Constant Israeli attacks on graves and shrines

"The Case of Awarta village"
The Land Research Center - LRC

February 3, 2010

The village of Awarta, Nablus district, is known for its green plains and high hills and long history of Maqamat (religious shrines and monuments) indicating its ancient history and authenticity. Awarta village was on the new date of the serial attacks by colonizers on its land and people when a dozen of military vehicles accompanied by 8 bus boarded by at least 350 colonizers from several colonies moved into the village after midnight, 20 January, 2010.

The Israeli soldiers deliberately, in a move to guard the security of the colonizers imposed curfew on the village and then they ascended the roofs of high houses in the village, destroying the contents of those homes and repeating defamatory words against women in those houses. At the same time, the colonizers took it upon themselves to spread across the village, especially in the vicinity of the three shrines:

1. The place of the seventy Sheikhs adjacent to the cemetery which is located in the center of the village;
2. The place of the Mufadel (the favorite) adjacent to the village mosque;
3. The place of Azirat located in the southern outskirts of the village and adjacent to the village males' High School.

The colonizers attacked and destroyed a number of gravestones without regard to the sanctity and dignity of the dead, and dumped bottles of alcohol and some remnants of food on the graves adjacent to the shrine of the Seventy Sheikhs which was, also, partially burned. In addition to this, the attackers wrote some outrageous statements against the Islamic religion and people of the village on the walls of the profaned tombs.

On the other hand, the colonizers raided the Al Mufadel shrine favorite, where they wrote slogans and graphics offensive to Islam and the people of the village in English and Russian in addition to Hebrew, as well as abusing the martyrs of the village by distorting their photos hanging on the walls of the village houses by adding some outrageous graphics on them, and even the map of Palestine in the middle of The village was not spared as they allocated the sites of some colonies on it and wrote their names in defiance of the feelings of the village population.

Also, the village secondary school for boys became under attack when colonizers broke the school gate to get access to the courtyard for dancing and singing loudly in the center of the village to scare its citizens.

In an interview with LRC field researcher, Mr. Hani Darawsha, 43 years old, and member of the village local council, said: 'For the three shrines which go back to the Mamluk era (13-15 century), the Samaritan Jews living in the city of Nablus used to visit them regularly in their religious feasts. After 1987, groups of colonizers began to attack the village from time to time under the protection of the occupation army and in other times on their own under the cover of dark to visit the shrines of the three for allegedly being biblical symbols for them. They claim that Prophet Moses received the Torah from his Lord in the area. Hence, the colonizers used to break into the village under this rationale, so we are now afraid that the three Muslim shrines become an Israeli outpost and a friction point after the media campaign and allegations of religious extremists'.

A brief introduction to Awarta village:

The Awarta village is located about 7 km south east of the city of Nablus and it is a historic village and a gateway to the southern hills and mountains of Nablus region. The village is bordered from north by the city of Nablus and the town of Beit Furik, from south by the villages of Bita and Odela, from west by Hawara and from east by the town of Aqraba. The village overlooks more than 12 Palestinian villages and towns in addition to Nablus city and part of the territory of the village is located within the municipal boundaries of Nablus.

The village area is 15,051 dunums (1 dunum=1000m2) of which 653 dunums are built up zone, and the rest of the land is fertile agricultural land covered with olives trees of old Roman species indicating its seniority. The village is, also, famous for growing wheat, barley, legumes. The population of the village was about 5,623 people at the end of 2007 according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. About 2,388 dunums or 15.8% of the village total area were appropriated by the occupation authorities for settlement building and expansion.

The village of Awarta lacks the elements of infrastructure, including a water network despite the fact that the village lies on one of the biggest water aquifer in the West Bank. To get water, the village citizens totally depend on water harvesting wells and water tankers which are costly for them. Currently, a huge water tank is under construction in the plain of the village of Rujib to solve the water problem in the area. This project is funded by international humanitarian organizations.

The nearby Itamar colony:

Established in 1984 on the anniversary of the declaration of the Israeli state over land confiscated from the three villages of Awarta, Yanun and Beit Furik.

According to the Foundation for Middle East Peace- Washington, the colony's population at the end of 2008 was 785, and its total municipal area was 6036 dunums of which 253 dunums built up zone.

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=62902&s2=04.

US presence in Pakistan exposed

Pakistani public is furious as evidence of Washington's military influence builds.
Samira Shackle

February 4, 2010

Yesterday came news of a bomb attack on a road convoy near a school in Pakistan. On the surface, this is nothing out of the ordinary -- reports of bombings in Pakistan come thick and fast, particularly in the lawless and fraught North-West Frontier Province, where the latest attack took place.

But this was different. The initial reports had it that "three westerners" were among the ten people killed. First, officials said they were journalists, then aid workers. It later emerged that they were US soldiers.

