Israeli army closes Bethlehem checkpoints

31/10/2010

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers closed down all Bethlehem checkpoints on Saturday evening, prohibiting any movement in or out of the West Bank city.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the closure was imposed after shots were fired at an Israeli vehicle in the area. No one was injured in the incident, she said.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=329206.

Suicide blast hits Istanbul

At least 15 wounded in explosion carried out by suicide bomber in heart of Turkish city, police say.

31 Oct 2010

At least 15 people have been injured in an attack carried out by a suspected suicide bomber in the Turkish city of Istanbul, police say.

There were also unconfirmed reports of at least two people being killed in the incident on Sunday.

"We think it was a suicide attack," Huseyin Capkin, the police chief, said.

He said six of the injured were civilians and nine were police. Two of the wounded were in a serious condition.

The alleged bomber was said to have blown himself up close to where the police were stationed in Taksim Square in the heart of the city's shopping district.

"One one side of the square, usually a series of police buses are parked, on guard for any kind of civil disorder. The target of this explosion appears to have been one of two buses," Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from the scene, said.

"Eyewitnesses I've spoken to said they saw at least two bodies being carried away, so at least two people may have been killed."

She said some buildings around the square had been damaged in the blast.

Following the blast, a security cordon was thrown round the area and the nearby Istiklal street was closed off for pedestrians.

Source: Al-Jazeera.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net//news/europe/2010/10/2010103185656175601.html.

First luxury hotel to open in Ramallah

By Joseph Krauss (AFP)

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — The opening of Ramallah's first five-star hotel on Monday will mark another small step in the West Bank town's steady march towards something resembling normal life.

But its sixth-floor executive lounge looks out on a panorama of unresolved issues that cloud the economic outlook -- a built-up Israeli settlement on a nearby hilltop, a Palestinian refugee camp down below and the hazy skyline of distant Jerusalem beyond a grim separation wall.

The Movenpick Hotel Ramallah, a locally owned franchise of the Swiss-based chain, is aimed primarily at corporate clients and has been billed as yet another indication that the occupied West Bank is open for business.

"The past is the past. We believe in the future of the country and the future of this hotel. It's a beautiful investment and an opportunity for Ramallah," says general manager Daniel Roche.

The 40-million-dollar hotel includes 171 rooms and suites, an outdoor pool, fitness center and seven conference rooms. The main restaurant has an Italian chef and a downstairs cigar bar that will serve up 20-year aged whiskeys.

It will cater to the entrepreneurs, aid workers and diplomats who have flocked to Ramallah in recent years as security has improved following the 2000-2005 Palestinian uprising.

A string of chic new bars and restaurants have already turned the town into an easy-going Palestinian approximation of Tel Aviv, the transformation underpinned by technocratic reforms and a massive influx of foreign aid.

It has all happened at a time of pervasive pessimism over the peace process, which sputtered back to life in early September only to stall three weeks later with the expiry of a partial Israeli settlement moratorium.

That has Palestinian officials and investors -- many of whom have vivid memories of past periods of calm collapsing into renewed chaos -- casting a wary eye on the latest signs of prosperity.

Many point out the Movenpick was first conceived during the halcyon early years of the peace process in the 1990s but frozen by the unrest that followed.

"Without political progress, security and economic progress is not sustainable," Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib says.

"This is what we have learned from the 43-year history of the occupation."

The International Monetary Fund has also urged caution, warning recent double-digit economic growth has been mainly driven by the four billion dollars in foreign aid the Palestinian Authority has received since 2007.

In September it warned the West Bank's growth was shaped more by Israeli restrictions than comparative economic advantage and was "bound to decline" if Israel did not take further steps to improve movement and access.

"Let's keep it in perspective," says Maher Hamdan, CEO of the Palestine Trade Center, or Paltrade, which represents more than 320 local businesses.

"The potential for economic growth and attracting investment would be an order of magnitude of what it is today if you really had a peace process."

Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American businessman who launched a shopping mall and supermarket chain in 2004 and now runs a consulting firm specializing in start-ups, says the appearance of normal economic life can be deceiving.

"These are investors who have taken a leap of faith with the conviction the occupation will end," he says.

"So they are willing to wait out their investment hoping that they will be well-positioned, once the occupation ends, to be the first movers on the market... They are investing in the future, and that's a high risk."

Although Israel has lifted several of the hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks it maintains across the territory, trade remains difficult, and economic activity is heavily restricted in the more than 60 percent of the West Bank that is fully governed by the Israeli military.

"Another few cafes, another few hotels, is not going to build an economic foundation for statehood," Bahour says.

"What will is borders, water, land, and the ability of Palestinians to trade directly with the outside world."

Even high-profile projects like the Movenpick routinely encounter difficulties and delays in importing goods into the territory.

"Every single piece that had to be imported for the hotel was subject to Israeli procedures at the crossings, and these delayed work," says Talal Nasreddin, one of the owners of the Movenpick Hotel Ramallah.

That has meant, among other things, that the Movenpick will not immediately be able to offer the chain's trademark ice cream.

"We are working on that, and we will definitely one day have ice cream," Roche, the general manager, says. "It's a long process."

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Haniyeh rules out new war on Gaza

31-10-2010

Agencies-Gaza Strip-Gaza government Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that Israeli threats to launch a new offensive on the Strip were psychological warfare, but that he did not think a new attack was approaching.

Speaking at a mass wedding for those injured in the last war on Gaza, Haniyeh said threats of war could not harm Palestinians' spirits or ability to survive. The wedding party was evidence of that, he said.

Haniyeh's comments echoed earlier remarks by Hamas leader Ismail Radwan, who said statements by senior Israeli army officials threatening a new war on Gaza were propaganda to be consumed by local media for the benefit of Israelis.

Radwan added that the resistance movement in the Strip was ready to respond if Israel did attack Gaza. Such offensives did not break the resistance of Palestinians in the past, and they would not break or intimidate Palestinians now, he said.

Hamas official Salah Al-Bardawil however said Saturday that Israel was preparing to launch a new offensive on the Strip in order to disrupt reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. The rival factions are said to be close to ending their division, and both parties have said security remains the only issue to be resolved before Hamas signs an Egyptian-mediated unity paper, which Fatah has already ratified.

Several high-ranking Israeli officers have made statements to the media recently warning of a repeat of Israel's last war on the coastal enclave, which left 1,400 Palestinians dead and thousands more injured. One senior officer, quoted in the Israeli daily Haaretz, said if another soldier was captured Israel's response would be no less severe than the December 2008 war. In September, commander Eyal Eisenberg warned that the next war on Gaza would be a "more painful, complex, and powerful round" in an interview with the Israeli news site Ynet.

Source: Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades - Information Office.
Link: http://www.qassam.ps/news-3694-Haniyeh_rules_out_new_war_on_Gaza.html.

Egyptians know the next Israeli war on Gaza

31-10-2010

Al Qassam website - Top Egyptian officials informed Palestinian authorities in Ramallah that Israel has its sights set on launching a military strike on the Gaza Strip by the end of 2010, political analyst Mustafa Al Sawaf said, adding that Cairo has placed conditions to hinder agreement between Palestinian factions on security issues.

Sawaf said on Saturday that he was informed by sources who accompanied a visit by Egyptian officials to the PA headquarters in Ramallah last Thursday that Egyptian intelligence minister Omar Sulaiman told Abbas that Netanyahu’s security consultant, who visited Cairo a few days back, informed Egypt that Israel will carry out a military strike on the Gaza Strip before the year’s end.

Quoting informed sources, Sawaf said Omar Sulaiman told Abbas that Netanyahu’s consultant said the Israeli government was not content with Hamas’s growing military strength or with humanitarian aid convoys allowed to be sent to the Gaza Strip through Egypt.

