tourists, especially Hajj pilgrims, are also another group at serious risk of infection to A-H1N1 virus,” he added.

“Majlis will put extra focus on the matter,” continued Kuchi who is a representative form Jahrom.

Health officials stressed that adopting simple precautionary measures such as frequently washing hands, using a tissue to cover the mouth when coughing and sneezing, avoiding kissing and touching face and eyes can help contain the virus from spreading.

Karzai vows to fight corruption, reaches out to Taliban

Tue Nov 3, 2009

President Hamid Karzai vows to uproot corruption following his re-election in Afghanistan's fraud-tainted presidential vote, urging his Taliban 'brothers' to come home.

"Afghanistan has been defamed by corruption. Our government has been defamed by corruption," Karzai told a press conference on Tuesday. "We will strive, by any means possible, to eradicate this stain," he vowed.

The pledge came just hours after US President Barack Obama demanded Karzai, in a phone conversation, to boost efforts 'to eradicate corruption' and called for a 'new chapter' in bilateral ties between Washington and Kabul.

Karzai, repeatedly accused by Taliban leaders of being a puppet in the hands of the US government, offered the militants the olive branch, calling on the "Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land."

Karzai whose legitimacy is shaken by an electoral committee's investigation result, which discarded over a million of his votes from the August 20 election, on Monday was declared the winner of Afghanistan's presidential race.

Afghan election officials canceled a presidential run-off vote after Karzai's only rival Abdullah Abdullah's withdrew over serious concerns about the election process.

Commenting on the former foreign minister's step-down, Karzai said Abdullah's participation “would have been better for our country, for the democratic process and for us."

Karzai's return seems to alleviate Obama's concerns over whether to send up to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where nearly eight years of foreign military presence has failed to wipe out Taliban-linked violence and bloodshed in the war-torn country.

Washington is in a critical position for deciding how to cope with the current situation in the war-torn country.

Obama has been dithering about a decision over a request by the US top commander in Afghanistan who has called for the troops surge to tackle the deteriorating security.

Despite a warm welcome from the West, the Taliban has condemned Karzai's return a farce and vowed to continue its fight to drive foreign forces out of Afghanistan.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/110318.html.

Police set location for Tehran anti-US rally

Tehran's police force has announced that gatherings marking the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover would be held in front of the building.

Since the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran Iranians have been celebrating the occasion every year by holding rallies on the anniversary and marking it as the country's national Students' Day.

The day has been dubbed as the national day of fighting global arrogance.

A statement released by the force said on Monday that the gathering is to be held in front of the former US Embassy.

The statement added that holding any other demonstrations elsewhere in the city is “illegal".

"The police will strongly confront people or groups intending to create unrest and unlawful behavior, based on its legal responsibilities," it added.

The force also urged citizens to cooperate with police officers and take into account the special traffic restrictions put in place on the day of the event.

The statement came after Iran's armed forces issued a warning to those who seek to fuel unrest not to fall for enemy-backed “psychological warfare”.

Deputy Head of Iran's armed forces headquarters Brigadier-General Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri called on the nation to exercise caution as the enemy may be planning mischief and plots on November 4.

In 1979 university students took over the building convinced that Washington was plotting against the Revolution that was only a few months old at the time.

Inside the embassy, the students found shredded documents which proved right their convictions after being reattached.

In 1953, Washington orchestrated a coup against the popular and democratically-elected Iranian prime minister of the time, Mohammad Mosaddeq, whose efforts led to the nationalization of the country's oil industry.

Almost half a century later, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright acknowledged the pivotal role that the US played in the coup, coming closer than any other American diplomat to apologize for the intervention.

"The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons... But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America," she said in March 2000.

Shia fighters seize military base on Saudi soil

Houthi fighters say they have captured a military base in the Saudi Arabian territory after accusing the kingdom of allowing Yemeni troops to use its soil as a launchpad for attacking their positions.

According to a statement by the Shia resistance movement, the fighters managed to seize Jebel al-Dukhan base near the Saudi border with Yemen after hours of heavy fighting.

Houthi fighters had earlier warned Saudi Arabia against meddling in Yemen's internal affairs by allowing the Yemeni army to use the base.

"We advise the Saudi regime to remain impartial and not allow the Yemeni army to use its territories to attack us, because we would be otherwise forced to retaliate," it added.

Yemeni officials, however, have dismissed the allegations as "mere fabrications", claiming that Jebel al-Dukhan base belongs to Yemen.