Which raises the question -- what were these soldiers doing there? Officially, there are no US troops stationed in Pakistan. But the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reports:

According to a statement by the US embassy in Islamabad, the US troops killed in the attack were training FC [Frontier Corps] soldiers on a request by the Pakistani government.

It is reported that the Americans have given the Frontier Corps program $43.8m worth of equipment. And US officials say Washington is ready to spend up to $400m on upgrading the corps. This is on top of the $1.5bn that Washington gives Islamabad each year by way of straightforward (non-military) aid. So the Frontier Corps assistance is a way of propping up the Pakistani military, rather than a secret US offensive. Nonetheless, the program has been conducted behind the scenes.

I have blogged before about the lack of clarity around exactly what US policy in Pakistan entails, and this program is a case in point. It might not be secret, but it is certainly not transparent. The Toronto Star reports: "Most Pakistanis interviewed Wednesday had no idea US soldiers were stationed in the north-west."

The administration is reluctant to shout about the policy because the public is overwhelmingly opposed to any US involvement in Pakistan at all. A poll last October found that 80 per cent of Pakistanis were opposed to the idea of US assistance in fighting the Taliban.

For President Asif Ali Zardari's government, the timing could not be worse. A scandal recently erupted over the presence of the US security contractor Blackwater in Pakistan. Both governments have denied it, but amid the media storm, evidence is growing that the firm is indeed operating in the country.

Islamabad has also been inconsistent about the US drone attacks taking place in Waziristan, which have claimed the lives of more than 600 people in the past year. While the government outwardly criticizes every attack, the drone assaults are reportedly launched from a Pakistani military base in Balochistan.

It is unclear whether the Taliban deliberately targeted the convoy or whether the killing of the US soldiers was a coincidence, but either way, they have scored an unexpected victory by sending the covert military strategy hurtling into the public eye, further destabilizing the already wobbling Islamabad government.

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=62922&s2=05.

Ishraq the Iraqi girl...another victim of America and the puppet government

Hiba Al Shamaree, translation by Hussein Anwar

February 4, 2010

The following short story is translated from Hiba Al Shamaree's Blog, an Iraqi doctor who blogs for her country...and for such stories the puppet government arrested her, put her in prison and put her on trial on the basis of funding and encouraging the terrorists.

Ishraq is a graduated from the Institute of Management - Accounting Department in 2001, a former employee at the Ministry of Commerce, before the occupation, without mentioning names. She belongs to an ancient Arab tribe in Iraq, you will know the details of her story in the context of these lines, she comes from a middle class family consisting of a father, mother and four brothers.

On 9 4 2003 (The day the Americans took Baghdad) their house was bombed by an American death tank in Ghazaliya neighborhood, invading the neighborhood like snakes, spreading death and terror in people lives. The bomb killed the father and two of her brothers leaving the third handicapped and the fourth young, she and her mother managed to live since they were in a room at the back of the house, which protected them from the bomb of death that destroyed the room the rest of her family were staying at, that killed 3 men and ruined the future of the fourth while the future of the rest of the family became unknown.

After the funeral, Ishraq's mother left Baghdad and headed to another province (without mentioning names out of respect for people's privacy) there the younger brother insisted on joining a gang that kidnaps people for a 10,000 dollar ransom. Ishraq, her mother and the disabled brother tried to convince their brother to change his mind...but in vain, they tried to dissuade him from playing with people's lives in exchange of dollars stained with the blood of the innocent and the tears of many mothers.

The insistence of the brother put him between the hands of the devil that uses human beings to fulfill his own desires until they are expired. And this is exactly what happened, the younger brother was killed by the same gang when they were dividing the ransom money among them, after that the province became a hell of fire when the Americans came to burn the green and the ground, forcing Ishraq to flee with her mother and her handicapped brother to a near by village (without mentioning the name of the village) it wont do any good mentioning the name of the village...after all there is no point in telling the dead what type of weapon killed them.

The disabled son's condition deteriorated, his disability was a reason to serious complications and because things became more difficult for Ishraq...a women with broken wings who needed money.

Ishraq and what is left of her family left Iraq, she was forced to find a job, holding her CV in her hands, a job in a country with a high unemployment rate, but Ishraq did not find any job with a respectable salary to pay for the medical expenses of her brother and rebuild her aging mother, and in a foreign land...she was consuming her money day by day and so were her choices and options.

It is a logical hope to say in a country of pluralistic democratic system...if that was correct to describe it, if they have to resort to the Iraqi embassy...to say so, as will do any decent Iraqi citizen...in search for help.

