Dec 14, 2011
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS
Source;Yahoo News Maktoob
Abu Dhabi, Dec 14 (IANS/WAM) Officials of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have met representatives from Norway, Denmark and Hungary and discussed ways to expand trade and investment.
Minister of Economy Sultan Al Mansouri met Ase Elin Bjerke, the ambassador of Norway, and Poul Hoiness, the ambassador of Denmark.
Al Mansouri reiterated his country's interest in expanding trade, technological and investment cooperation with the Scandinavian countries, and to tap their expertise in the telecommunications, education, technology and energy sectors.
There are over 100 Danish as well as Norwegian companies operating in the UAE.
Meanwhile, the director for Europe at the ministry of foreign affairs, Mohammed Saif Hilal Al-Shehhi, met Hungarian ambassador Janos Gonci and discussed bilateral relations.
--IANS/WAM
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Jordan set to end reliance on Egyptian gas
December 17th, 2011
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
JORDAN IS SET to move away from Egyptian gas due to the growing unreliability of the country’s main energy source, officials say.
In a statement earlier this week, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Qutaiba Abu Qura announced that the ministry is intensifying efforts to secure alternatives to Egyptian gas, on which Jordan relies for 80 per cent of its electricity generation needs, adding that the resource will not factor in the Kingdom’s future energy plans.
The minister’s statement, issued during a meeting of the Lower House Finance Committee, came amidst reports in the Egyptian press that Amman has gone back on its decision to ratify a new natural gas agreement, which was approved by the Cabinet in August and has been pending Cairo’s approval.
Officials denied that Jordan has formally withdrawn its support for the amended agreement, under which Egypt is expected to triple gas prices.
“We have had no developments, either towards ending or signing the new agreement,” Farouq Hiyari, the energy ministry’s secretary general, told The Jordan Times.
Despite the denials, according to a ministry source, frustration over the unreliability of gas supplies and a lack of communication from the Egyptian side has led Jordanian officials to “give up” on an arrangement that at its peak supplied the Kingdom with some 300 million cubic feet per day.
The Egyptian ministry of petrol declined to comment.
Cairo has yet to resume pumping since a Sinai explosion cut supplies on November 28, marking the ninth attack on supply line since the beginning of the year and the third in less than a month.
The most recent attacks came amidst assurances by Egyptian authorities that an increased military presence in the Sinai Peninsula combined with the arrest of several jihadists allegedly behind the spate of attacks would lead to the security of the pipeline.
According to sources at E-Gas, one of the two firms that oversee the 400-kilometre Arab Gas Pipeline - which also supplies Israel - repairs have faced “unexpected” delays leading to the prolonged disruption, which has forced the Kingdom’s power plants onto their fuel reserves at a cost of some JD3 million per day.
Economists say the series of attacks have had a direct impact on Jordan, with the series of disruptions pushing the national energy bill to record levels - over JD4 billion - and expected to widen the National Electric Power Company’s budget deficit to JD1.4 billion by the end of the year.
“For months NEPCO has covered the difference in price between natural gas and heavy oil, but this burden has become unsustainable,” NEPCO General Manager Ghaleb Maabreh recently told The Jordan Times.
According to officials, a ministerial team is to travel to Cairo “soon” to review the issue of gas supplies with their Egyptian counterparts before Jordan formally moves to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas.
Meanwhile, Hiyari said talks are intensifying with Iraq and several Arab Gulf states over the potential of importing natural and liquid gas over the next decade as Jordan attempts to develop domestic energy sources including oil shale and nuclear power.
Despite the renewed efforts to secure additional energy sources, officials say it will take up to two years from the signing of any agreement before Jordan can benefit from a new energy market due to infrastructure requirements.
Should Jordan decide to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas supplies, Hiyari said the government will resort to the international energy market to maintain electricity generation in parallel with its drive to secure additional energy sources.
“We will have no problem meeting the needs of electricity plants needs with oil and diesel during this period,” Hiyari said.
Energy officials privately conceded that the move will impact electricity tariffs as heavy fuel oil and diesel are much costlier than Egyptian gas imports, which Jordan previously received at prices of less than half the international market rate.
Sources claim the government has previously hesitated to formally end the country’s gas deal with Egypt for fear of raising electricity tariffs at a time of popular unrest over a struggling economy and a stalled political reform drive.
“Officials have finally come to the decision they can no longer wait around for the Egyptian situation to improve,” said an energy official who was not authorised to speak to the press.
“They have come to the terms that Jordan can no longer rely on subsidised energy.”
While an added economic burden for citizens, industry observers say the move away from Egyptian gas will serve as a boost to Jordanian oil shale, which experts say is cost competitive with unsubsidised natural gas, and renewable energy, which advocates claim has long been neglected in favour of subsidised fossil fuels.
Despite the recent boost in investments in the alternative energy sector, Jordan will not see the production of electricity from oil shale before 2016, while the first large-scale renewable energy project, a 90-megawatt wind farm south of Shobak, is not expected to come online before 2014.
Observers say uncertainty over Egyptian gas has elevated energy from a policy concern to an issue of national security for Jordan, which currently imports 98 per cent of its energy needs at a cost of 23 per cent of the gross domestic product.
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
JORDAN IS SET to move away from Egyptian gas due to the growing unreliability of the country’s main energy source, officials say.
In a statement earlier this week, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Qutaiba Abu Qura announced that the ministry is intensifying efforts to secure alternatives to Egyptian gas, on which Jordan relies for 80 per cent of its electricity generation needs, adding that the resource will not factor in the Kingdom’s future energy plans.
The minister’s statement, issued during a meeting of the Lower House Finance Committee, came amidst reports in the Egyptian press that Amman has gone back on its decision to ratify a new natural gas agreement, which was approved by the Cabinet in August and has been pending Cairo’s approval.
Officials denied that Jordan has formally withdrawn its support for the amended agreement, under which Egypt is expected to triple gas prices.
“We have had no developments, either towards ending or signing the new agreement,” Farouq Hiyari, the energy ministry’s secretary general, told The Jordan Times.
Despite the denials, according to a ministry source, frustration over the unreliability of gas supplies and a lack of communication from the Egyptian side has led Jordanian officials to “give up” on an arrangement that at its peak supplied the Kingdom with some 300 million cubic feet per day.
The Egyptian ministry of petrol declined to comment.
Cairo has yet to resume pumping since a Sinai explosion cut supplies on November 28, marking the ninth attack on supply line since the beginning of the year and the third in less than a month.
The most recent attacks came amidst assurances by Egyptian authorities that an increased military presence in the Sinai Peninsula combined with the arrest of several jihadists allegedly behind the spate of attacks would lead to the security of the pipeline.
According to sources at E-Gas, one of the two firms that oversee the 400-kilometre Arab Gas Pipeline - which also supplies Israel - repairs have faced “unexpected” delays leading to the prolonged disruption, which has forced the Kingdom’s power plants onto their fuel reserves at a cost of some JD3 million per day.
Economists say the series of attacks have had a direct impact on Jordan, with the series of disruptions pushing the national energy bill to record levels - over JD4 billion - and expected to widen the National Electric Power Company’s budget deficit to JD1.4 billion by the end of the year.
“For months NEPCO has covered the difference in price between natural gas and heavy oil, but this burden has become unsustainable,” NEPCO General Manager Ghaleb Maabreh recently told The Jordan Times.
According to officials, a ministerial team is to travel to Cairo “soon” to review the issue of gas supplies with their Egyptian counterparts before Jordan formally moves to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas.
Meanwhile, Hiyari said talks are intensifying with Iraq and several Arab Gulf states over the potential of importing natural and liquid gas over the next decade as Jordan attempts to develop domestic energy sources including oil shale and nuclear power.
Despite the renewed efforts to secure additional energy sources, officials say it will take up to two years from the signing of any agreement before Jordan can benefit from a new energy market due to infrastructure requirements.
Should Jordan decide to end its decade-long reliance on Egyptian gas supplies, Hiyari said the government will resort to the international energy market to maintain electricity generation in parallel with its drive to secure additional energy sources.
“We will have no problem meeting the needs of electricity plants needs with oil and diesel during this period,” Hiyari said.
Energy officials privately conceded that the move will impact electricity tariffs as heavy fuel oil and diesel are much costlier than Egyptian gas imports, which Jordan previously received at prices of less than half the international market rate.
Sources claim the government has previously hesitated to formally end the country’s gas deal with Egypt for fear of raising electricity tariffs at a time of popular unrest over a struggling economy and a stalled political reform drive.
“Officials have finally come to the decision they can no longer wait around for the Egyptian situation to improve,” said an energy official who was not authorised to speak to the press.
“They have come to the terms that Jordan can no longer rely on subsidised energy.”
While an added economic burden for citizens, industry observers say the move away from Egyptian gas will serve as a boost to Jordanian oil shale, which experts say is cost competitive with unsubsidised natural gas, and renewable energy, which advocates claim has long been neglected in favour of subsidised fossil fuels.