"They are trying to bring Saudi Arabia into the problem ... Jabal al-Dukhan is a Yemeni area," an unnamed Yemeni official said.

The Shia fighters in northern part of the country, who have been under intense government attacks since August 11, had earlier accused the Saudi Arabia of planning to form a militia to fight them on both sides of the Saudi-Yemeni border.

The military offensive against the Shia fighters has so far left hundreds of people, mostly civilians, dead. It has also displaced tens of thousands of people, forcing them to live in refugee camps.

While the Shia fighters say they are defending themselves against social, economic, political and religious oppressions, the government accuses them of seeking to restore a religious leadership which ended in a republican coup in 1962.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110325§ionid=351020206.

China slams U.S. for sending Uighurs to Palau

BEIJING (Reuters) - China lashed out at the United States on Monday after the Obama administration sent six Uighur Chinese detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay to the Pacific island nation of Palau.

China has repeatedly demanded that the Uighurs be returned but the U.S. government has said it could not do so because they would face persecution, and it has searched for months for a nation willing to accept them.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said the six were "terror suspects" and ought to have been sent back to China.

"We express our extreme dissatisfaction and resolute opposition that the United States disregarded the Chinese side and insisted on sending the terror suspects to a third place," Ma said in a statement on the ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn).

China had made "solemn representations" to the United States about the issue, he added.

The six belonged to a terror group listed by the United Nations, and the United States had a duty to hand them over, Ma said.

"China demands the United States abide by U.N. resolutions and fulfill its international anti-terror obligations, stop sending such terror suspects to fulfill third places, and should instead repatriate them to China as soon as possible," he added.

"China opposes any country taking these terror suspects."

The Uighurs, who come from China's largely Muslim far-west region of Xinjiang, were swept up by the U.S. government during the Afghanistan war launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The choice of Palau is likely to further infuriate China as the island is one of only 23 countries that recognize Taiwan over Beijing.

Under its "one China" policy, Beijing claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own and insists on eventual unification, by force if necessary.

The transfer leaves 215 detainees at the detention camp that President Barack Obama has pledged to close by January 22, though political and legal hurdles are making it difficult for his administration to meet that goal.

Palau has agreed to take up to 12 Uighurs. Seven still remain at the controversial Guantanamo prison which was set up by the Bush administration to house terror suspects. Four other Uighurs were moved to Bermuda in June.

Gitmo men celebrate freedom

Bernadette Carreon

Koror - Six Chinese Muslim Uighurs, released on the weekend after nearly eight years locked up at Guantanamo Bay, spent their first day of freedom on Monday shopping in the Palau capital Koror.

They have also penciled in a day's swimming at the spectacular Rock Islands in this Pacific island nation after revealing that was one of life's treats they missed most while detained at the US naval base in Cuba.

The six have been treated as heroes since arriving in Palau on Sunday and being greeted by President Johnson Toribiong who will also accompany them on their swim.

"They have not touched the water for eight years," said George Clark, an American lawyer traveling with the Uighurs.

"They are happy that the Palauan people have accepted them and relieved that they have finally been released from jail."

Mampimin Ala, an Australian flown to Palau to act as a translator for the Uighurs, escorted the men as they left their temporary residence to walk around the shops and shake hands with locals.

"They are happy to enjoy the beautiful environment of Palau," Ala said, adding that their main shopping targets were basic necessities.

As there is no mosque in Palau, Ala said the Uighurs started the day with prayers at their home and will meet members of the small local Muslim community later in the week.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, another lawyer traveling with the men, said it was important for them to meet as many locals as possible in the next few days as the former prisoners rebuild their lives in freedom.

The men were among 22 Uighurs - a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority from China's remote Xinjiang region - living at a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001.

They were held at Guantanamo Bay for more than seven years despite being cleared of all charges.

They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution from China, which wants the men returned home to be tried, saying they belong to an Islamic separatist movement.

Amid US fears that they could face torture if returned to China, five were released to Albania in 2006, and four were resettled in Bermuda this year. The others have remained in legal limbo.

The decision to transfer the six Uighurs to Palau, one of only 23 nations to recognize Taiwan over Beijing, is likely to rile China.

However, President Toribiong said the Uighurs were in his country temporarily and as Palau has a close relationship with the United States he was not worried about China's reaction.

The Uighurs now in Palau and those still at Guantanamo contend they should be released in the United States and the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear their case early next year.

In the meantime, Toribiong said the six would be taught "conversational and written English, educated about the culture and laws of Palau, and instructed in skills that will enable them to find a job and earn a living in Palau".