But the ambassador was not of her sect...he refused to receive her. And the embassy's Consul in Charge of the Affairs was not of her race so if she chooses to take the wrong path...that will not hurt his conscience nor he will feel guilty or remorse.

The Consul was a big time womanizer, he sexually harassed her. The rest of the employees in the embassy are not from her sect, nor from her race, from different political parties they did not help her because they did not feel obliged to help her.

There was no choice for her but the street...which knows no mercy, and actually that is what happened because the road to the devil does not need any directions to reach it.

Here Ishraq sold her body to different Arab nationalities in our great Arab homeland (without mentioning the nationalities out of respect for the good and patriotic people from these countries) selling her body with other Arab girls in a nightclub in one of the Capitals of an Arab country.

This nightclub belongs to one of these new politicians in Iraq but I will mention his name to blow this spy's cover...it is my Patriotic duty to mention his name, he is none but Mowafaq Al Rubaie may God curse him.

Ishraq is your honor...will you vote for him so that he will send more of your daughters to his nightclub, trading your honor for other people? Sending them to his other nightclubs in other Arab countries? the answer lies within you because I boycott any elections where America and Iran occupy Iraq...my country

Note: Ishraq is the name she was known by in that nightclub.

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=62910&s2=05.

What next, Viva Palestina?

Stuart Littlewood

January 10, 2010

Mere words cannot express my admiration for Viva Palestina and those who devote their efforts to it. I love the way they shamed – and not for the first time – the great powers and their gutless leaders.

And for his pains the British MP George Galloway has been declared 'persona non grata' in Egypt. How heartbreaking for him.

Given past disagreements, and the stubborn refusal of this latest convoy to be derailed, it was never going to end in hugs and kisses from President Mubarak's henchmen, or fond messages of "Come ye back soon, George."

What really matters is that they delivered the life-saving goods when the armies and navies of the so-called Free World wouldn’t even think about it. And they did it with style in the face of Egypt’s tantrums.

The nervous Egyptian authorities allowed exhausted convoy members only 30 hours inside Gaza to say hello, distribute their aid and take a rest. Sad and wobbly regimes simply cannot handle a few hundred humanitarians so they accuse them of "incitement" and "hostile acts", and throw them out.

Now we hear grumbles from some activists that criticizing Egypt diverts attention from the real culprit. But Israel's evil machinations would find little success without the Egyptian government's co-operation. There should of course be free movement of goods and people through the Gaza/Egypt border. Instead, Mubarak signed up to the US-Israel-EU conspiracy to keep the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip bottled up and helpless to resist what many are calling a slow genocide. In so doing, Egypt joined the worst offenders against international law, the UN Charter and the codes of decent conduct. It is time the spotlight fell on Cairo even if it means momentarily taking it off Tel Aviv and Washington.

Mubarak has slithered even further into the Middle East swamp of iniquity by constructing an iron Death Wall designed to create a hermetic border seal and inflict even more misery on his Muslim bothers and sisters, and the Christian community.

The Egyptian president is certainly not part of any solution. He has become a problem.

As for Mr Galloway, when can we expect to see him receive an official pat on the back for doing what the British government’s poseurs were too cowardly to do: bringing humanitarian aid to trampled people Britain still has a residual responsibility for?

Mr Galloway speaks of more convoys setting out for Gaza from Venezuela, Malaysia and South Africa. But Egypt has just announced that convoys, regardless of their origin, are no longer welcome. Instead, it is introducing a new "mechanism" whereby all aid for Gaza must in future be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent as soon as it arrives at the port of El-Arish. It will then be processed and passed on (if you can believe that) to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Nobody trusts the Egyptian authorities to do this in an honest and transparent way. Besides, donors and fund-raisers often have direct links with charitable organizations inside Gaza and the West Bank. They would not wish to see the fruits of their labor and other people's generosity disappear into some distribution 'black hole'.

Britain still blames Hamas for Gaza’s suffering

And what says the British government, which never seems able to get anything right these days?

The Foreign Office’s "clear advice" is against all travel to Gaza. Why, when they should be facilitating travel to Gaza and applying sanctions against anyone who hinders it?

"The suffering of Gazan people is compounded by the violent and irresponsible actions of Hamas," says the Foreign Office. "We are concerned by the recent upsurge in incidents of Hamas confiscating aid and obstructing the efforts of international aid organizations in Gaza." We keep hearing these accusations but never proof. Gaza is on a war footing, under crippling blockade and in continual crisis. Hamas, the de facto government, runs the health service and is almost certainly best placed to know where medical supplies are needed most. Obviously they’ll step in when aid arrives.

Viva Palestina are at least as well informed about the situation in Gaza as the Foreign Office. Would convoy activists really go to so much trouble if Hamas was seizing everything they delivered?