Sawaf speculated that the Egyptian government may tighten its blockade on the Gaza Strip by denying the passage of aid convoys and sympathizers and monitoring borders to stop the import of weapons to Gaza.

Sawaf said that Cairo imposed conditions on Fatah negotiators before going to meet with Hamas in Damascus to discuss security issues mainly not to accept that Hamas cadres would assume command of any security forces in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, but the Egyptian regime did not object to Hamas members acting as elements of such security forces.

Hamas would not agree to such conditions, the political analyst asserted, which means that a reconciliation relied on by the Palestinian people would not be achieved.

“We’re not talking about this to undermine Egypt, as Egypt is too big to be undermined, but we put these matters out there now so the picture becomes clear to everyone, and to reveal the nature of the [Egyptian] regime, which works to materialize the interests of Israel and America at the expense of the interests of the Palestinian people,” the writer went on to say.

Source: Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades - Information Office.
Link: http://www.qassam.ps/news-3691-Egyptians_know_the_next_Israeli_war_on_Gaza.html.

Eerie calm follows big blast at Indonesian volcano

By SLAMET RIYADI, Associated Press

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia – Thousands of villagers returned to their homes along the slopes of Indonesia's most volatile volcano Sunday, taking advantage of an eerie lull following its most powerful eruption in a deadly week to check on crops and livestock.

Scientists warned, however, that the notoriously unpredictable mountain could burst back to life at any minute.

On the other side of the archipelago, aid deliveries to survivors of a tsunami that barreled into the Mentawai islands one week ago, killing at least 449 people, were expected to resume Sunday, thanks to a break in stormy weather that had grounded planes and ships.

A teenage girl with an open chest wound was among those waiting for help.

The simultaneous catastrophes have severely tested the emergency response network in Indonesia, which lies in the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a cluster of fault lines prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Mount Merapi, which means "Fire Mountain," unleashed a terrifying 21-minute eruption early Saturday, forcing the temporary closure of a nearby airport and claiming the life of a woman who crashed on her motorcycle during a chaotic last-minute evacuation.

Two other people hospitalized with burn injuries died overnight, said Nelis Zuliastri from the National Disaster Management Agency, bringing the death toll from the volcano's activity to 38.

A fiery red glow emanated from its peak Sunday and black clouds of ash tumbled from its cauldron, but the violent bursts and rumbling of the last 48 hours had all but stopped.

"It's still dangerous," warned Surono, chief of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. "Often a major eruption, like the one we saw Saturday, is followed first by a period of silence, and then by another big blast."

Government camps well away from the base were overflowing with 53,000 people who have fled the mountain's eruptions, said Zuliastri.

More than 2,000 troops have been called in to help keep villagers away during periods of high activity.

When the mountain is calm, however, they are allowed to go back for several hours between dawn and early afternoon to check on their precious livestock and crops.

"My farm has been destroyed by volcanic debris and thick dust. ... All I have left now are my cows and goats," said Subarkah, a farmer from Balerante, a village less than two miles (three kilometers) from the crater's mouth.

"I have to find grass and bring it up to them, otherwise they'll die," he said.

In the tsunami zone, meanwhile, where more than 23,000 people have been displaced, a break in weather raised hopes that boats and helicopters would be able to ferry noodles, sardines and sleeping mats to the most distant corners of the Mentawai Islands.

Relief efforts were brought to a halt Saturday by stormy weather and rough seas.

The death toll climbed to 449 on Sunday up from 413 the previous day with the discovery of more bodies in the disaster-zone, said Zuliastri. But the number of missing — once in the hundreds — dropped to 96 as more islanders returned home after fleeing to safety in the hills.

Survivors were growing increasingly desperate.

At an overwhelmed hospital in Sikakap, the main town on Pagai Utara island, doctors said they need medical supplies to help about 150 injured in the wave. The hospital's swelteringly hot rooms were filled with the moans of patients with flushed, sweat-coated faces.