The Uighurs - Ahmad Tourson, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, Edham Mamet, Anwar Hassan, Dawut Abdurehim and Adel Noori - "want nothing more than to live peaceful, productive lives in a free, democratic nation safe from oppression by the Chinese," said Eric Tirschwell, of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, which represented the former detainees along with the Centre for Constitutional Rights.

Palau, with a population of about 21 000, lies about 800km east of the Philippines and was administered by the United States until independence in 1994.

Eatery's 222-pound meatball sets record

CONCORD, N.H., Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A New Hampshire man said a giant 222-pound, 8-ounce meatball created by his restaurant was certified as the world's largest by Guinness World Records.

Matt Mitnitsky, owner of Nonni's Italian Eatery, said the meatball was certified as the world's largest by Guinness officials during a Sunday party at the Holiday Inn ballroom, which is adjacent to the restaurant, the Concord (N.H.) Monitor reported Monday.

Mitnitsky said he and his staff will appear in the next edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. He said he was inspired to create the meatball by the previous record, a 198.6-pound meatball created on Jimmy Kimmel's late night show in September.

"He wanted to bring the meatball back to the United States," Mitnitsky said of Kimmel. "But I said that it belongs on the East Coast. My gumbas back home (in Brooklyn, New York) said, 'Hey, Mattie, you should do something about that.'"

Species' extinction threat grows

More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.

Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk.

These included 21% of mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.

Conservationists warned that not enough was being done to tackle the main threats, such as habitat loss.

"The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting," warned Jane Smart, director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Biodiversity Conservation Group.

"The latest analysis... shows that the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met," she added.

"It's time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it's high on their agendas for next year, as we are rapidly running out of time."

The Red List, regarded as the most authoritative assessment of the state of the planet's species, draws on the work of thousands of scientists around the globe.

The latest update lists amphibians as the most seriously affected group of organisms on the planet, with 1,895 of the 6,285 known species listed as threatened.

Of these, it lists 39 species as either "extinct" or "extinct in the wild". A further 484 are deemed "critically endangered", 754 "endangered" and 657 "vulnerable".

The Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophyrnoides asperginis) is one species that has seen its status change from critically endangered to extinct in the wild.

It was only found in the Kihamsi Falls area of Tanzania, but its population had crashed in recent years from a high of an estimated 17,000 individuals.

Conservationists suggest that the rapid decline was primarily the result of of a dam being constructed upstream from the toads' habitat, which resulted in a 90% reduction in the flow of water.

"In our lifetime, we have gone from having to worry about a relatively small number of highly threatened species to the collapse of entire ecosystems," observed Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

"At what point will society truly respond to this growing crisis?"

The updated data from the 2009 Red List is being made publicly available on the IUCN website on Tuesday.

Report: Israel creates military court for Palestinian children

November 2, 2009

Bethlehem – Ma’an – An Israeli judge has announced the establishment of a new military court dealing solely with the sentencing of Palestinian children.

Ma’ariv, the daily Hebrew-language newspaper, wrote that "from now on, Palestinian children will be brought in front of military judges under the new structure of a special military court to sentence children under the legal age of majority to avoid the recent situation where children have been brought to normal military courts."

The sentencing of children under the legal age of majority in regular military courts constitutes a contravention of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which Israel ratified in 1991.

The establishment of the court was announced by Israeli judge Lieutenant Colonel Aharon Mishnayot.

An inauguration ceremony for the new children’s military court was held on Sunday at Ofer Prison in the West Bank, Ma’ariv said.

According to the Palestine branch of the organization Defense for Children International (DCI), an average of 9,000 Palestinians are prosecuted in two Israeli military courts in the West Bank each year, among them an average of 700 children, some of them as young as 12.

Who are Behind the Chaos in Afghanistan?

Afghan Resistance Statement
Who are Behind the Chaos in Afghanistan?
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Monday, 02 November 2009

The Americans follow contradicting programs in Afghanistan. These contradictions have greatly contributed to the chaos and corruption now rampant in the country. After invasion in 2001, Americans announced the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reconstruction (DDR) program which was aimed at encouraging former warlords and gunmen to surrender their arms for cash incentives, employment opportunities and vocational training. After a time, they left the program uncompleted, and opted to raise their own militias under the name of Campaign and Security Guards. These so-called security guards escort American and other NATO member countries military and logistical convoys from one province to another, particularly to Urozgan, Helmand, Farah and other provinces in the south. Some militias are used to detain suspected Afghans. Recently, New York Times disclosed that following the American invasion of Afghanistan, Wali Karzai created the Kandahar Task Force which is involved in various human rights violations. According to the Times Weekly, Wali Karzai frequently used the Kandahar Task Force against his opponents and on one occasion, they killed police chief of Kandahar province. Similarly, Americans pay tens of millions of dollars to private militia annually for escorting their convoys.