Despite the recent boost in investments in the alternative energy sector, Jordan will not see the production of electricity from oil shale before 2016, while the first large-scale renewable energy project, a 90-megawatt wind farm south of Shobak, is not expected to come online before 2014.
Observers say uncertainty over Egyptian gas has elevated energy from a policy concern to an issue of national security for Jordan, which currently imports 98 per cent of its energy needs at a cost of 23 per cent of the gross domestic product.
Jordan’s Islamists call for ‘salvation gov’t’
December 17th, 2011
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
THE JORDANIAN ISLAMIST movement has called for the formation of an emergency government to carry out “urgent reforms”, as the Muslim Brotherhood reiterated its demands for wider constitutional amendments.
Following a meeting of its executive branch late Wednesday, the Islamic Action Front (IMF), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political branch, called for a “national salvation government” to overcome political, economic and social “crises” currently facing the Kingdom.
Islamists urged Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh to head a government representing the interests of various political and social forces in the Kingdom to reduce the role of security services in public life, push through constitutional reform and draft a new elections law.
According to IAF politburo chief Zaki Bani Rsheid, the salvation government should be entrusted with “paving the way” for elections and wider political reforms which the movement claims have been “stalled” for nearly 11 months.
Islamist leaders claim that a recent spike in social violence and ongoing weekly protests are “warning signs” that the Kingdom cannot afford further delays in implementing political and economic reforms.
“If the government does not take immediate measures to alleviate the situation, we believe Jordan is entering a dangerous phase,” warned Hamzah Mansour, IAF secretary general.
“This is why we push for a national salvation government to restore the public’s trust in the political process.”
The demand marks the closest the movement has come to criticising the government of Awn Khasawneh, who reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood during the formation of his Cabinet in late October.
The statement comes amidst ongoing negotiations between Islamists and decision makers over its participation in the political process - widely viewed by officials and observers alike as key to the legitimacy of any upcoming elections.
Islamists have pinned their participation to a series of demands, including wider constitutional reforms guaranteeing an elected government, protecting the Lower House against dissolution, an elections law relying on proportional representation and the dissolution of the State Security Court.
According to the movement, the demand for a salvation government does not represent a break from its reform demands or criticism of the Khasawneh government, but rather a policy demand stemming from a growing “concern” for the domestic situation in Jordan.
“We are noticing that from the economy to the social sphere, the situation in Jordan is getting tenser day after day,” Bani Rsheid told The Jordan Times.
“We don’t want slogans or rhetoric, we want immediate action.”
In its statement, the movement also staked its position on the latest domestic and international issues, weighing in on issues ranging from the protection of Islamic sites in Jerusalem to the demands of disgruntled municipal employees in Jneid.
The movement expressed concerns over the minister of finance’s previously announced intentions to raise water, electricity and fuel tariffs, warning against measures that will affect average citizens which it claims are already facing the negative impact of a struggling economy.
“We need officials to find ways to raise funds other than raising the prices of basic goods that affect all citizens,” Mansour said.
The Islamist movement also welcomed the statements of His Majesty King Abdullah and Khasawneh earlier this month stressing that “no one is above the law”, urging for the Anti-Corruption Commission to refer all corruption cases to court in “transparency and justice”.
In its statement, the IAF condemned the attack on the home of MP Hamad Hajaya and the manner in which security services treated protesters who closed the Desert Highway in the Qatraneh area to demand the reclamation of wajihat - state-owned lands allocated for various tribes during the Ottoman era for grazing and habitation purposes.
The Islamist movement also called on the government to take action against Syrian embassy cadre in Amman who they claimed “broke the law and diplomatic norms” earlier this week by using physical force against Syrian nationals whom Damascus claimed stormed its embassy.
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
THE JORDANIAN ISLAMIST movement has called for the formation of an emergency government to carry out “urgent reforms”, as the Muslim Brotherhood reiterated its demands for wider constitutional amendments.
Following a meeting of its executive branch late Wednesday, the Islamic Action Front (IMF), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political branch, called for a “national salvation government” to overcome political, economic and social “crises” currently facing the Kingdom.
Islamists urged Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh to head a government representing the interests of various political and social forces in the Kingdom to reduce the role of security services in public life, push through constitutional reform and draft a new elections law.
According to IAF politburo chief Zaki Bani Rsheid, the salvation government should be entrusted with “paving the way” for elections and wider political reforms which the movement claims have been “stalled” for nearly 11 months.
Islamist leaders claim that a recent spike in social violence and ongoing weekly protests are “warning signs” that the Kingdom cannot afford further delays in implementing political and economic reforms.
“If the government does not take immediate measures to alleviate the situation, we believe Jordan is entering a dangerous phase,” warned Hamzah Mansour, IAF secretary general.
“This is why we push for a national salvation government to restore the public’s trust in the political process.”
The demand marks the closest the movement has come to criticising the government of Awn Khasawneh, who reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood during the formation of his Cabinet in late October.
The statement comes amidst ongoing negotiations between Islamists and decision makers over its participation in the political process - widely viewed by officials and observers alike as key to the legitimacy of any upcoming elections.
Islamists have pinned their participation to a series of demands, including wider constitutional reforms guaranteeing an elected government, protecting the Lower House against dissolution, an elections law relying on proportional representation and the dissolution of the State Security Court.
According to the movement, the demand for a salvation government does not represent a break from its reform demands or criticism of the Khasawneh government, but rather a policy demand stemming from a growing “concern” for the domestic situation in Jordan.
“We are noticing that from the economy to the social sphere, the situation in Jordan is getting tenser day after day,” Bani Rsheid told The Jordan Times.
“We don’t want slogans or rhetoric, we want immediate action.”
In its statement, the movement also staked its position on the latest domestic and international issues, weighing in on issues ranging from the protection of Islamic sites in Jerusalem to the demands of disgruntled municipal employees in Jneid.
The movement expressed concerns over the minister of finance’s previously announced intentions to raise water, electricity and fuel tariffs, warning against measures that will affect average citizens which it claims are already facing the negative impact of a struggling economy.
“We need officials to find ways to raise funds other than raising the prices of basic goods that affect all citizens,” Mansour said.
The Islamist movement also welcomed the statements of His Majesty King Abdullah and Khasawneh earlier this month stressing that “no one is above the law”, urging for the Anti-Corruption Commission to refer all corruption cases to court in “transparency and justice”.
In its statement, the IAF condemned the attack on the home of MP Hamad Hajaya and the manner in which security services treated protesters who closed the Desert Highway in the Qatraneh area to demand the reclamation of wajihat - state-owned lands allocated for various tribes during the Ottoman era for grazing and habitation purposes.
The Islamist movement also called on the government to take action against Syrian embassy cadre in Amman who they claimed “broke the law and diplomatic norms” earlier this week by using physical force against Syrian nationals whom Damascus claimed stormed its embassy.
Pakistan PM seeks to dispel rumors of army rift
4 hours ago
By CHRIS BRUMMITT - Associated Press
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister dismissed speculation of a rift between the government and the military over a secret memo sent to Washington seeking its help in averting a supposed military coup, saying the country was committed to democracy.
Political tensions have soared in recent days as the Supreme Court begins a hearing into the circumstance surrounding the memo. The absence of President Asif Ali Zardari, recovering from a likely "mini stroke" in his Dubai home with no word on his return, has only added to rumors that the current civilian administration is in possible fatal trouble.
Zardari's plentiful critics are hoping the scandal will lead to his ouster, and delighted in portraying his trip to Dubai on Dec. 6 as a flight from the fallout from the memo. The president's aides have denied that, and most independent analysts believe the veteran politician, who has outlasted numerous predictions of his demise since taking office in 2008, will ride it out.
Late Friday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to discuss the memo.
Gilani said in a statement he rejected the nation of a "standoff" between the army and the government.
"The government of Pakistan and its institutions remain committed to their constitutional roles and obligations to a democratic and prosperous future for Pakistan," he said.
Tensions between the army and the government could complicate American attempts to rebuild ties with a country seen by many U.S. officials as key to shepherding peace in Afghanistan. A raid by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in late November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, hammering relations already strained by American suspicions that Islamabad is playing both sides in the Afghan war and virulent anti-U.S. sentiments inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of army coups or behind the scenes meddling by the generals to engineer pliant regimes, often with the support of the judiciary. That has left the country's 180 million people specially receptive to the idea that the collapse of the government is just around the corner.
By CHRIS BRUMMITT - Associated Press
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister dismissed speculation of a rift between the government and the military over a secret memo sent to Washington seeking its help in averting a supposed military coup, saying the country was committed to democracy.
Political tensions have soared in recent days as the Supreme Court begins a hearing into the circumstance surrounding the memo. The absence of President Asif Ali Zardari, recovering from a likely "mini stroke" in his Dubai home with no word on his return, has only added to rumors that the current civilian administration is in possible fatal trouble.