Britain, while eagerly offering the services of the Royal Navy to help Israel stop "smuggling" into Gaza, won’t use its ships to spare the Gazans a slow death from starvation and prevent a public health catastrophe.

It is time our servants Brown and Miliband explained, carefully and logically, exactly what their problem is with Gaza and its democratically elected rulers so that the rest of us can try to understand – if indeed there is anything beneath the layers of pro-Israel 'crapaganda’ worth understanding.

Go by sea

Events now seem to be prodding Viva Palestina to change tack. Perhaps it is too simplistic to suppose that Gaza needs to be sea-fed like any other coastal community. But should humanitarian relief teams continue to seek access by land crossings that are controlled by militarized thugs bent on destroying Gaza’s population and halting any convoy in its tracks?

Deal direct. Surely that must be the aim. And do it in the name of God. A large armada of boats led by a multi-faith alliance demanding freedom of the seas and the right to an armed escort, could be the best vehicle. The United Nations should provide the necessary security arrangements to check the cargoes as they are landed in Gaza.

It would require considerable courage. Whether religious leaders have the balls for it is doubtful, even when the highest moral purpose is being served, but they might surprise us. A sprinkling of politicians could be relied on but the higher echelons know which side their bread is buttered.

Israel, Egypt, the US and the UK might wish to airbrush Mr Galloway out of the picture, but that’s unthinkable. He’ll be nominated for the next Nobel Peace Prize and seen as a million times more deserving than the fraud in the White House.

Yes, the REAL international community – that’s ordinary folk like you and me and Viva Palestina and everyone and his dog around the globe – are finally beginning to assert themselves against the corrupt power freaks that strut the world stage.

Stuart Littlewood
10 January 2010

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=62039&s2=11.

'WFP should abide by Al-Shabab rules'

Sun Feb 21, 2010

Somali fighters say they will not allow the World Food Program (WFP) to run operations in Al-Shabab-controlled regions unless the UN body abides by their laws.

"The Somali farmers found better economy since WFP left the regions," claimed Al-Shabab's Sheik Moktar Robow Ali, also known as Abu Mansour, in a report by local media on Saturday.

He also added that WFP could help the local agriculture sector but intentionally avoided such move, noting, "As known, WFP buys food from the American farmers. It buys each sack $50 dollar and it does not like to buy the food of the Somali people."

WFP officials have reportedly identified difficulties in money transfer as the main obstacle to buying agricultural products and delivering 'large amounts of money' to Somali farmers.

The UN body says more than 1.4 million people are in 'dire' need of food in southern Somalia alone.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/119136.html.

Weightlifting ant wins science photo award

An image of an ant lifting 100 times its body weight wins first prize in the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) science photo competition.

"It won first prize because it was a beautiful image and managed to convey complex science," said the BBSRC on Sunday.

The image shows the Asian weaver ant hanging upside down on a glass-like surface and holding a 500mg weight in its jaws.

Zoology specialist Dr. Thomas Endlein of Cambridge University took the photograph as he researched insects' sticky feet.

According to Endlein, ants change the size and shape of the pads on their feet in an attempt to enable them to carry heavier loads.

The zoology specialist further expressed hopes that the finding could help scientists develop better glues.

"The pads on ants' feet are self-cleaning and can stick to almost any type of surface," Endlein said.

"No man-made glue or adhesive system can match this. Understanding how animals can control their adhesive systems should help us come up with clever adhesives in the future," he added.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119134§ionid=3510212.

Abdullah slams Karzai's Taliban peace offer

(WARNING): Article contains propaganda!

* * * * *

The Afghan president's main rival in last year's elections has expressed doubt about the success of the government's US-backed offer of peace with the Taliban.

“I don't think that they know what they are talking about,” Abdullah Abdullah said on Saturday, noting that Karzai's peace-at-any-price plan is "very vague."

"Sometimes they give the perception that if everything is being done in order to reconcile tomorrow with the Taliban there will be peace,” added Abdullah.

He added that the developments could only lead to some minor peace deals at local levels.

Abdullah went on to explain that although the ongoing US-led military offensive could push some low-ranking Taliban militants to join peace talks, permanent victory depends on how civilians living in the area are treated.

“Militarily it could be a success but lasting success means that we have the people on our side. That's winning the hearts and minds of the people and that's the job of the Afghan government. So what sort of system replaces what was going on there, that's important."

He also blamed Pakistan for jeopardizing security in Afghanistan, saying Islamabad is a main supporter of the Taliban.

Abdullah's comments came weeks after President Hamid Karzai proposed a US backed plan to talk militants into the country's political structure. He hoped this would end the violence in Afghanistan.

The Taliban has repeatedly turned down the offer, demanding foreign forces leave the war-torn country first.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119132§ionid=351020403.