The private militias extort money from common people and levy agricultural tax on farmers named Ushar. They are involved in burglary, kidnapping and other unscrupulous activities. All these are overlooked by the invaders as the militia support them in their fight against so-called terrorism.

Applying The Sons of Iraq replica to Afghanistan, the invading Americans have created militia from among the Afghan minorities in the north of the country. Recently, they created such militia in Qazal Qila and appointed a Turkmen as commander. The Turkmen and Uzbek are ethnical minorities and their militias are notoriously known for human rights violations during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

To many observers who closely monitor developments in Afghanistan, these moves by the invading Americans can be part of plan dubbed as Chaostan, which was unveiled by Mc Crystal, American top commander in Afghanistan during his recent speech in London. According to this plan, the Americans want to create chaos in Afghanistan by plunging the country into geographical, racial and religious fighting once again.

Mullah Brader Akhund, Deputy-Amir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in one of his interviews said that Mujahideen had captured several groups of armed men who were involved in destroying schools and bridges. They admitted that they were paid by foreign intelligence agencies to do so. In this year Eid ul Fitre message, the Amir ul Momineen, Mullah Omar Mujahid instructed all Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate to disarm armed groups who are involved in encroachment on people’s life, property and honor on the provocation of the enemy.

Similarly, the bomb blasts in congested places, which have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, is of great concern to the Mujahideen and the Afghan people. This year in the holy month of Ramadan, a bomb went off in Kandahar just at the time when people were to break their fast. More than 50 people were killed in the explosion. The Islamic Emirate denied having hand in the explosion and condemned it as a horrendous and despicable event. Later Dawa Khan Mina pal, a Radio Liberty reporter was detained by police of the Kabul puppet regime when he was trying to investigate the blast to find out who were behind this gruesome event.

Many observers agree that foreign intelligence agencies are involved in anti-human activities to malign the good name of the armed Mujahideen who are fighting Americans and other forces of the NATO member countries. Recently, the Afghan surrogate president Karzai complained in a press conference that unknown helicopters were airdropping armed men in the north. According to him, these armed men disturb peace and security there. But Mujahideen in the area say, the foreign invaders airdrop the militia there to target Mujahideen hide-outs during the night and they also attack ethnically sensitive areas in order to provoke racial fighting.

The Americans think, by doing so, they can justify the presence of their troops and enlist supporters from among Afghan minorities against Taliban. These hidden agendas are driving our country into an unknown direction. Unequivocally, the foreign military presence in Afghanistan is part of the Afghan problem. The more they stay in our country, the more, they will plunge our country into chaos and uncertainly. The only solution is that the invaders leave Afghanistan and let the Afghans to form an Islamic government where people from all ethnicities can participate in the government making on the basis of their talent and services to the people. This will vault out the country from the current vortex of conspiracies and ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan and the whole region.

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=59639&s2=03.

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.

The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.

A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region's future.

The same rift activity is slowly parting the Red Sea, too.

Using newly gathered seismic data from 2005, researchers reconstructed the event to show the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began "unzipping" the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today.

"We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this," said Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study.

The result shows that highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of in bits, as the leading theory held. And such sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events, Ebinger said.

"The whole point of this study is to learn whether what is happening in Ethiopia is like what is happening at the bottom of the ocean where it's almost impossible for us to go," says Ebinger. "We knew that if we could establish that, then Ethiopia would essentially be a unique and superb ocean-ridge laboratory for us. Because of the unprecedented cross-border collaboration behind this research, we now know that the answer is yes, it is analogous."

The African and Arabian plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia and have been spreading apart in a rifting process — at a speed of less than 1 inch per year — for the past 30 million years. This rifting formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so. The new ocean would connect to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, an arm of the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia in eastern Africa.

Atalay Ayele, professor at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, led the investigation, gathering seismic data with help from neighboring Eritrea and Ghebrebrhan Ogubazghi, professor at the Eritrea Institute of Technology, and from Yemen with the help of Jamal Sholan of the National Yemen Seismological Observatory Center.

Space hotel says it's on schedule to open in 2012

By Stuart McDill

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost 3 million euro ($4.4 million) for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Galactic Suite Ltd's CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company (http://www.galacticsuite.com) at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future.