Zardari's plentiful critics are hoping the scandal will lead to his ouster, and delighted in portraying his trip to Dubai on Dec. 6 as a flight from the fallout from the memo. The president's aides have denied that, and most independent analysts believe the veteran politician, who has outlasted numerous predictions of his demise since taking office in 2008, will ride it out.
Late Friday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to discuss the memo.
Gilani said in a statement he rejected the nation of a "standoff" between the army and the government.
"The government of Pakistan and its institutions remain committed to their constitutional roles and obligations to a democratic and prosperous future for Pakistan," he said.
Tensions between the army and the government could complicate American attempts to rebuild ties with a country seen by many U.S. officials as key to shepherding peace in Afghanistan. A raid by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in late November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, hammering relations already strained by American suspicions that Islamabad is playing both sides in the Afghan war and virulent anti-U.S. sentiments inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of army coups or behind the scenes meddling by the generals to engineer pliant regimes, often with the support of the judiciary. That has left the country's 180 million people specially receptive to the idea that the collapse of the government is just around the corner.
Arab League sees 'positive signs' from Syria
1 hour 32 minutes ago
By Sezayi Erken | AFP
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.
"There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.
"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.
Announcing the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The Arab League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on certain conditions.
In a letter to the bloc's secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms, notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.
Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.
On Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.
By Sezayi Erken | AFP
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.
"There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.
"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.
Announcing the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The Arab League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on certain conditions.
In a letter to the bloc's secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms, notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.
Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.
On Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.
Tunisia president asks for six-month political truce
Dec 15, 2011
By Tarek Amara | Reuters
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's new president on Wednesday asked for a six-month political truce and a moratorium on strikes and protests, warning that otherwise the country would be committing "collective suicide."
Tunisia electrified the Arab world when it overthrew its autocratic leader in January, but since then the caretaker authorities have been buffeted by social unrest, political turmoil and rows over the role of Islam in the political system.
"I appeal to all the Tunisian people to give us a political and social truce, just for six months," Moncef Marzouki, a former political prisoner installed as president this week, said in a interview on state television.
"A political truce including all the political parties ... (and) a social truce by immediately stopping all sit-ins and strikes," said Marzouki. "If we continue like this, it will be a collective suicide."
"If things aren't working out within six months, I will submit my resignation," said Marzouki.
In Tunisia's first ever democratic election in October, voters handed victory to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. Its nominee, Hamadi Jbeli, will be prime minister, the most powerful post.
Other top positions will be shared out among Ennahda's two junior coalition partners, Marzouki's Congress for the Republic and the left-wing Ettakatol party.
The new leaders will hold power for a year while a new constitution is drawn up and fresh elections are prepared.
A cabinet line-up is expected to be announced in the coming days. Three sources within the coalition said the finance ministry would go to Khayam Turki, a businessman who was put forward by Ettakatol.
IMPATIENT FOR CHANGE
Since its revolution, Western leaders have hailed the former French colony as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, but the new authorities are struggling to appease Tunisians who are impatient for change.
There have been hundreds of protests in the past few months, most of them over poor living standards and high unemployment. Some have turned into riots, forcing security forces to fire into the air and impose curfews.
There has also been mounting tension between hardline Islamists, who want to ban the sale of alcohol and the mixing of the sexes in public places, and secularists who believe their liberal way of life is under threat.
Turki, the man tipped to become finance minister, was educated in Tunisia and France and studied at business school, his friend Jamel Touri told Reuters.
And though Ettakatol is known for its socialist foundations, Touri, who is also an official in the party, said the 40-year-old diplomat's son was an economic liberal.
"He is for economic openness and he is in favor of economic reforms to promote openness," Touri said.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ben Harding)
By Tarek Amara | Reuters
Source:Yahoo News Maktoob
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's new president on Wednesday asked for a six-month political truce and a moratorium on strikes and protests, warning that otherwise the country would be committing "collective suicide."
Tunisia electrified the Arab world when it overthrew its autocratic leader in January, but since then the caretaker authorities have been buffeted by social unrest, political turmoil and rows over the role of Islam in the political system.
"I appeal to all the Tunisian people to give us a political and social truce, just for six months," Moncef Marzouki, a former political prisoner installed as president this week, said in a interview on state television.
"A political truce including all the political parties ... (and) a social truce by immediately stopping all sit-ins and strikes," said Marzouki. "If we continue like this, it will be a collective suicide."
"If things aren't working out within six months, I will submit my resignation," said Marzouki.
In Tunisia's first ever democratic election in October, voters handed victory to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. Its nominee, Hamadi Jbeli, will be prime minister, the most powerful post.
Other top positions will be shared out among Ennahda's two junior coalition partners, Marzouki's Congress for the Republic and the left-wing Ettakatol party.
The new leaders will hold power for a year while a new constitution is drawn up and fresh elections are prepared.
A cabinet line-up is expected to be announced in the coming days. Three sources within the coalition said the finance ministry would go to Khayam Turki, a businessman who was put forward by Ettakatol.
IMPATIENT FOR CHANGE
Since its revolution, Western leaders have hailed the former French colony as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, but the new authorities are struggling to appease Tunisians who are impatient for change.
There have been hundreds of protests in the past few months, most of them over poor living standards and high unemployment. Some have turned into riots, forcing security forces to fire into the air and impose curfews.
There has also been mounting tension between hardline Islamists, who want to ban the sale of alcohol and the mixing of the sexes in public places, and secularists who believe their liberal way of life is under threat.
Turki, the man tipped to become finance minister, was educated in Tunisia and France and studied at business school, his friend Jamel Touri told Reuters.
And though Ettakatol is known for its socialist foundations, Touri, who is also an official in the party, said the 40-year-old diplomat's son was an economic liberal.
"He is for economic openness and he is in favor of economic reforms to promote openness," Touri said.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ben Harding)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Special Report: The maverick behind Merkel
Dec 14, 2011
By Noah Barkin and Erik Kirschbaum
Source:Reuters
(Reuters) - It was approaching midnight at a yacht club on the French Riviera, down the road from a G20 summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was telling reporters about her decision to block a loan to Greece, when suddenly her finance minister interrupted to set the record straight.
Wolfgang Schaeuble told the journalists that it had been his idea to stop the flow of aid to Athens. That move had helped convince Athens to drop its controversial plans for a referendum on new austerity steps, calming financial markets. Schaeuble had personally delivered the news in a phone call to his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos, in hospital at the time with stomach pains.
"Yes, indeed it was the finance minister who stopped the payment," a somewhat startled Merkel acknowledged. "He was the one who reacted first."
Reporters glanced at each other in surprise. Here was Europe's most powerful leader being called out in public by one of her ministers. Instead of rebuking Schaeuble, Merkel had deferred to him, admitting he was right.
The unusual exchange in early November gives a glimpse into the complex relationship between Merkel and Schaeuble. Once his deputy, Merkel is now Schaeuble's boss. Their bond has survived two decades of slights and reversals -- and it is now central to the euro-zone debt crisis.
Germany is Europe's pre-eminent power, and France is No. 2. For months, markets and the media have focused on the link between Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the key to saving the common currency from a breakup. The media have dubbed the pair "Merkozy."
But an examination of the relationship between the German leader and her outspoken minister -- whose contrasting views on Europe mirror tensions in the broader electorate -- suggests their give-and-take may be just as crucial to the continent's future.
"The chancellor can count on my loyalty," Schaeuble said in an interview with Reuters. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to keep quiet, that I'm going to be easy. I have the freedom to do what I think is right."
Schaeuble, a 69-year old political veteran, has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot by a deranged man a week after German reunification. Long committed to the cause of European unity, he has heavily influenced Berlin's response to the crisis. Some European insiders say he is perhaps the only politician capable of pushing Merkel, a risk-averse politician from ex-communist East Germany, to adopt the policies which may be needed to save the currency bloc.
"I think Schaeuble will be one of the key architects of a solution for the euro zone crisis in the coming weeks," said Klaus Tschuetscher, the prime minister and finance minister of Liechtenstein. "He is renowned and respected for tossing out ideas without worrying what the political reaction might be. I don't think the value of that should be underestimated."
IDEA FACTORY
Since the euro zone's troubles erupted just over two years ago, Schaeuble's finance ministry has been a veritable factory of ideas. His fingerprints are on many of the big decisions taken by the broader bloc.
At the heart of the crisis are huge debts racked up by euro-zone governments and a spreading belief that investors in those countries' bonds won't get paid back in full. In the early stages of the crisis, Schaeuble proposed creating a "European Monetary Fund" to shore up weakened members. At the time, the idea sounded radical. Merkel quickly overruled it, insisting the Washington-based International Monetary Fund should be involved in any euro-zone rescues.
But a year and a half later, the bloc has created a permanent rescue facility -- the European Stability Mechanism -- that in the end looks likely to closely resemble Schaeuble's monetary fund. Funded by euro-zone governments, the European Stability Mechanism will provide loans to members in financial trouble.
