Select a news topic from the list below, then select a news article to read.
WASHINGTON
(AP) – U.S. defense officials have signaled that up-to-date attack
plans are available if needed in the escalating crisis over Iran’s
nuclear aims, although no strike appears imminent.
[As seen in the Iraq war, placement of military resources on war footing adds to the pressure to go to war – editor]
Only
yesterday, 10 days later, was Abu Taha’s entry to Israel arranged. The
Palestinian ambulance carrying him waited at the checkpoint for five
hours before being allowed to cross. Today, the family was informed
that Abu Taha died a few hours after he crossed into Israel , although
they have not yet received any specific details on his death. The
father was released from detention following his son’s death.
{mosimage}
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WASHINGTON
(AP) – Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United
States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult
population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And
homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly
veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into
shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with
finding a job.
Rory McCarthy on one Palestinian’s patient struggle to uncover the truth about his 10-year-old daughter’s death
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Fifteen Bedouin homes were destroyed by Israeli government order in the southern Negev.
The unoccupied homes were located in the unrecognized villages of Wadi Al-Na’am and A-Sera.
Construction is continuing in dozens of Jewish settlements in the West
Bank despite Israel’s pledge to freeze their expansion, an campaign
group has said.
Peace Now says Jewish population growth is three times higher in the area occupied in 1967 than in Israel itself.
It says settlers are bypassing a ban on using caravans to expand settlements by erecting pre-fabricated homes on site.
Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are deemed illegal under international law.
{josquote}Settler leaders expressed pleasure about Peace Now’s report, thanking it for “documenting their endeavour”{/josquote}
Israel had pledged to stop their construction as part of internationally-backed peace efforts.
Peace Now says there is continuing construction in 88 out of about 150
of the authorised settlements, in addition to the building of permanent
structures in 34 unauthorised settlement outposts.
Settler leaders expressed pleasure about Peace Now’s report, thanking it for “documenting their endeavour”.
Timing the placement into movie theaters the last two weeks of the new
documentary, ”Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains,” before the proposed
Middle East conference in Annapolis this year was not intentional. But
the irony of the former president’s clarity on the Palestinian question
contrasts sharply with the refusal by George W. Bush to face harsh
reality that casts a pall over hopes to conclude his presidency with a
diplomatic triumph.
{josquote}Carter repeatedly declares Israel must end its occupation
of Palestine for peace to have a chance.{/josquote}
The film is more assertive than the book, which tends to be prolix in
recounting Carter’s experiences with Israel. It was the word
”apartheid” in the title that spawned instant accusations of
anti-Semitism against the former president and led 14 members of the
Carter Center’s board of counselors to resign. Not until page 215 near
the end of the slim book did Carter make it clear that the ”policy now
being followed” on the West Bank is ”a system of apartheid with two
peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each
other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by
depriving Palestinians of their basic rights.”
In the movie, Carter repeatedly declares Israel must end its occupation
of Palestine for peace to have a chance. The hecklers at his
appearances and confused interviewers only provoke a stubborn Carter,
who says chopping up the West Bank is actually worse than apartheid,
just as Palestinian peace-seekers told me this year in Jerusalem.
It is ironic how everyone across the spectrum – politicians, civil
society and the average man on the street – all stress on the
protection of innocent civilians during times of conflict, and yet it
is these very civilians who pay the heaviest price.
This is not exclusive to Palestine. Look at Iraq or Afghanistan. The
United States, the great defender of democracy and civil rights, prides
itself on waging war right. The “innocent civilians” caught in the
midst of its sublime endeavor to grant freedom and independence to the
Iraqi people are brushed off as unfortunate collateral damage. They
were never the target of America’s wrath, the US claims, but they are
certainly the ones who have suffered from it the most.
Here in Palestine, the Gaza Strip is the new Iraq. This cramped 365 km2
piece of land is packed with 1.4 million people, most of whom are
living in poverty and unemployment and all of whom have been virtually
isolated from the rest of the world, particularly since last June.
Israel's supreme court has ordered the government to redraw the route of the West Bank barrier near Bilin village, a key focus of anti-barrier protest.
The court accepted an appeal by Bilin residents, who had argued that the barrier prevented them from reaching 50% of their agricultural land.
Weekly protests against the barrier have been held there for two years.
The Israeli government says the barrier is a security measure but Palestinians view it as an illegal land grab.
The International Court of Justice issued an advisory ruling in 2004 that the barrier breached international law where it is built on occupied territory and should be dismantled.
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