"It's very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space," he told Reuters Television.

A nascent space tourism industry is beginning to take shape with construction underway in New Mexico of Spaceport America, the world's first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.

British tycoon Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride.

Galactic Suite Ltd, set up in 2007, hopes to start its project with a single pod in orbit 450 km (280 miles) above the earth, traveling at 30,000 km per hour, with the capacity to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots.

It will take a day and a half to reach the pod - which Claramunt compared to a mountain retreat, with no staff to greet the traveler.

"When the passengers arrive in the rocket, they will join it for 3 days, rocket and capsule. With this we create in the tourist a confidence that he hasn't been abandoned. After 3 days the passenger returns to the transport rocket and returns to earth," he said.

More than 200 people have expressed an interest in traveling to the space hotel and at least 43 people have already reserved.

The numbers are similar for Virgin Galactic with 300 people already paid or signed up for the trip but unlike Branson, Galactic Suite say they will use Russian rockets to transport their guests into space from a spaceport to be built on an island in the Caribbean.

But critics have questioned the project, saying the time frame is unreasonable and also where the money is coming from to finance the project.

Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project.

Jordan- Construction on Irbid wastewater treatment plant to begin soon

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) Construction on a JD40 million wastewater treatment plant to serve Irbid residents is expected to start soon, a senior Ministry of Water and Irrigation official said on Monday.

Once operational, the Al Shallaleh plant is expected to treat 13,500 cubic metres of water daily, serving 16,000 households in southeastern Irbid, Minister of Water and Irrigation Raed Abu Saud said on the sidelines of a signing ceremony yesterday.

Water treated by the plant will be used for irrigation in the northern Jordan Valley and for the cultivation of animal feed, according to the ministry, which signed an agreement with the German consortium of Passavant Roediger and Hussein Attyeh Construction Company to implement the project.

Neighborhoods expected to be served by the plant include Idon, Sarih, Bushra, Howwara, Salm Doqara, Natfeh and Beit Ras in Irbid Governorate, according to a statement released by the ministry,

Construction work on the wastewater treatment plant, which is financed by the German Development Bank (KfW), is expected to be completed within two years, according to the minister.

Abu Saud underlined the importance of the project, which he said is integral to national projects seeking to resolve environmental issues and conserve water, particularly underground water resources.

According to a statement by the ministry, a joint venture of Fichtner Engineering Firm and the Jordanian consultations union will supervise the implementation of the project and provide training on maintenance procedures.

By Mohammad Ghazal

Jordan- Water monitoring system to be established in Aqaba Gulf

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) A JD2 million water monitoring system will be established in the Aqaba Gulf to monitor the quality of water under an agreement signed between the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) and the Regional Organization for the Conservation of the Environment of the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

ASEZA Chief Commissioner Hosni Abu Gheida underlined the importance of the accord, implemented in cooperation with the Aqaba Development Corporation, in inspecting the quality of water to ensure a healthy environment. He indicated that a number of water observatory stations will be established in Aqaba.

Turkey Said To Interfere With EU Patrols

ATHENS [MENL] -- Turkey has been accused of interfering with European Union efforts to block illegal immigration.

Greece has asserted that the Turkish military was hampering EU aircraft from the Frontex program that sought to monitor and stop illegal migration through the Aegean Sea. Ankara was accused of warning the EU air patrols to leave the disputed Aegean.

Turkey Develops Aircraft MOR Facilities

ANKARA [MENL] -- Turkey has been developing its aircraft maintenance and overhaul capabilities.

Turkish Technic plans to invest $600 million to enhance maintenance, overhaul and repair facilities. The Istanbul company, in a $300 million project that would triple capacity, intends to establish a repair center at the city's international airport.

Egypt Could Undergo 'Soft Coup'

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Egypt's regime could be seized by the military in a coup meant to deny plans by President Hosni Mubarak to hand the reins of power to his son.

A report to Congress warned that Egypt's military could stage a coup to prevent the succession by Mubarak to his 46-year-old son, Gamal. The Congressional Research Service said the likelihood of Gamal becoming Egypt's next president has alarmed the military as well as the Islamic-led opposition.

Myanmar Rohingyas swap suppression for squalor

By Shafiq Alam

BANGLADESH - As one of Myanmar's ethnic Muslim Rohingya, 45-year-old Manjurul Islam endured a lifetime of oppression before he finally fled the country for a squalid refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Described by UN officials as one of the most persecuted minorities on earth, the Rohingya are not even recognized as citizens by the Myanmar junta. They have no legal right to own land and are forbidden from marrying or traveling without permission.