In June, Schaeuble made waves by writing to his euro-zone colleagues to demand that private holders of Greek bonds make a substantial contribution to a debt relief package. He suggested this could be achieved by a bond swap that would reduce the amount of debt the Greek government had to pay back. Many dismissed the idea as unrealistic, but the debt-swap idea has now been adopted by the euro zone.
Although Merkel was warned ahead of time that Schaeuble was sending the letter, she did not see it beforehand, her aides say -- a sign of just how much freedom the finance minister has, especially compared with other ministers.
"Merkel knew from the beginning that if she made him finance minister, her control over him would be limited, that he would have his own ideas and speak out on them," one of Merkel's top advisers said. "He is an anomaly in the cabinet."
To politicians and investors outside Germany, Schaeuble's proposals have sometimes been a source of confusion: It's not always clear whether they have the backing of the Chancellery.
In March, for example, the finance minister struck a deal with his euro-zone counterparts on funding for the European Stability Mechanism, only for Merkel to veto it and re-open negotiations days later.
But Schaeuble's freedom also works to Merkel's advantage. He can float ideas while she gauges how euro-zone partners and markets react before committing to them. It's also part of the "bottom-up" structure of the German government, where ministries are encouraged to come up with proposals for the cabinet to consider.
"Everyone in the government has a role," said Schaeuble in his spartan office in the finance ministry, a Nazi-era structure that housed Hermann Goering's aviation ministry during World War Two. "I've been in politics for a long time, I'm relatively old, and that gives me a certain amount of independence."
KOHL'S HEIR APPARENT
In some ways Schaeuble's freedom is made starker by his obvious physical limitations. The assassination attempt nearly succeeded. A little over a year ago, complications from two decades in a wheelchair were forcing him into hospital on a regular basis, and his doctors told him to slow down. In September 2010, after missing crucial summit meetings, he told Merkel he may need to quit because of his health. The chancellor told him to take a month off but urged him to stay.
Now he says he feels better. He has gained weight and resumed two-to-three hour handbike workouts in Grunewald Forest in western Berlin to stay fit.
"I was sicker in parts of 2010 than I wanted to believe," Schaeuble said. "She said she wanted me to keep on doing the job if that was possible. She told me to get better and stay in my post."
Merkel and Schaeuble first met in the months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. A lawyer by profession, he was heir apparent to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and considered by many to be the greatest political talent of his generation. She was a shy 35-year-old from the other side of the Wall, working as a press spokeswoman for Lothar de Maiziere, East Germany's caretaker leader in the run-up to reunification.
Within half a year of their first encounter, Schaeuble's world was turned upside down.
It was October 1990 and the newly united Germany was in a buoyant mood. West Germany had just won the soccer World Cup. The country was months away from the first pan-German election in more than half a century. As the 20th century entered its final decade, a nation that had been weighed down by two world wars, hyper-inflation, a murderous Nazi dictatorship and decades of Cold War division could finally look forward with optimism.
Schaeuble, then interior minister, was leaving a campaign stop at a tavern in the town of Oppenau, near the French border, when a 37-year-old man pulled a gun and fired three shots, hitting Schaeuble in the face and spine.
"I can't feel my legs anymore," he is reported to have said before losing consciousness.
He was flown to a university medical centre in his birthplace of Freiburg, where doctors worked through the night to save his life. Kohl visited his right-hand man in the intensive care unit. At an impromptu news conference a few hours later, the burly chancellor choked back tears.
Schaeuble not only survived but he returned to his job in Bonn a few months later, despite appeals from his family that he quit politics. He looked frail, but Kohl kept faith in his loyal ally. To Germans who questioned whether a paraplegic could run the country, Kohl would often reply that Franklin Roosevelt had led the United States from a wheelchair through the Great Depression and World War Two.
His trust paid off. After Kohl scraped into office again in 1994, it was Schaeuble who worked behind the scenes to keep his narrow centre-right majority intact.
"He kept the coalition majority together," recalls Peter Hausmann, Kohl's spokesman in the 1990s and now editor of a newspaper in Bavaria. "It was a slim majority but he kept the discipline up and everyone in line."
FROM SCANDAL TO POWER
If Kohl had stepped down before the 1998 election and allowed Schaeuble to run against Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, the feisty lawyer from Freiburg might have become chancellor. But Kohl was intent on leading the country into the single currency, an ambitious project that he had pushed over the objections of many compatriots, and ran for an unprecedented fifth term.
Kohl lost to Schroeder, and Schaeuble took his place as head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union. Schaeuble named the up-and-coming Angela Merkel as his deputy.
It was a pairing that would last less than a year and a half. By December 1999, Kohl was caught up in a campaign finance scandal. Merkel penned an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which hit German politics like a tsunami. In it, she urged the party to move on "without its old war horse" Kohl.
The godfather of the Christian Democrats could not believe the cautious young protégée he had plucked from obscurity could have written the article without the approval of her boss, Schaeuble.
Kohl launched a withering behind-the-scenes campaign to undermine the man he had once anointed his successor. Less than two months later, after discrepancies emerged in Schaeuble's story about a party donation, he was forced to resign.
Merkel was left standing. Hailed as the "clean face" of the Christian Democrats, she was catapulted into the party leadership.
"It was an extremely difficult situation for Schaeuble," said a former minister in Kohl's government who witnessed the drama at first hand and knows both Schaeuble and Merkel well. "At the time there was a strong yearning in the CDU for something new, for someone who wasn't in the Kohl orbit like Schaeuble. She profited from the Kohl scandal."
In "My Way," a 2004 book of interviews with Merkel, she confirms that Schaeuble did not know about the article before it was published. One reason for writing it, she says, was to give him the freedom to run a party over which Kohl still cast a long shadow.
Schaeuble said he does not believe Merkel set out to topple him when she wrote the piece. He describes their working relationship as good, while making clear the two are not friends. He played down the significance of other slights over the years, such as Merkel's refusal to back him for the German presidency in 2004.
In his 2010 biography of Merkel, Gerd Langguth describes how Schaeuble waited in vain for weeks to speak with her about the presidential post he coveted, only to get the cold shoulder. During a joint trip to Turkey at the time, the book says, Merkel made sure she was never alone in a room with Schaeuble to discuss the matter.
A year later, Merkel unseated Schroeder to become the first woman chancellor in German history. She named Schaeuble interior minister, preferring to lock him into her government rather than
give him a role outside the cabinet, such as parliamentary floor leader, where he might have proven dangerous.
When she was re-elected chancellor in the autumn of 2009, just as the first wave of the global financial crisis receded, Schaeuble was Merkel's surprise choice to run the finance ministry. His mastery of financial details during coalition talks convinced her he was the right person for a post that had been expected to go to her coalition partner, the Free Democrats, or her close Christian Democratic ally, Thomas de Maiziere.
"IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE"
Since then, Schaeuble has emerged as Merkel's most important minister and a respected shaper of policy in Europe at a time of unprecedented financial turmoil.
He is a French speaker who maintains excellent ties with France and knows President Nicolas Sarkozy from their days as interior ministers. At the Cannes summit, when Merkel could not make a crucial meeting of euro zone leaders because of a previously arranged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Sarkozy pressed her to send Schaeuble in her place. She agreed.
It was Schaeuble who pushed hard for the Christian Democratic Union to demonstrate its commitment to Europe at a party congress held in Leipzig last month under the banner "For Europe, For Germany." In a crucial vote in parliament in late September, he also helped convince party allies to back enhancements to the euro zone's rescue fund, averting a government crisis for Merkel.
But the differences between Schaeuble and Merkel on Europe are sometimes hard to hide.
While Merkel seems focused on limiting the damage to Germany from the debt crisis, Schaeuble sees the crisis as an opportunity to complete the political integration of Europe that was missing when the euro was launched.
In public, he sticks to the party line on controversial crisis-fighting proposals. When asked last month whether he could envision common euro-zone bonds -- an idea Merkel staunchly opposes -- Schaeuble's initial reaction was: "Now I need to be careful to say the same thing as the chancellor." He then went on to say it was too early to consider such a step.
But people who know him say Schaeuble would probably be ready to back such ideas, if the alternative was a breakup of the currency bloc.
"He's for euro bonds," said the former Kohl cabinet minister who worked with both for years. "He can't come out and say that, but if you look carefully at what he's been saying he won't exclude euro bonds like some of the others. He's dropped some clear hints with his language."
EU leaders agreed at a summit meeting in Brussels last week to press ahead with forming the "fiscal union" Schaeuble has long favored, under which euro-zone members relinquish control over budget policy. They also freed up more funds for the IMF to help troubled euro states like Italy and Spain, and decided to bring forward the launch of their permanent rescue fund by a year.
But these steps may be insufficient to stop the rot. And pressure on Germany to take bolder action could rise in the coming weeks.
If a euro-zone breakup looms, Schaeuble will again have to decide whether to speak up and challenge Merkel, as he did light-heartedly in Cannes. Like Dick Cheney under U.S. President George W. Bush, he has nothing to lose, no higher post to shoot for, only his vision of what needs to be done.
