Thousands of Kurds attend funeral of Kurdish rebel

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 17, 2011

ANKARA, Turkey: Thousands of Kurds have turned out for the funeral of one of 12 Kurdish rebels killed by Turkish troops as they attempted to sneak into Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.

Turkish media say mourners, waving the red-yellow-green banners of the outlawed rebel group, chanted anti-government slogans as they marched toward the cemetery in the southeastern city of Hakkari on Tuesday.

The weekend’s rebel losses have fueled tensions in the run-up to June 12 national elections. Rebel supporters have attacked police with stones and firebombs in the southeast and in Istanbul.

The rebels have been fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast since 1984 and have threatened to intensify their attacks if Turkey does not agree to negotiations by June 15.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article409937.ece.

Saudis seek night vision systems

WASHINGTON, May 17 (UPI) -- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is seeking $330 million worth of night vision and thermal vision equipment from the United States.

The Foreign Military Sale would comprise 200 High-performance In-Line Sniper Sight Thermal Weapon Sights -- 1,500 meter; 200 MilCAM Recon III LocatIR Long Range, Light Weight Thermal Binoculars with Geo Location; 7,000 Dual Beam Aiming Lasers; and 6,000 AN/PVS-21 Low Profile Night Vision Goggles.

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in its notification to Congress, said the possible sale also would include spare and repair parts, support equipment, technical documentation and publications, translation services, training, U. S. government and contractor technical and logistics support services and other related elements of logistical and program support.

The proposed sale would bolster Saudi Arabia's capability to meet current and future threats from potential adversaries during operations conducted at night and during low-visibility conditions, it said.

The Saudi military is responsible for regional, perimeter and border security operations and the proposed sale meets their defense and counter-terrorism requirements to deter current insurgent activity along their southern border and contributes to their overall military posture, the agency added.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/05/17/Saudis-seek-night-vision-systems/UPI-59891305632070/.

IAI plans display of missiles

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 17 (UPI) -- Israel Aerospace Industries reports it will present a new maritime application for its Jumper autonomous artillery system in Singapore this week.

Other systems by IAI, its division and subsidiaries on display at the Singapore International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference include unmanned aerial vehicles, radars and surveillance payloads.

"IAI is always striving to achieve new goals and extract its abilities to the max," said Itzhak Nissan, president and chief executive officer of IAI. "In this maritime exhibition we shall present our advanced technologies and products, which deliver (to) our clients the best solutions in all fronts."

Jumper -- designed and manufactured by the MLM Division MLM Division of Systems, Missiles and Space Group -- is a precision tactical weapon system launched from a Vertical Launcher Hive to strike targets at ranges of up to 31 miles.

The VLH can be deployed on a truck or on the ground or on a vessel deck for sea-to-land fire support.

The VLH is composed of eight or more canistered missiles and one integrated command and control unit. Each Jumper missile is GPS/INS equipped.

IAI is also showing its Naval Barak-8 long-range missile defense and air defense systems; the Naval Lahat advanced Laser Homing Attack Missile; its fixed-wing Maritime Heron unmanned aerial system and naval rotary UAV; and Multi-function Surveillance Track and Guidance Radar and Advanced Lightweight Phased Array Naval Radar Vertical Takeoff/Landing System.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/05/17/IAI-plans-display-of-missiles/UPI-69631305626143/.

Israel detains Islamic Jihad leader without charge or trial

Monday 16/05/2011

JENIN (Ma'an) -- Israeli military authorities on Monday sentenced an Islamic Jihad leader to six months in prison without charge or trial, a detainees' center said.

Sheikh Bassam Al-Sadi will be held at Ofer military prison near Ramallah under administrative detention, the center said.

Al-Sadi was detained immediately after Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo, the center noted, adding that he was detained only two months after finishing an 8-year sentence in Israeli prisons.

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has recorded thousands of cases of administrative detention in which Palestinians have been detained "for prolonged periods of time, without prosecuting them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their attorneys to study the evidence."

Israeli military officials can hold detainees in administrative detention for up to six months, but the term is indefinitely renewable.

Detainees can spend years in Israeli prisons without ever knowing what they are accused of. Their lawyers are not told what the charges are, undermining their ability to defend their clients.