For Islam, decades of systematic discrimination came to a head six months ago, when he says his 18-year-old niece and another woman in his village were raped by soldiers.

Islam said he "foolishly" took the case to the chief of the local army camp.

"He listened and I thought we had made progress, but then they tied me and my friends up, beat us with leather belts and bamboo sticks and kicked our chests with their boots."

Rohingyas hail from Myanmar's Arakan state. Widespread abuse and exploitation have prompted hundreds of thousands to flee across the border to Bangladesh since the early 1990s.

Islam and his friends were released a few days later -- but only after his family paid a bribe.

Then a group of soldiers destroyed their village's shrimp farms -- their only source of income - forcing Islam and his neighbors to make a decision they had seen so many make before them.

"In the night, we piled into a boat and crossed the river Naf into Bangladesh," he said.

According to Islam, more than 800 people fled his village over a two-week period in April, with some crossing into Bangladesh by boat and others walking across the forested, hilly border.

"My fifth child was born in the jungle under the open sky as we were fleeing," said Shamsun Nahar, 32, showing her six-month old baby. "Thanks Allah that both of us survived."

But survival brought with it fresh deprivation as Nahar and Islam joined an estimated 25,000 Rohingyas living in appalling conditions in a sprawling, refugee camp.

Only 28,000 Rohingyas in Bangladesh have been granted official refugee status, allowing them access to three official camps which provide basic amenities.

The rest, like Nahar, are confined to the unofficial camp in Kutuplaong in conditions which even hardened aid workers find difficult to imagine.

"There is no water or power. Barring children and pregnant women, none have access to food or medicine. When it rains it's impossible to walk and the mud shacks became too muddy to even sleep in," said a worker with Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger, ACF).

Following EU pressure, the Bangladeshi government has since May this year allowed ACF and another French charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) limited access to the unofficial camp.

"Twenty five thousand Rohingyas are living in dire humanitarian conditions. It's extremely disturbing," said Paul Critchley, the MSF head of mission in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh says it is unable to cope with the continued influx of Rohingyas and the spread of the unofficial camp has stoked local tensions.

In July, police moved into the camp and destroyed several hundred makeshift dwellings in an operation condemned by MSF as "aggressive and abusive".

Despite the squalor and alienation, many Rohingya still feel they are better off here than back in Myanmar.

"Here at this camp there are days I don't have any food. But at least I can live freely," said Mamun Rafiq, a Rohingya farmer who migrated three years ago.

"In Myanmar if you are a Rohingya, you are entitled to a dog's life: They don't even allow us to wear clean shirts or travel outside our village."

Rights groups like the New York-based Human Rights Watch say they have gathered volumes of personal testimony to the abuses visited on the Rohingyas by the Myanmar authorities, including extra-judicial killings and forced labor.

"The Burmese government does not just deny Rohingya their basic rights, it denies they are even Burmese citizens," said Elaine Pearson, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

Mohammad Ali, a Rohingya and head of the Bangladesh-based Arakan Historical Society, said his community's plight began the day Myanmar, formerly Burma, gained independence.

"Our fathers fought hand in hand with the Burmese people to win freedom from Britain in 1948. But once Burma won independence, the new rulers thought it was their country not ours," Ali said.

Such was the experience of Ezhar Hossain, the son of a wealthy farmer who was elected as a lawmaker in Burma's second post-independence polls in 1956 when he was still in his early 20s.

"But my rivals alleged that I used the religion card in the elections. In February 1957, the authorities stripped me of my parliamentary membership," said Hossain, now 75.

When democratic rule ended in 1962 following a military coup by general Ne Win, Hossain, still a prominent Rohingya leader, was accused of being a foreigner and standing illegally for election.

"I did not wait for justice. I've seen how other leaders were hounded and jailed by the junta. I took a boat one night and fled," he said.

Hossain now lives in southern Bangladesh in a tin-shed shack with his son, a janitor at a college.

Hossain was lucky in one respect as he became a naturalized Bangladeshi when the country won independence in 1971.

For contemporary refugees like Islam and Nahar, the future offers a devil's alternative between life in the camp or a risky and illegal journey by boat to another Southeast Asian country.

Hundreds of Rohingya migrants were rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters between December and February after being abandoned at sea with few provisions by the Thai navy.

Scores are feared to have died as they drifted in rickety boats for weeks before reaching land.