"When things get really difficult ... suddenly solutions which seemed impossible become possible," Schaeuble said.
"Because of this, the crisis represents an opportunity. I'm not saying that I enjoy being in a crisis, but I'm not worried. Europe always moved forward in times of crisis. Sometimes you need a little pressure for certain decisions to be taken."
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Simon Robinson)
By Noah Barkin and Erik Kirschbaum
Source:Reuters
(Reuters) - It was approaching midnight at a yacht club on the French Riviera, down the road from a G20 summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was telling reporters about her decision to block a loan to Greece, when suddenly her finance minister interrupted to set the record straight.
Wolfgang Schaeuble told the journalists that it had been his idea to stop the flow of aid to Athens. That move had helped convince Athens to drop its controversial plans for a referendum on new austerity steps, calming financial markets. Schaeuble had personally delivered the news in a phone call to his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos, in hospital at the time with stomach pains.
"Yes, indeed it was the finance minister who stopped the payment," a somewhat startled Merkel acknowledged. "He was the one who reacted first."
Reporters glanced at each other in surprise. Here was Europe's most powerful leader being called out in public by one of her ministers. Instead of rebuking Schaeuble, Merkel had deferred to him, admitting he was right.
The unusual exchange in early November gives a glimpse into the complex relationship between Merkel and Schaeuble. Once his deputy, Merkel is now Schaeuble's boss. Their bond has survived two decades of slights and reversals -- and it is now central to the euro-zone debt crisis.
Germany is Europe's pre-eminent power, and France is No. 2. For months, markets and the media have focused on the link between Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the key to saving the common currency from a breakup. The media have dubbed the pair "Merkozy."
But an examination of the relationship between the German leader and her outspoken minister -- whose contrasting views on Europe mirror tensions in the broader electorate -- suggests their give-and-take may be just as crucial to the continent's future.
"The chancellor can count on my loyalty," Schaeuble said in an interview with Reuters. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to keep quiet, that I'm going to be easy. I have the freedom to do what I think is right."
Schaeuble, a 69-year old political veteran, has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot by a deranged man a week after German reunification. Long committed to the cause of European unity, he has heavily influenced Berlin's response to the crisis. Some European insiders say he is perhaps the only politician capable of pushing Merkel, a risk-averse politician from ex-communist East Germany, to adopt the policies which may be needed to save the currency bloc.
"I think Schaeuble will be one of the key architects of a solution for the euro zone crisis in the coming weeks," said Klaus Tschuetscher, the prime minister and finance minister of Liechtenstein. "He is renowned and respected for tossing out ideas without worrying what the political reaction might be. I don't think the value of that should be underestimated."
IDEA FACTORY
Since the euro zone's troubles erupted just over two years ago, Schaeuble's finance ministry has been a veritable factory of ideas. His fingerprints are on many of the big decisions taken by the broader bloc.
At the heart of the crisis are huge debts racked up by euro-zone governments and a spreading belief that investors in those countries' bonds won't get paid back in full. In the early stages of the crisis, Schaeuble proposed creating a "European Monetary Fund" to shore up weakened members. At the time, the idea sounded radical. Merkel quickly overruled it, insisting the Washington-based International Monetary Fund should be involved in any euro-zone rescues.
But a year and a half later, the bloc has created a permanent rescue facility -- the European Stability Mechanism -- that in the end looks likely to closely resemble Schaeuble's monetary fund. Funded by euro-zone governments, the European Stability Mechanism will provide loans to members in financial trouble.
In June, Schaeuble made waves by writing to his euro-zone colleagues to demand that private holders of Greek bonds make a substantial contribution to a debt relief package. He suggested this could be achieved by a bond swap that would reduce the amount of debt the Greek government had to pay back. Many dismissed the idea as unrealistic, but the debt-swap idea has now been adopted by the euro zone.
Although Merkel was warned ahead of time that Schaeuble was sending the letter, she did not see it beforehand, her aides say -- a sign of just how much freedom the finance minister has, especially compared with other ministers.
"Merkel knew from the beginning that if she made him finance minister, her control over him would be limited, that he would have his own ideas and speak out on them," one of Merkel's top advisers said. "He is an anomaly in the cabinet."
To politicians and investors outside Germany, Schaeuble's proposals have sometimes been a source of confusion: It's not always clear whether they have the backing of the Chancellery.
In March, for example, the finance minister struck a deal with his euro-zone counterparts on funding for the European Stability Mechanism, only for Merkel to veto it and re-open negotiations days later.
But Schaeuble's freedom also works to Merkel's advantage. He can float ideas while she gauges how euro-zone partners and markets react before committing to them. It's also part of the "bottom-up" structure of the German government, where ministries are encouraged to come up with proposals for the cabinet to consider.
"Everyone in the government has a role," said Schaeuble in his spartan office in the finance ministry, a Nazi-era structure that housed Hermann Goering's aviation ministry during World War Two. "I've been in politics for a long time, I'm relatively old, and that gives me a certain amount of independence."
KOHL'S HEIR APPARENT
In some ways Schaeuble's freedom is made starker by his obvious physical limitations. The assassination attempt nearly succeeded. A little over a year ago, complications from two decades in a wheelchair were forcing him into hospital on a regular basis, and his doctors told him to slow down. In September 2010, after missing crucial summit meetings, he told Merkel he may need to quit because of his health. The chancellor told him to take a month off but urged him to stay.
Now he says he feels better. He has gained weight and resumed two-to-three hour handbike workouts in Grunewald Forest in western Berlin to stay fit.
"I was sicker in parts of 2010 than I wanted to believe," Schaeuble said. "She said she wanted me to keep on doing the job if that was possible. She told me to get better and stay in my post."
Merkel and Schaeuble first met in the months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. A lawyer by profession, he was heir apparent to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and considered by many to be the greatest political talent of his generation. She was a shy 35-year-old from the other side of the Wall, working as a press spokeswoman for Lothar de Maiziere, East Germany's caretaker leader in the run-up to reunification.
Within half a year of their first encounter, Schaeuble's world was turned upside down.
It was October 1990 and the newly united Germany was in a buoyant mood. West Germany had just won the soccer World Cup. The country was months away from the first pan-German election in more than half a century. As the 20th century entered its final decade, a nation that had been weighed down by two world wars, hyper-inflation, a murderous Nazi dictatorship and decades of Cold War division could finally look forward with optimism.
Schaeuble, then interior minister, was leaving a campaign stop at a tavern in the town of Oppenau, near the French border, when a 37-year-old man pulled a gun and fired three shots, hitting Schaeuble in the face and spine.
"I can't feel my legs anymore," he is reported to have said before losing consciousness.
He was flown to a university medical centre in his birthplace of Freiburg, where doctors worked through the night to save his life. Kohl visited his right-hand man in the intensive care unit. At an impromptu news conference a few hours later, the burly chancellor choked back tears.
Schaeuble not only survived but he returned to his job in Bonn a few months later, despite appeals from his family that he quit politics. He looked frail, but Kohl kept faith in his loyal ally. To Germans who questioned whether a paraplegic could run the country, Kohl would often reply that Franklin Roosevelt had led the United States from a wheelchair through the Great Depression and World War Two.
His trust paid off. After Kohl scraped into office again in 1994, it was Schaeuble who worked behind the scenes to keep his narrow centre-right majority intact.
"He kept the coalition majority together," recalls Peter Hausmann, Kohl's spokesman in the 1990s and now editor of a newspaper in Bavaria. "It was a slim majority but he kept the discipline up and everyone in line."
FROM SCANDAL TO POWER
If Kohl had stepped down before the 1998 election and allowed Schaeuble to run against Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, the feisty lawyer from Freiburg might have become chancellor. But Kohl was intent on leading the country into the single currency, an ambitious project that he had pushed over the objections of many compatriots, and ran for an unprecedented fifth term.
Kohl lost to Schroeder, and Schaeuble took his place as head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union. Schaeuble named the up-and-coming Angela Merkel as his deputy.
It was a pairing that would last less than a year and a half. By December 1999, Kohl was caught up in a campaign finance scandal. Merkel penned an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which hit German politics like a tsunami. In it, she urged the party to move on "without its old war horse" Kohl.
The godfather of the Christian Democrats could not believe the cautious young protégée he had plucked from obscurity could have written the article without the approval of her boss, Schaeuble.
Kohl launched a withering behind-the-scenes campaign to undermine the man he had once anointed his successor. Less than two months later, after discrepancies emerged in Schaeuble's story about a party donation, he was forced to resign.
Merkel was left standing. Hailed as the "clean face" of the Christian Democrats, she was catapulted into the party leadership.
"It was an extremely difficult situation for Schaeuble," said a former minister in Kohl's government who witnessed the drama at first hand and knows both Schaeuble and Merkel well. "At the time there was a strong yearning in the CDU for something new, for someone who wasn't in the Kohl orbit like Schaeuble. She profited from the Kohl scandal."
In "My Way," a 2004 book of interviews with Merkel, she confirms that Schaeuble did not know about the article before it was published. One reason for writing it, she says, was to give him the freedom to run a party over which Kohl still cast a long shadow.
