Gaza Health Ministry: UNRWA holding up shipments of medical supplies

September 3, 2009

Gaza – Ma’an – The Ministry of Health in the de facto government in Gaza accused the UN refugee relief agency UNRWA on Thursday of withholding a shipment of medical supplies and equipment for months.

In a statement, the de facto Ministry of Health said that "the seizure of drugs by UNRWA has affected the lives of thousands of patients who needed treatment and medicine urgently. Dozens of patients have died because of the lack of medicine and because of the ongoing [Israeli] siege."

Ma’an contacted UNRWA officials in Gaza who said they were preparing a response.

The statement continued, "A group of staff from the Ministry of Health went to receive the medicine which was in the UNRWA warehouses near the Karni crossing. There were large quantities of medicines and medical equipment with labels indicating they were designated for the Palestinian Ministry of Health and for Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza."

Kidney dialysis equipment and medications used to treat cancer were among the detained goods, the ministry of health said.

Israel’s two-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip has causes shortages of critical medical supplies.

The ministry said this action was not befitting UNRWA’s otherwise impressive record as an organization. "We in the Ministry of Health condemn such behavior by UNRWA, an agency we have known for years, that has stood up and supported the Palestinian people and defend them in all international forums."

The statement went on to accuse UNRWA of complicity in the blockade of Gaza.

The Ministry of Health demanded that UNRWA hand over the materials as soon as possible.

Israel Schemes in Kurdistan

By Les Blough, Axis of Logic

September 3, 2009

On August 12, 2009, Radio Netherlands announced, "New Israel-Kurd magazine surprises Arab world". The article is republished below for the reader's convenience. Axis of Logic correspondent, analyst and writer, Cherifa Sirry writes from Egypt:

"Why the new magazine, 'Israel-Kurd' has been created for "building bridges between Israel and Kurdistan" to promote 'Israeli emigration to Iraq' is the obvious question. This is quite strange considering the amount of money spent by "the Jewish state" on attracting Jews and now even 'converts' to immigrate to the 'Jewish state'. Demography is one of Israel's worst enemies. So what is the objective of this new magazine?"

Cherifa raises a good question. Perhaps the following conditions provide some context for understanding this push to build "Israeli-Kurd bridges":

*
The U.S./Israel war objective to break up and remap Iraq into 3 entities which gives the Kurds U.S.-controlled "autonomy" in Northern Iraq.

*
The Kurds' cross-border raids from Northern Iraq into Southern Turkey and Turkey's bombing of PKK targets inside Northern Iraq.

*
The push for Turkey to open trade with Northern Iraq and their reluctance to do so.

We can't be sure what the specific goals of the U.S. and Israel are for the new magazine, immigration of Jews into Northern Iraq or the pretext of strengthening relations between Israel and the Kurds. As Cherifa says, there are reasons to doubt their pretext of sending Kurdish Jews in Israel back to Kurdistan. The argument in the article - that this move is meant to protect Israel from Arabs turning the Kurds against Israel - also begs credibility.

More probable explanations for sending a few Kurdish Jews from Israel into Northern Iraq involve military objectives and money:

* This migration plan allows Israel to create cover for Mossad's covert operations in Northern Iraq and eventually, an overt military presence in the region.

* The Israelis seeks to gain control of the petroleum in Northern Iraq and to position themselves for doing business in the region. "Business" would include one of their most lucrative exports - weapons.

The Turkish government has always been unprincipled in choosing it's trading partners, motivated by greed for the ruling elite. It has been a whore for trade with Israel since they signed a trade pact in 2000 and between 2002 and 2008 their trade volume with Israel went from $1.4 billion to $3.3 billion, increasing 36% in 2008. Israeli-Turkish trade was launched with a contract for Israel to modernize M-60 tanks for $668 million, 300 military helicopters for $57 million. Three other contracts to modernize Turkey's war jets landed Israel $850 million.

