Mission & Justice

7/7/08

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades on Monday to stifle protests against the West Bank barrier, declared illegal by the World Court four years ago this week. The army kept a curfew on the Palestinian town of Nilin for the fourth day, using force to keep a small group of protesters and journalists from approaching the cordoned-off town of 5,000. Ayman Nafi, the blockaded town’s mayor, said vegetables, dairy products and some medicines were in short supply and the local pharmacy had not been allowed to open. “They want to send a message: Resisting the construction of the wall will inflict suffering and damage upon you,” Nafi told Reuters by telephone. “Their policy will increase our determination to prevent them from erecting this racist wall.” The army imposed a curfew on Nilin, which lies in the West Bank some 20km east of Tel Aviv, on Friday after violence erupted during protests at a barrier construction site. An army spokesman said eight security personnel and two workers were hurt in protests in the area over the past month.

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26/6/08

An initial investigation into a Syrian site alleged by the US to have hosted a secret nuclear reactor was inconclusive, a senior UN inspector has said. Olli Heinonen, a deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Wednesday that “work needs to be done” in investigating claims that Damascus was hiding a potential nuclear arms programme. Farouk al-Sharaa, Syria’s vice-president, told the Hezbollah-owned Al Manar TV station that the government permitted the inspectors to visit the site to disprove Washington’s accusations. The site of the alleged reactor in al-Kibar, eastern Syria, was bombed by Israeli warplanes in September.

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10/6/08

At least eight people were killed and 17 injured, including four women from the same family, in attacks yesterday in Baghdad and the restive Diyala province, where another mass grave was uncovered, security and medical officials said. A car bomb, targeting an Iraqi police checkpoint near a shopping center in Baghdad’s Karada district, killed five people, including one policeman, and injured 10, police sources told Deutsche Presse— Agentur. Baghdad has seen a wave of attacks using car bombs in the past two days after a relative period of calm that has seen a decrease in violence in recent months. In the restive Diyala province in central Iraq, two attacks left one person dead and seven people injured, the Voices of Iraq news agency cited a police source as saying.

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5/6/08

A US marine has been cleared of covering up the massacre of 24 civilians in Iraq. Women and children were among those killed by US forces in the town of Haditha in 2005. The killings in Haditha are the most serious war crime allegations levelled at US forces since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, 27, was found not guilty by a jury on Wednesday of ordering photos of the slaughtered civilians to be deleted from army computers. Grayson, an intelligence officer, was not present when the Iraqis were shot dead by US marines on November 19, 2005, shortly after a roadside bomb killed a US soldier nearby.

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2/6/08

A United Nations nuclear watchdog team will visit Syria from June 22-24 in order to pursue an investigation into U.S. intelligence alleging that Damascus secretly built an atomic reactor, the agency’s chief said on Monday. The reported reactor site was destroyed in an Israeli air raid last September and Washington handed over intelligence to the International Atomic Energy Agency in April for verification purposes. Syria has denied any covert nuclear arms project. “It has now been agreed that an agency team will visit Syria during the period 22-24 of June. I look forward to Syria’s full cooperation in this matter,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told a meeting of the agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors. He did not say whether Syria, which had not responded for months to IAEA requests for access, would allow U.N. investigators to examine the al-Kibar site in the country’s remote northeast desert.

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Bernard Kouchner; 22/5/08

A bid by Egypt to broker a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel has faltered after the radical Palestinian group failed to secure a pledge to lift an Israeli-imposed siege on Gaza, Palestinian officials said Thursday. Last month, Hamas and other Palestinian factions gave their tentative approval to a cease-fire with Israel in an Egyptian attempt to mediate the deal. But Israeli leaders expressed concerns and outlined conditions for any possible truce deal with Hamas. Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Omar Suleiman this week about the idea of a cooling off period with Israel, but left Cairo abruptly Wednesday without announcing the much-anticipated truce.

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11/5/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7768

Women cyclists ride through the streets of Amman on Friday. The ride, which has become an annual event to campaign for peace and highlight the plight of Arab women, started in the Lebanese capital last week and the cyclists passed through Syria before arriving in the Kingdom through the Jaber crossing. More than 250 women from 30 countries including the US, Britain, Japan, South Africa, Turkey and Iran are taking part in the event, being held for the fourth consecutive year. Yesterday, the women rode to Madaba, where they visited religious and historical sites as well as Mount Nebo and the Baptism Site. The ‘Follow the Women’ bike ride was set up in 2003 by Detta Regan, a well-known international youth work adviser and European Woman of the Year in 2004

The announcement that Israel is willing to give up the entire Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria, was not new to the Syrians. This talk has been in the air since 2005. So has been talk of an upcoming war between Syria and Israel. Average Syrians are confused. One day they get every indicator in the world, that war is in the immediate horizon. War sirens go off on a specific date at a specific hour every month - a war drill unheard of since 1973.  In April 2008, the Israeli Defence Forces begin the largest manoeuvres in history on its border with Syria. The Syrian army calls in its reserves.

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