Schaeuble said he does not believe Merkel set out to topple him when she wrote the piece. He describes their working relationship as good, while making clear the two are not friends. He played down the significance of other slights over the years, such as Merkel's refusal to back him for the German presidency in 2004.
In his 2010 biography of Merkel, Gerd Langguth describes how Schaeuble waited in vain for weeks to speak with her about the presidential post he coveted, only to get the cold shoulder. During a joint trip to Turkey at the time, the book says, Merkel made sure she was never alone in a room with Schaeuble to discuss the matter.
A year later, Merkel unseated Schroeder to become the first woman chancellor in German history. She named Schaeuble interior minister, preferring to lock him into her government rather than
give him a role outside the cabinet, such as parliamentary floor leader, where he might have proven dangerous.
When she was re-elected chancellor in the autumn of 2009, just as the first wave of the global financial crisis receded, Schaeuble was Merkel's surprise choice to run the finance ministry. His mastery of financial details during coalition talks convinced her he was the right person for a post that had been expected to go to her coalition partner, the Free Democrats, or her close Christian Democratic ally, Thomas de Maiziere.
"IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE"
Since then, Schaeuble has emerged as Merkel's most important minister and a respected shaper of policy in Europe at a time of unprecedented financial turmoil.
He is a French speaker who maintains excellent ties with France and knows President Nicolas Sarkozy from their days as interior ministers. At the Cannes summit, when Merkel could not make a crucial meeting of euro zone leaders because of a previously arranged meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Sarkozy pressed her to send Schaeuble in her place. She agreed.
It was Schaeuble who pushed hard for the Christian Democratic Union to demonstrate its commitment to Europe at a party congress held in Leipzig last month under the banner "For Europe, For Germany." In a crucial vote in parliament in late September, he also helped convince party allies to back enhancements to the euro zone's rescue fund, averting a government crisis for Merkel.
But the differences between Schaeuble and Merkel on Europe are sometimes hard to hide.
While Merkel seems focused on limiting the damage to Germany from the debt crisis, Schaeuble sees the crisis as an opportunity to complete the political integration of Europe that was missing when the euro was launched.
In public, he sticks to the party line on controversial crisis-fighting proposals. When asked last month whether he could envision common euro-zone bonds -- an idea Merkel staunchly opposes -- Schaeuble's initial reaction was: "Now I need to be careful to say the same thing as the chancellor." He then went on to say it was too early to consider such a step.
But people who know him say Schaeuble would probably be ready to back such ideas, if the alternative was a breakup of the currency bloc.
"He's for euro bonds," said the former Kohl cabinet minister who worked with both for years. "He can't come out and say that, but if you look carefully at what he's been saying he won't exclude euro bonds like some of the others. He's dropped some clear hints with his language."
EU leaders agreed at a summit meeting in Brussels last week to press ahead with forming the "fiscal union" Schaeuble has long favored, under which euro-zone members relinquish control over budget policy. They also freed up more funds for the IMF to help troubled euro states like Italy and Spain, and decided to bring forward the launch of their permanent rescue fund by a year.
But these steps may be insufficient to stop the rot. And pressure on Germany to take bolder action could rise in the coming weeks.
If a euro-zone breakup looms, Schaeuble will again have to decide whether to speak up and challenge Merkel, as he did light-heartedly in Cannes. Like Dick Cheney under U.S. President George W. Bush, he has nothing to lose, no higher post to shoot for, only his vision of what needs to be done.
"When things get really difficult ... suddenly solutions which seemed impossible become possible," Schaeuble said.
"Because of this, the crisis represents an opportunity. I'm not saying that I enjoy being in a crisis, but I'm not worried. Europe always moved forward in times of crisis. Sometimes you need a little pressure for certain decisions to be taken."
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Simon Robinson)
Long-term jobless eye bleak future as benefits end
Dec 11, 2011
By Lucia Mutikani
Source: Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Parks has been out of work for 21 months and his unemployment benefits will run out at the end of the month.
At 60, he fears his prospects of getting a job are very slim, even though he has a degree in civil engineering and has vast experience in project management.
A similar story is recounted by John Jones, 52, a fellow resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Jones lost his teaching job last July as the Pennsylvania state government tried to close a funding shortfall.
Parks and Jones are among the nearly 7 million Americans receiving jobless benefits under seven different state and federal programs. Around a quarter of those will fall off the rolls in January if Congress does not renew an extended benefits program that expires at year end.
Parks' savings are almost exhausted and his house has lost more than 30 percent of its value, making it hard for him to seek job opportunities outside Pennsylvania.
He has tried to market his management skills in manufacturing and the fast-growing field of health care, but has found them already overcrowded.
"It's really getting tight," Parks told Reuters. "The ability to provide is really diminishing and it becomes more the ability to survive."
Parks is collecting $500 a week in unemployment benefits, a far cry from the $80,000 a year he made in his last job as a project manager in architecture and construction.
Although his wife still has her teaching job, they are stretching to cover their monthly expenses, which include a $480 monthly car payment.
Last month, they combined and refinanced their mortgage and home equity loan, lowering their payment to $1,600 a month from $2,175. Gone are the vacations and gym memberships.
"Savings are pretty much gone, we are now into our 401(K) (retirement) money. I haven't bought any clothing in a year and a half; my wife does buy stuff occasionally to be presentable at school," said Parks.
"We have taken no vacations. I just spoke to the gym about volunteering some of my time instead of having to pay for the gym membership."
Jones, who is married and has one child, used to make about $40,000 annually teaching . His wife has an hourly paid job. He declined to say how much he was collecting in unemployment benefits.
"Before I lost my job we could go out and buy extra things for the house. Right now we do not have that option. We have to watch everything that we're spending and buying," said Jones.
That includes foregoing dental check-ups.
"Our savings are about gone and the benefits will be running out fairly soon," Jones added.
BENEFITS RUNNING OUT
The Obama administration estimates that through the course of 2012, about 6 million people would lose federally funded unemployment benefits if Congress does not act.
Currently, federal money ensures that the unemployed receive benefits for up to 99 weeks in states where joblessness is high. Ending the program would mean the newly unemployed would have to rely on state programs that usually last for only 26 weeks.
Extended benefits have been renewed several times as the economy struggled to mount a vigorous recovery from the 2007-09 recession, the worst since the Great Depression.
According to Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, the average unemployed worker receiving extended benefits gets just $296 a week.
"That represents only 50 percent of the income needed to cover the most basic necessities of food, housing and transportation," she said.
The extended federal benefits have become a target in the fight over budget policy between Republicans and Democrats, and renewal is uncertain. Analysts warn that removing that cushion from the millions of unemployed would dampen the still-fragile economic recovery.
"If the unemployed do not have money to spend, then spending in the economy is going to decline. Providing unemployment benefits is one of the effective ways to create jobs," said Lawrence Mishel, head of the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Analysts estimate that not extending benefits for the long-term unemployed could chip away as much 0.3 percentage point from GDP.
NO STIMULUS FROM JOBLESS BENEFITS?
Those opposed to extending the benefits, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, argue that they have failed to stimulate the economy and are instead encouraging recipients to continue seeking jobs that do not exist.
Half the jobs lost during the downturn were in manufacturing and construction. Most of them are not going to be recovered. That is bad news for Brian Krady, another Lancaster County resident, who lost his job in August after 20 years in manufacturing.
Krady, 47, is collecting $500 a week in jobless benefits that will extend for several more months.
The Heritage Foundation says raising benefits to 99 weeks has increased the unemployment rate by 0.5 percentage point.
"People are trying to find jobs similar to what they had previously, when those jobs completely don't exist, so they will spend a good portion of their period unemployed looking for jobs that they are unlikely to find," said James Sherk, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
"The only sound arguments for extended unemployment benefits are humanitarian."
DESPERATE TO WORK
Jones and Parks bristle at the suggestion they are contributing to the high unemployment rate by staying on benefits for a long time.
Both men have been actively looking for work with the help of the PA CareerLink of Lancaster County. The unemployment rate in the county is 6.1 percent, 2-1/2 percentage points below the rate for the nation as a whole.
Jones said he has applied for more than 100 jobs since being laid off, and some of them outside education.
"Most people don't respond. I have gone to visit places, trying to get a job and you can't even get past the front desk," he said. "You can't make a pitch, they just don't want to talk to you. Right now I am looking to work. I don't care what it is in."
Parks believes his age puts him at a disadvantage.
"I believe I run into some age discrimination when I get an opportunity to interview. Things go well into the interview, it sounds like it will progress to the next stage," he said.
"In one case they asked for a background check and they just disappeared. This has happened three times," said Parks. "You can't blame the employer, if they can find somebody younger and cheaper, and there is a glut of employees there, why should they choose to go with an experienced, expensive worker?"
The longer Parks and Jones remain unemployed, the dimmer their prospects of getting a job become as they lose skills and connections.