"In practice, Israel breaches international law, while misusing the powers given to military commanders in the Administrative Detention Order," B'Tselem says.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=388301.

New solar product captures up to 95 percent of light energy

Columbia MO (SPX) May 17, 2011

Efficiency is a problem with today's solar panels; they only collect about 20 percent of available light. Now, a University of Missouri engineer has developed a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 percent of available light, and he plans to make prototypes available to consumers within the next five years.

Patrick Pinhero, an associate professor in the MU Chemical Engineering Department, says energy generated using traditional photovoltaic (PV) methods of solar collection is inefficient and neglects much of the available solar electromagnetic (sunlight) spectrum.

The device his team has developed - essentially a thin, moldable sheet of small antennas called nantenna - can harvest the heat from industrial processes and convert it into usable electricity.

Their ambition is to extend this concept to a direct solar facing nantenna device capable of collecting solar irradiation in the near infrared and optical regions of the solar spectrum.

Working with his former team at the Idaho National Laboratory and Garrett Moddel, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Pinhero and his team have now developed a way to extract electricity from the collected heat and sunlight using special high-speed electrical circuitry.

This team also partners with Dennis Slafer of MicroContinuum, Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., to immediately port laboratory bench-scale technologies into manufacturable devices that can be inexpensively mass-produced.

"Our overall goal is to collect and utilize as much solar energy as is theoretically possible and bring it to the commercial market in an inexpensive package that is accessible to everyone," Pinhero said.

"If successful, this product will put us orders of magnitudes ahead of the current solar energy technologies we have available to us today."

As part of a rollout plan, the team is securing funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and private investors. The second phase features an energy-harvesting device for existing industrial infrastructure, including heat-process factories and solar farms.

Within five years, the research team believes they will have a product that complements conventional PV solar panels. Because it's a flexible film, Pinhero believes it could be incorporated into roof shingle products, or be custom-made to power vehicles.

Once the funding is secure, Pinhero envisions several commercial product spin-offs, including infrared (IR) detection. These include improved contraband-identifying products for airports and the military, optical computing, and infrared line-of-sight telecommunications.

Source: Solar Daily.
Link: http://www.solardaily.com/reports/New_solar_product_captures_up_to_95_percent_of_light_energy_999.html.

Al-Nakba in Jordan – Shame has a new name

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

By Julie Webb for Scoop

Following Friday's peaceful event, over a thousand people on Sunday commemorated Al-Nakba by traveling from Amman to the Square of the Unknown Soldier, outside the town of Karameh, in the Jordan valley, several kilometers from the border with Israel.

Al-Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’, is the term describing the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages in 1948, including massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages, to establish the State of
Israel.

Not much has changed in the intervening years – except, perhaps, for the identity of the persecutors.

Sunday’s event at the Square of the Unknown Soldier, some eight kilometers from the King Hussein Bridge border crossing, was attended by hundreds of women and children, as well as young Palestinians who have never set foot in their own country.

But on Sunday it was not Israeli forces shooting them, beating them, throwing rocks at them, and trying to drive them away, it was Jordanians.

Jordanian police, Jordanian security forces, Jordanian gendarme, Jordanian hired thugs viciously attacking unarmed and peaceful Palestinians gathering to mark this significant day, in this significant location.

Karameh, where in 1968 Jordanian forces successfully fought alongside the Palestine Liberation Organization to repel the invading Israeli army. Karameh, whose name means "Dignity."

To what will surely be their eternal shame, Jordanian forces brutalized Palestinians for their dignified reminder to the world of their continued oppression by Israel.

The actions of the Jordanian security forces are incomprehensible - there was no attempt to cross the border - the crossing is some 8km away.

The accompanying photos show the Palestinian gathering, calm and peaceful, with young Palestinians joining hands in front of the police line to keep the families at a respectful distance. This video shows what I saw happening shortly afterwards, when three men walked down the road to leave, shortly after those photos were taken.

I had to hide the camera when we were surrounded by police and goons pursuing them, who ripped stakes out of the ground to use as weapons. Minutes later, more men armed with sticks and rocks attacked the crowd, aided and abetted by the uniformed thugs. This was but the first of several unprovoked, and completely unjustifiable, attacks with rocks, pieces of wood, teargas, and live fire over the next few hours on the unarmed Palestinians, the media, and a few foreigners there in support.