The problem Turkey has with this Faustian pact can be summed up in "the people". Like all capitalist governments, Ankara operates not in the interest of the Turkish people but in the interest of their leaders and corporate-led special interest groups. Ankara criticized Israel's slaughter in Gaza in 2008-2009 and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of the Gaza session in Davos for one reason only - to pacify the vast majority of Turks who support the Palestinians and flatly reject doing business with the Jewish state. In 2006, 50,000 Turks rose up in protest against one Israeli assault on Gaza in which 12 Palestinians were killed and many more wounded. On January 2, 2009, thousands of Turks again protested Israel's killing of over 1,300 defenseless Gazans. The general population, some opposition party members, intellectuals, 19 bar associations and other groups demanded that Turkey cut military and trade relations with Israel. Their government responded with empty words of condemnation but no concrete action against Israel, ignoring the demands and simply telling their people that cutting military and trade ties would not stop Israel's attacks on Palestinians.

The new Jewish migration scheme gives Israel an official, overt presence in Northern Iraq, seeping into Turkish Kurdistan and Iranian Kurdistan, threatening Turkey, destabilising the region and building military and economic power for the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Radio Netherlands, namesake of a Mossad stronghold in Europe, wraps the new "Israel-Kurd" magazine in worn out slogans of "freedom of expression ... interest in the history of Kurdish Jews ... building bridges" and of course, with a mission to save the Jewish State, known for its narcissism-victim syndrome, from persecution by those nasty Arabs.

From a Farce Elections to Genocide

Afghan Resistance Statement
From a Farce Elections to Genocide
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Ramadan 15, 1430 A.H, September 6, 2009


In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The recent staying away of the Afghan Mujahid people from the foreign-dominated electoral process and their clear-cut opposition to the farce election showed once again that the Afghans have decided to resist all ambitious goals and projects of the invaders. This is because the election being conducted by direct bullying, intimidation and arrogance of the invaders has no validity in their eyes. Their unambiguous posturing portrayed that they are not ready to live under the yoke of colonialism even for a little while.

It was more becoming for the Americans to have behaved in a reasonable and mellowed manner after the failure of the election parody; they should have expressed their anger and hopelessness, which was brought about by the election boycott of the Afghan nation, in such ways as news conferences, statements, commentaries etc.

We know the Americans deserve to be offended and angered at the boycott of the Afghan people because they spent billions of dollars and passed through eight prolonged years of belligerence but still they were not able to prevail on the Afghans to leave their houses to cast votes , ironically, in an American project. Ostensibly, the project was aimed at showing to the American people that the Afghans were voluntarily taking part in the election despite the military presence of USA in the country.

But the severe explosion in Kandahar city which killed innocent citizens of Kandahar at the time of sunset when they were to break their fast, showed the polling day frustration and disappointment has driven the invaders to frenzy, fury and bestiality they even are not sparing to exact revenge for the low turnout during this month of fasting and shed blood during these sacred days.

If the Americans believe that they can mislead the Afghans by resorting to explosions and civilian killings, they are wrong. They must know that their crimes will not remain secret from the knowledge of the public for good. You will never be able to spread the cobweb of hatred and division by perpetrating mass murders through pre-planned explosions and fish in troubled water by implicating the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in such heinous events. The Afghan know whose hands are behind such gruesome incidents.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, for his own part, does not believe that such wicked and horrific events will ever bring victory. The Mujahideen affiliated with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan venture to confront the invading enemy and their surrogates face-to-face in combat in order to avoid civilian casualties. Using this tactic, the Mujahideen daily attack the enemy and take them by shock and awe.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is greatly concerned over the sanguinary event of Kandahar and shares the pains and grief of the bereft families and prays to the Almighty Allah to save this miserable nation from further tragedies, grief and anomalies.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Assad to visit Turkey for talks on peace process

DAMASCUS (AFP) - President Bashar al-Assad is to visit Ankara on Wednesday for talks with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul focused on the Middle East peace process, Syria's ambassador to Turkey said on Monday.

His talks in Ankara will also cover "means to calm the political situation" in the region, Nidal Qabalan told AFP, contacted from Damascus.

Apart from brokering indirect Israeli-Syrian peace talks, Turkey has also been trying to defuse tensions between Damascus and Baghdad after Iraqi accusations that Damascus was sheltering insurgents.