About 43 percent of the 13.3 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks and more.
"Most of the long-term unemployed are people who had pretty good jobs and these jobs were permanently eliminated," said Harry Holzer, professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University in Washington.
"If they exhaust their benefits ... what are their options?"
Already, the labor force participation rate -- the percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for one -- is at 28-year lows.
While many experts advocate retraining, especially for those who lost their jobs in construction and some sections of manufacturing, Holzer warned that will not necessarily help older unemployed workers like Parks.
"For people who are in their 50s, it's hard to go back and retrain. A 55-year-old with a brand new degree is less attractive than a 25-year-old with the same degree," said Holzer.
Analysts say some of the long-term unemployed could end up settling for lesser-paying jobs, but even those are in short supply. For every one job opening, there are about 4.6 people.
"It means there are simply no jobs available for more than three out of four unemployed workers," said the Economic Policy Institute's Mishel.
"In a given month in today's labor market, the vast majority of the unemployed are not going to find a job no matter what they do." (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Grebler)
By Lucia Mutikani
Source: Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Parks has been out of work for 21 months and his unemployment benefits will run out at the end of the month.
At 60, he fears his prospects of getting a job are very slim, even though he has a degree in civil engineering and has vast experience in project management.
A similar story is recounted by John Jones, 52, a fellow resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Jones lost his teaching job last July as the Pennsylvania state government tried to close a funding shortfall.
Parks and Jones are among the nearly 7 million Americans receiving jobless benefits under seven different state and federal programs. Around a quarter of those will fall off the rolls in January if Congress does not renew an extended benefits program that expires at year end.
Parks' savings are almost exhausted and his house has lost more than 30 percent of its value, making it hard for him to seek job opportunities outside Pennsylvania.
He has tried to market his management skills in manufacturing and the fast-growing field of health care, but has found them already overcrowded.
"It's really getting tight," Parks told Reuters. "The ability to provide is really diminishing and it becomes more the ability to survive."
Parks is collecting $500 a week in unemployment benefits, a far cry from the $80,000 a year he made in his last job as a project manager in architecture and construction.
Although his wife still has her teaching job, they are stretching to cover their monthly expenses, which include a $480 monthly car payment.
Last month, they combined and refinanced their mortgage and home equity loan, lowering their payment to $1,600 a month from $2,175. Gone are the vacations and gym memberships.
"Savings are pretty much gone, we are now into our 401(K) (retirement) money. I haven't bought any clothing in a year and a half; my wife does buy stuff occasionally to be presentable at school," said Parks.
"We have taken no vacations. I just spoke to the gym about volunteering some of my time instead of having to pay for the gym membership."
Jones, who is married and has one child, used to make about $40,000 annually teaching . His wife has an hourly paid job. He declined to say how much he was collecting in unemployment benefits.
"Before I lost my job we could go out and buy extra things for the house. Right now we do not have that option. We have to watch everything that we're spending and buying," said Jones.
That includes foregoing dental check-ups.
"Our savings are about gone and the benefits will be running out fairly soon," Jones added.
BENEFITS RUNNING OUT
The Obama administration estimates that through the course of 2012, about 6 million people would lose federally funded unemployment benefits if Congress does not act.
Currently, federal money ensures that the unemployed receive benefits for up to 99 weeks in states where joblessness is high. Ending the program would mean the newly unemployed would have to rely on state programs that usually last for only 26 weeks.
Extended benefits have been renewed several times as the economy struggled to mount a vigorous recovery from the 2007-09 recession, the worst since the Great Depression.
According to Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, the average unemployed worker receiving extended benefits gets just $296 a week.
"That represents only 50 percent of the income needed to cover the most basic necessities of food, housing and transportation," she said.
The extended federal benefits have become a target in the fight over budget policy between Republicans and Democrats, and renewal is uncertain. Analysts warn that removing that cushion from the millions of unemployed would dampen the still-fragile economic recovery.
"If the unemployed do not have money to spend, then spending in the economy is going to decline. Providing unemployment benefits is one of the effective ways to create jobs," said Lawrence Mishel, head of the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Analysts estimate that not extending benefits for the long-term unemployed could chip away as much 0.3 percentage point from GDP.
NO STIMULUS FROM JOBLESS BENEFITS?
Those opposed to extending the benefits, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, argue that they have failed to stimulate the economy and are instead encouraging recipients to continue seeking jobs that do not exist.
Half the jobs lost during the downturn were in manufacturing and construction. Most of them are not going to be recovered. That is bad news for Brian Krady, another Lancaster County resident, who lost his job in August after 20 years in manufacturing.
Krady, 47, is collecting $500 a week in jobless benefits that will extend for several more months.
The Heritage Foundation says raising benefits to 99 weeks has increased the unemployment rate by 0.5 percentage point.
"People are trying to find jobs similar to what they had previously, when those jobs completely don't exist, so they will spend a good portion of their period unemployed looking for jobs that they are unlikely to find," said James Sherk, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
"The only sound arguments for extended unemployment benefits are humanitarian."
DESPERATE TO WORK
Jones and Parks bristle at the suggestion they are contributing to the high unemployment rate by staying on benefits for a long time.
Both men have been actively looking for work with the help of the PA CareerLink of Lancaster County. The unemployment rate in the county is 6.1 percent, 2-1/2 percentage points below the rate for the nation as a whole.
Jones said he has applied for more than 100 jobs since being laid off, and some of them outside education.
"Most people don't respond. I have gone to visit places, trying to get a job and you can't even get past the front desk," he said. "You can't make a pitch, they just don't want to talk to you. Right now I am looking to work. I don't care what it is in."
Parks believes his age puts him at a disadvantage.
"I believe I run into some age discrimination when I get an opportunity to interview. Things go well into the interview, it sounds like it will progress to the next stage," he said.
"In one case they asked for a background check and they just disappeared. This has happened three times," said Parks. "You can't blame the employer, if they can find somebody younger and cheaper, and there is a glut of employees there, why should they choose to go with an experienced, expensive worker?"
The longer Parks and Jones remain unemployed, the dimmer their prospects of getting a job become as they lose skills and connections.
About 43 percent of the 13.3 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks and more.
"Most of the long-term unemployed are people who had pretty good jobs and these jobs were permanently eliminated," said Harry Holzer, professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University in Washington.
"If they exhaust their benefits ... what are their options?"
Already, the labor force participation rate -- the percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for one -- is at 28-year lows.
While many experts advocate retraining, especially for those who lost their jobs in construction and some sections of manufacturing, Holzer warned that will not necessarily help older unemployed workers like Parks.
"For people who are in their 50s, it's hard to go back and retrain. A 55-year-old with a brand new degree is less attractive than a 25-year-old with the same degree," said Holzer.
Analysts say some of the long-term unemployed could end up settling for lesser-paying jobs, but even those are in short supply. For every one job opening, there are about 4.6 people.
"It means there are simply no jobs available for more than three out of four unemployed workers," said the Economic Policy Institute's Mishel.
"In a given month in today's labor market, the vast majority of the unemployed are not going to find a job no matter what they do." (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Libya leaders send U.N. new appeal to unfreeze funds
Dec 11, 2011
By Ali Shuaib
Source: Yahoo News Maktoob
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Senior figures in Libya's new leadership have written a letter to the United Nations asking it to release funds still frozen three months after the country's civil war ended, the central bank chief said on Saturday.
When a rebellion broke out in February against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, the U.N. Security Council froze Libyan assets estimated at $150 billion, but the bulk of that sum remains beyond the reach of the new Libyan rulers.
Frustration at the delay has been growing inside Libya, where the interim government says it urgently needs the cash to pay the wages of public sector workers and to start re-building state institutions.
The letter, sent on Thursday, was meant to offer reassurance to U.N. member states which had expressed doubts the new Libyan leadership was united and cohesive enough to be trusted with the cash, Central Bank Governor Saddeq Omar Elkaber told Reuters.
Elkaber said he had signed the letter along with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib and Finance Minister Hassan Ziglam.
"We need this money to manage the country," the central bank governor said on the sidelines of a conference.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
The freezing of Libyan assets was part of a package of sanctions intended to put pressure on Gaddafi's administration to stop attacking civilian protesters.
Gaddafi's 42-year rule ended when his forces fled Tripoli in August, and the last of the fighting in Libya ended in October when the former leader was captured and killed. All major powers recognize the NTC as Libya's legitimate representative.
Yet by late November only about $18 billion of the $150 billion in seized assets had been released by special dispensations of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee. Diplomats said last month that of the $18 billion, only about $3 billion had been made available to Tripoli.
Diplomats said they were concerned that Gaddafi or his family could be the legal owner of the assets, not the Libyan state, and had expressed worries about the legitimacy of the unelected NTC.
Libya can generate substantial revenues from oil exports, but these were halted by the conflict and are taking time to restore, leaving a hole in the NTC's finances.
A senior Security Council diplomat said last month the council was working to speed up the flow of unfrozen assets to Libya.