Scores were injured, with at least 19 requiring hospital treatment - one person shot in the stomach is now in a satisfactory condition.

The insult of Jordan’s unprovoked attacks on Palestinian dignity – and in the town of that name - and its apparent protecting of Israeli interests, will, like Al-Nakba itself, undoubtedly resonate throughout Jordan and beyond.

Shame, Jordan, SHAME.

Source: Scoop.
Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1105/S00153/al-nakba-in-jordan-shame-has-a-new-name.htm.

Libya's Benghazi laments city's decay under Gaddafi

By Mohammed Abbas
BENGHAZI | Mon May 16, 2011

(Reuters) - Down narrow rubbish-strewn alleys or wedged between concrete buildings, an occasional Italian or Ottoman architectural gem hints at drab and dilapidated Benghazi's cosmopolitan past.

The decaying structures in the east Libyan city are a symbol of the neglect the people of the region say they suffered under Muammar Gaddafi, whose control of Libya's east was ended by mass protests and an armed uprising in February.

Now that his writ has ended, Benghazi can openly lament the damage and isolation that 41 years of his rule has wrought.

"There was once a beautiful Turkish souk here. I remember in the 1980s when the shopkeepers were forcibly evicted, some under gunfire, before it was demolished," said Abdullah Hassy, 43, who lives in what could be a stunning Benghazi square.

On one side of the square is a local government building in use before Gaddafi overthrew King Idris in a 1969 coup.

An ornate mixture of Italian and Turkish styles and comprising a clock tower, the building seems set to collapse, its interior full of rubbish, graffiti and reeking of urine.

Once a pretty city of souks, Italian colonial buildings and Ottoman villas, Benghazi suffered heavy bombing by the allies in World War 2. Four decades of Gaddafi's quasi-socialist rule have been equally unkind.

Modern Benghazi is mostly made up of utilitarian concrete blocks and patches of waste ground. The few relatively glitzy structures, such as hotels, are business interests of Gaddafi or those close to him.

"This Ottoman mosque was restored by the worshipers, not Gaddafi. The only buildings Gaddafi cared about were the ones related to him," said Hassan Joudah, 20, pointing to a yellow mosque on the other side of the square.

Gaddafi took better care of the capital Tripoli in Libya's west, and his home town Sirte, which state largesse has transformed from a nondescript village into a mini-city, home to government institutions and a showcase for his power.

Leading away from the square are Italian-style shopping colonnades topped by shuttered windows and curved iron Juliet balconies. At the end of the northern colonnade lies perhaps the most potent symbol of the city's neglect.

BELATED RESTORATION

A cavernous double-domed Catholic cathedral dominates the city's waterfront, and in an adjoining wing statues lie in open crates like coffins, while stone friezes depicting Christ lie in open boxes on the floor.

The wing's windows are long gone and its door has no lock, leaving the artwork open to the elements and passers-by.

Built in the 1930s under Italian occupation, the cathedral has not been used for decades, its interior damaged by fire.

Shafts of sunlight from cracked stained glass windows pierce the charred gloomy interior, highlighting floating motes of dust. The floor is a sea of feathers and bird droppings.

Wali Saleh, head of Benghazi's council for the preservation and restoration of old buildings, said the friezes and statues were removed and packed away after the fire.

He said his appointment in April last year under Gaddafi's rule was part of his administration's belated attempts to stop the architectural rot in Benghazi.

"There was some younger blood coming up in Gaddafi's administration, and they started to pay attention to the old buildings, from a historical and tourism perspective," he said.

On taking his post, he blocked the destruction of old buildings and commissioned a survey, finding 173 old structures in Benghazi in need of protection.

There are signs of some rudimentary restoration work, with scaffolding propping up the Benghazi local government building and parts of the cathedral, but Saleh said work stalled due to bureaucratic problems with Tripoli and a lack of funds.

With Benghazi's new rebel leadership struggling for finance, it is unlikely that further restoration will take place any time soon, but Saleh is hopeful.

"There's been a change of mentality. When I speak to the new executive, they all seem to love this city and are sad about what's happened to it," he said.

"They seem really keen to preserve Benghazi, and tie its new future to its past."

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/us-libya-benghazi-idUSTRE74F3ZP20110516.