Referring to Arab newspaper reports that Assad could meet Iraqi ministers in the Turkish capital, Qabalan said it was "normal for such meetings to take place when the conditions are right," without elaborating.

The Iraqi government said on Monday it will send a delegation to Turkey on Tuesday with evidence backing its allegations that terrorist groups based in Syria orchestrated deadly bombings in Baghdad.

Assad has dismissed the allegations as "immoral" and politically motivated.

Philippines to send 336 peace-keeping troops to Syria

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. Monday said Manila will send a 336-strong peacekeeping battalion to the Golan Heights in Syria.

Teodoro, who returned from a visit to the United States, told reporters at the airport that he assured UN Undersecretary for Peacekeeping Alain Le Roy in New York of Philippines' un-swerved commitment to the UN peace-keeping missions.

"Despite our own constraints and requirements, we can be expected to continue to fulfill our obligations as a responsible and reliable troop-contributing country," the defense chief said.

He said the first batch of Filipino troops to the Golan Heights will leave Manila at the end of this month. The entire contingent is expected to be on the ground and take over the peacekeeping responsibilities of the Polish Battalion in the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) mission area before the end of October.

The Philippines sent its first UN peacekeeping forces to Congo in the 1960s. Since then, Manila has contributed military and police personnel to UN missions in Cambodia, Burundi, Georgia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo and Nepal, the Department of Defense said in a statement.

At present, the Philippines is the 29th largest troop contributor to UN peace operations with a total of 611 Filipino peacekeepers, made up of 295 troops, 22 military observers and 294police officers serving in Afghanistan, Cote d' Ivoire, Darfur, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and Timor Leste, it said.

In rich Norway, tight election is underway

Norwegians have begun voting in a tight election, as opinion polls show the country divided between the Labor-led coalition and the center-right opposition.

Voting began on Sunday and polling stations are due to at 9 pm on Monday, with exit polls expected to be released soon afterward.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg stands a fair chance of leading the world's second-richest nation for another four years, but opposition is also enjoying favorable odds with the promise of tax cuts, experts say.

"It's almost 50-50 if you look at the polls … The trend in the last few elections is that the sitting government loses some of its support even if they do fairly well," Bloomberg quoted Johannes Bergh, a political scientist at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, as saying.

Stoltenberg, in power since 2005, has built his campaign on his success in guiding Norway through the economic crisis, a process that saw the 50-year-old and his partners -- the Socialist Left and the Center Party -- pump $420 billion of the national oil revenue into the economy to steer clear of the financial slump while ensuring the lowest unemployment rate in Europe.

If re-elected, the premier would be the first leader to enjoy another shot at power in 16 years.

Meanwhile, the splintered four-party opposition says Stoltenberg has failed to uproot poverty and improve healthcare.

In two out of five polls in the days leading to the vote, the opposition, led by the Progress Party and the Conservatives, had a majority of parliamentary seats.

The premier's main challenger, Progress Party leader Siv Jensen, has also vowed to cut down on immigration.

IAEA approves Japan's Amano as next chief

Yukiya Amano has been formally appointed the next director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei.

Amano, who was chosen by the IAEA's 35-member board of governors in July, was approved by the 150 members of the UN nuclear watchdog on the first day of the agency's annual weeklong general conference on Monday.

Amano is to replace ElBaradei on December 1. He will serve the agency for four years.

"I humbly accept the appointment to this prominent post and express my sincere gratitude to the member states for their support and trust," said the 62-year-old Amano in his first address to the IAEA.

In his speech, Tokyo's envoy to the IAEA acknowledged ElBaradei "for his outstanding contribution to the agency during his 12-year tenure".

While Amano did not refer to Iran in his speech, the outgoing IAEA chief urged Iran to "engage substantively with the agency."

ElBaradei said that "a number of questions and allegations that cast doubt on the peaceful nature of (Iran's civilian nuclear) program are still outstanding," adding that these concerns are a matter of 'confidence-building' and can be easily overcome through 'dialogue'.

"I therefore welcome the offer of the US to initiate a dialogue with Iran, without preconditions and on the basis of mutual respect," he concluded.