U.S. prepares to withdraw, Iraqi resistance prepares for battle
By Ned Parker
…The commander and another insurgent leader interviewed for this story belong to the secret world of Sunni tribesmen and old military officers who laid down their arms and helped bring relative peace to Iraq in the last two years. They decided to try to fight the Shiite religious parties in control of the government through political channels instead — but they never renounced the insurgency. Now the dormant insurgent groups, with men, weapon s and networks intact, are approaching their moment of truth. If their efforts to enter the mainstream fail, it appears almost inevitable that they will take up arms again, either after national elections early next year or sooner….
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US Holds Journalist Without Charges in Iraq
Liz Sly
The soldiers came at 1:30 a.m, rousing family members who were sleeping on the roof to escape the late-summer heat. They broke down the front door. Accompanied by dogs, American and Iraqi troops burst into the Jassam family home in the town of Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad. “Where is the journalist Ibrahim?” one of the Iraqi soldiers barked at the grandparents, children and grandchildren as they staggered blearily down the stairs. Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photograp her for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. “Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers.” The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded….
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Despite Pledges, NATO Air Strikes Continue to Kill Afghan Civilians
Innocent Farmer Exonerated, After Being Killed in Air Strike
Jason Ditz
On Wednesday, NATO forces launched an air strike in Afghanistan Paktika Province, targeting a farmer along the road. The farmer was wounded, and later died of his wounds. NATO later admitted that “a subsequent investigation has determined that the individual was not emplacing improvised explosive devices, as originally suspected.” On Friday, NATO forces launched an air stri ke against a garden in Wardak Province, hitting a road construction crew. One of the workers was killed and 18 others were injured. According to the head of the provincial council, five of the wounded are in critical condition…
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Dairy From the Ruins of Gaza
Kawther Salam
In one of the most beautiful areas of Gaza, near the beach and the beautiful sea. The driver of our vehicle stopped in front of the ruins of a big house. Spontaneously I asked why we stopped near dsc_5351athis particular house, said Austrian-Arab Dr. Tarek Afifi who was in Gaza with a delegation organized by the Federation of Austrian-Arab Doctor and the Austrian organization Saar, The “Society for Austro-Arab Relations”. “This was Abu Ammar’s house, the house of President Arafa t, who died under the Israeli siege in Ramallah.”…
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Israel Armed Israeli police close theatre on first night of Palestinian festival
Rory McCarthy
Armed Israeli police last night tried to halt the opening night of a prominent Palestinian literary festival in Jerusalem when they ordered a Palestinian theatre to close. The week-long festival, supported by the British council and Unesco, has brought several high-profile international authors – among them Henning Mankell, Michael Palin and Ahdaf Soueif – on a speaking tour of Jerusalem and the West Bank. Shortly before the op ening event was due to begin, a squad of around a dozen Israeli border police walked into the Palestinian National Theatre, in east Jerusalem, and ordered it to be closed….
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Palestinian internal strife drags on
The National
“The picture in Palestine today is worthy of a surreal masterpiece: dialogue between factions in Cairo has come to nil, though it may well have been their last chance; there is an old government in Gaza, usually referred to as dissolved; then there is a new government in the West Bank, ordered by Mahmoud Abbas, which predictably piqued Hamas and spurred, for the first time ever, opposition from within Fatah itself,” wrote Mamdouh al Sheikh in an opinion piece for the Emira ti daily Al Bayane. So, the formation of the new Salam Fayyad government in the West Bank comes like a euthanasia bullet in the temple of the faltering Palestinian dialogue. Palestinians are doomed to a conflict between two types of legitimacy: one of values, the other of procedure. Arguments over the legitimacy of Hamas or Fatah principles eventually morph into mutual treachery charges. “Each group accuses the other of serving foreign agendas and claims to be a better representative of the Palestinian people.”..
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Over 20 percent of Iraqis live below the poverty line
IRIN news
Some 20-25 percent of Iraq’s estimated 27 million population lives below the country’s poverty line, a government survey released on 21 May has found. Though wide disparities were found between northern and southern provinces, the government said the results were better than expected. “Poverty is concentrated in the Iraqi rural areas more than in the urban areas in all provinces,” said the survey, which was conducted by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Deve lopment Cooperation….
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Egyptian Authorities blocked the entry of “Hope” into Gaza
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
The Egyptian Authorities blocked on Sunday the European Hope Convoy, filled with medical aid, from crossing into the Gaza Strip despite all preparations and calls on Egypt to facilitate the entry of the convoy into the besieged and impoverished coastal region. The Egyptian authorities only allowed some members of the convoy and some said to cross into Gaza , but the European Campaign to End the Siege said that is insufficient and would not en able Gaza hospitals to treat the patients, especially those injured during the three-week Israel offensive earlier this year…
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Mental trauma of displaced Pakistani children
By Nasir Jaffry, AFP
Nabila Bibi sits in a tent in the blistering heat thinking about the dolls she left behind at home in the Pakistani mountains where the army and Taliban rebels are killing each other. Rosy-cheeked Nabila understands nothing about Islamist insurgents and Pakistan’s latest military offensive against them, which the United Nations said has displaced around 1.5 million people this month alone. She is more concerned about her “lonely” dolls…
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Fatah facing deepest crisis ever
From Khalid Amayreh
Fatah leaders have accused Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his allies of seeking the “dismantling” and “disintegration” of the movement in order to facilitate “the liquidation” of the Palestinian cause. Some of these leaders have charged that the Fatah organization Abbas is trying reconstruct is “closer to Netanyahu than it is to the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom and independence.” According to Fatah sources in the West Bank , A bbas has been taking measures to consolidate supporters and allies in “sensitive positions” while “isolating opponents.”..
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Gaza death sentences cause Hamas-Fatah row
Ma’an News
A Hamas military court in Gaza sentenced three men convicted of killing two journalists to death by firing squad on Sunday, prompting protest from Hamas’ opponent, Fatah. A three judge panel handed the sentences to Shadi Khader Ahmad, 30, Shadi Abd Al-Karim Al-Madhoon and Raed Sabri Al-Maqousi, 29, for the kidnap and murder of journalists Muhammad Abdo and Suleiman Al-Ashi in May 2007. Abdo and Al-Ashi worked for Filastine (Palestine) a newspaper considered to be pro-H amas. They were killed in a spate of Hamas-Fatah violence just one month before the civil war in which Hamas took full control of Gaza… Fatah warned Hamas, who is control the Gaza Strip, against harming three….
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Russia: Hamas talks needed for mideast peace
Ma’an News
Russia’s foreign minister was quoted on Sunday saying talks with Hamas are “needed” to achieve peace in the Middle East, a day after he met the group’s political leader in Damascus. “We are certain that this is needed,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Sergei Lavrov as saying on Sunday after meeting Khalid Mash’al, the head of Hamas’ political bureau in the Syrian capital, where he lives in exile. “It was the first very important step on the way to overcoming the present stagnation in the negotiations process,” Lavrov said about the meeting…
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