"We need morphine," said Dr. Alyssa Scurrah, who flew in from Sydney, Australia. She said the hospital was desperate for a generator, antibiotics and a chest drain.

One of Scurrah's patients was a 12-year-old girl who was struggling to breathe due to an open chest wound. She clenched her teeth and cried out as a doctor applied cotton pads to the gash along her rib cage.

The doctor said the girl needs to go to Padang for surgery, but no one could get off the island Saturday because of the weather.

"If she stays here, she may not live," Scurrah said.

___

Associated Press writers Achmad Ibrahim and Kristen Gelineau in the Mentawai islands and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta contributed to this report.

French airline makes landmark flight to Baghdad

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

BAGHDAD – A French airliner landed at Baghdad International Airport Sunday, becoming one of the first passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to stronger international business ties.

The inaugural flight by France's Aigle Azur, which touched down shortly before 6 a.m. local time, carried French officials and journalists and was largely ceremonial. The airline won't begin regularly scheduled passenger flights for another two to three months, but if successful, the flights would mark an important milestone in Iraq's economic development.

"It will also be a chance, a new chance for the development of business between France and Iraq but more globally, between Europe and Iraq," said France's top trade official, Anne-Marie Idrac, who was on board the flight.

Some carriers, such as Austrian Airlines, fly from western Europe to the Kurdish city of Irbil. Regional airlines such as the Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, Bahrain's Gulf Air, the Beirut-based MEA airline and Turkish Airlines fly to the Iraqi capital.

But there are no direct passenger flights between Baghdad and western Europe. Stockholm-based Nordic Airways launched commercial flights to Baghdad from Copenhagen, Denmark, in January 2009 but its operating license was revoked later that month.

The lack of major European carriers flying to Baghdad shows the difficulties the country is having attracting major foreign investments in anything but the surest economic bets. Although some Western companies placed bids in the country's first round of oil licensing last year, it was only for the biggest and safest fields.

When the airline began planning the route about a year ago, they wanted to begin passenger service immediately after the inaugural flight, said the president of Aigle Azur's executive board, Francois Hersen. But there wasn't enough passenger interest, in part due to Iraq's political and security problems.

The country is in its eighth month without a new government after March 7 national elections failed to produce a clear winner. And violence, although much reduced, continues to claim lives.

Hersen said the airline is confident they'll have enough customers when flights start in earnest early next year.

Attempts by Iraq's national carrier, Iraqi Airways, to launch flights to London in April were swiftly quashed when lawyers for neighboring Kuwait tried to confiscate the inaugural plane upon landing in London to settle debts related to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The Aigle Azur flight, which took off late Saturday from Paris, carried a delegation of French business leaders planning to attend the Baghdad International Fair, an annual showcase designed to attract businesses to Iraq.

When regular flights begin early next year, the French airline plans to fly into Baghdad twice a week from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.

A ticket for one of the 124 economy seats will be about 1,500 euros, or $2,100. The 24 business class seats on the Airbus A319 will cost around 2,500 euros, or $3,500, each, Hersen said.

Aigle Azur is a French carrier operating out of Paris's Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports that mainly flies to locations in Africa such as Algeria, Mali, Morocco and Tunisia. They also operate flights to the French cities of Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Mulhouse and Toulouse.

The German carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG was slated to begin regular flights between Munich and Baghdad Sept. 30 but canceled them due to a lack of customer interest.

The news was a blow to Iraq's hopes to reconnect Baghdad with international capitals since most Western airlines discontinued flights to the city after the 1991 Gulf War.

Many potential investors still view Iraq with trepidation.

"We are worried about security. We would not be able to come (to Iraq) by ourselves. The cost of security is too important to us," said a businessman on the flight, Lionel Cuenca, from the French company Gindre Duchavany, which specializes in copper products.

For years, many regional and Western carriers shied away from Iraq due to safety concerns. The few airlines that did fly in and out of the airport, formerly named after Saddam Hussein, performed a tight corkscrew when landing, a spiraling maneuver designed to protect them from missile attack.