By Ali Shuaib
Source: Yahoo News Maktoob
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Senior figures in Libya's new leadership have written a letter to the United Nations asking it to release funds still frozen three months after the country's civil war ended, the central bank chief said on Saturday.
When a rebellion broke out in February against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, the U.N. Security Council froze Libyan assets estimated at $150 billion, but the bulk of that sum remains beyond the reach of the new Libyan rulers.
Frustration at the delay has been growing inside Libya, where the interim government says it urgently needs the cash to pay the wages of public sector workers and to start re-building state institutions.
The letter, sent on Thursday, was meant to offer reassurance to U.N. member states which had expressed doubts the new Libyan leadership was united and cohesive enough to be trusted with the cash, Central Bank Governor Saddeq Omar Elkaber told Reuters.
Elkaber said he had signed the letter along with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib and Finance Minister Hassan Ziglam.
"We need this money to manage the country," the central bank governor said on the sidelines of a conference.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
The freezing of Libyan assets was part of a package of sanctions intended to put pressure on Gaddafi's administration to stop attacking civilian protesters.
Gaddafi's 42-year rule ended when his forces fled Tripoli in August, and the last of the fighting in Libya ended in October when the former leader was captured and killed. All major powers recognize the NTC as Libya's legitimate representative.
Yet by late November only about $18 billion of the $150 billion in seized assets had been released by special dispensations of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee. Diplomats said last month that of the $18 billion, only about $3 billion had been made available to Tripoli.
Diplomats said they were concerned that Gaddafi or his family could be the legal owner of the assets, not the Libyan state, and had expressed worries about the legitimacy of the unelected NTC.
Libya can generate substantial revenues from oil exports, but these were halted by the conflict and are taking time to restore, leaving a hole in the NTC's finances.
A senior Security Council diplomat said last month the council was working to speed up the flow of unfrozen assets to Libya.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
A Global City and Street Gangs
November 29,2011
written by: Sheila Quinn
Source: A New Era
It upsets me when I see good websites on the internet publish articles that support tyrants. A few such websites include: "Intifada Palestine", "Global Research" and "Prison Planet".
Today I read an article which promotes the lies of a tyrant known as Assad. It is the purpose of "Intifada Palestine" to have articles about Palestine. Such articles are excellent. But several times this website has published articles that are nothing more than pro-Assad propaganda. It has described itself as being a website that is about Palestine-yet it publishes articles which has nothing to do with Palestine. The editors of this website are acting contrary to its purpose.
There are a number of different street gangs in the city known as "Earth". The global oligarchy is one of the gangs. Pro Qaddafi people are another gang. Those who are pro-Assad are yet another gang. Why did the global oligarchy get involved in Libya? Well, one of the obvious reasons is because their agenda and Qaddafi's agenda clashed. The global oligarchy's agenda is to rule all of humanity. Qaddafi's agenda was to be emperor of Africa. The agendas of these two gangs clashed, so the global oligarchy went after Qaddafi.
As far as Assad is concerned both he and his father have been terrorizing the people of Syria for decades. Both the Assad gang and the Qaddafi gang are terrorists who have been terrorizing the people of their countries for decades. Both gangs have treated popular dissent the same way- through brutal oppression of the people. When demonstrators come out to the streets they are shot at and murdered by police and military personnel. Both gangs have been some what successful in promoting themselves as Pro-Palestinian activists. They are using the Palestinian issue to promote themselves.
It angers me that some anti-oligarchy groups are so ignorant about what is going on that they support tyrants who are massacring civilians -just because the global oligarchy is being hostile towards such tyrants. The public in general should be aware of the global oligarchy, but they also should be aware that there are others-other than the global oligarchy- who are involved in tyranny.
written by: Sheila Quinn
Source: A New Era
It upsets me when I see good websites on the internet publish articles that support tyrants. A few such websites include: "Intifada Palestine", "Global Research" and "Prison Planet".
Today I read an article which promotes the lies of a tyrant known as Assad. It is the purpose of "Intifada Palestine" to have articles about Palestine. Such articles are excellent. But several times this website has published articles that are nothing more than pro-Assad propaganda. It has described itself as being a website that is about Palestine-yet it publishes articles which has nothing to do with Palestine. The editors of this website are acting contrary to its purpose.
There are a number of different street gangs in the city known as "Earth". The global oligarchy is one of the gangs. Pro Qaddafi people are another gang. Those who are pro-Assad are yet another gang. Why did the global oligarchy get involved in Libya? Well, one of the obvious reasons is because their agenda and Qaddafi's agenda clashed. The global oligarchy's agenda is to rule all of humanity. Qaddafi's agenda was to be emperor of Africa. The agendas of these two gangs clashed, so the global oligarchy went after Qaddafi.
As far as Assad is concerned both he and his father have been terrorizing the people of Syria for decades. Both the Assad gang and the Qaddafi gang are terrorists who have been terrorizing the people of their countries for decades. Both gangs have treated popular dissent the same way- through brutal oppression of the people. When demonstrators come out to the streets they are shot at and murdered by police and military personnel. Both gangs have been some what successful in promoting themselves as Pro-Palestinian activists. They are using the Palestinian issue to promote themselves.
It angers me that some anti-oligarchy groups are so ignorant about what is going on that they support tyrants who are massacring civilians -just because the global oligarchy is being hostile towards such tyrants. The public in general should be aware of the global oligarchy, but they also should be aware that there are others-other than the global oligarchy- who are involved in tyranny.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Canadian activist says he was Tasered by Israeli forces
By Wendy Gillis Staff Reporter
Canadian activist says he was Tasered by Israeli forces
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1082227--canadian-activist-says-he-was-tasered-by-israeli-forces
Wendy Gillis Staff Reporter
The family of David Heap is “outraged” after the London, Ont. man claimed Sunday he was Tasered and roughed up by Israeli forces that had seized a vessel bound for Gaza.
The 45-year-old was aboard the Tahrir, a Canadian owned vessel, when it was seized along with an Irish ship as both attempted to carry medical aid to Gaza.
Israeli officials said the ships were intercepted peacefully — but Heap said in a statement released by the group “Canadian Boat to Gaza” that he was brutally taken off the ship.
Calling the seizure an “assault,” Heap said he is now bruised and limping after being forcibly removed from the boat, but is “basically ok.”
Danny Heap said the family is outraged, adding his brother’s teenaged sons were “scared and worried.”
“It seems that, since all the people on the Tahrir had sworn to be non-violent, that the Israeli army was just brutal,” he said. “It’s pretty shocking … when what was on the boat turned out to be medical aid for Gaza.”
Israeli officials were not immediately available to respond to Heap's claims. Officials from the country have said the navy took action only after repeatedly ordering the vessels to turn around.
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issued a statement Saturday that Canadian diplomats were “liaising with Israeli authorities” to provide consular assistance. There was no reaction from Canadian officials to Heap’s claims of being roughed up by press time Sunday night.
Heap, two other Canadians, and about 20 other activists were arrested by Israel, which has indicated it intends to deport them this week. Danny Heap said his brother will demand he be deported to Gaza.
Heap’s partner spoke with him briefly Sunday morning. Heap told her he has received a visit from a lawyer and from a Canadian consulate official but he is not allowed to speak with others who were arrested Friday.
David and Danny Heap are both sons of Dan Heap, a renowned Toronto activist and retired politician who has been in the news recently as he and his wife struggled to find a spot in a long-term care home.
Shortly before David was born, the senior Heap was protesting discrimination against blacks in Selma, Alabama, alongside Martin Luther King — something Danny said had inspired David.
“He feels like he’s doing the same thing, many years later.”
One of the other Canadians detained, Montrealer Ehab Lotayef, was imprisoned with Heap, his statement suggested. The third Canadian, Karen DeVito, was apparently held separately.
With files from The Canadian Press
Canadian activist says he was Tasered by Israeli forces
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1082227--canadian-activist-says-he-was-tasered-by-israeli-forces
Wendy Gillis Staff Reporter
The family of David Heap is “outraged” after the London, Ont. man claimed Sunday he was Tasered and roughed up by Israeli forces that had seized a vessel bound for Gaza.
The 45-year-old was aboard the Tahrir, a Canadian owned vessel, when it was seized along with an Irish ship as both attempted to carry medical aid to Gaza.
Israeli officials said the ships were intercepted peacefully — but Heap said in a statement released by the group “Canadian Boat to Gaza” that he was brutally taken off the ship.
Calling the seizure an “assault,” Heap said he is now bruised and limping after being forcibly removed from the boat, but is “basically ok.”
Danny Heap said the family is outraged, adding his brother’s teenaged sons were “scared and worried.”
“It seems that, since all the people on the Tahrir had sworn to be non-violent, that the Israeli army was just brutal,” he said. “It’s pretty shocking … when what was on the boat turned out to be medical aid for Gaza.”
Israeli officials were not immediately available to respond to Heap's claims. Officials from the country have said the navy took action only after repeatedly ordering the vessels to turn around.
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issued a statement Saturday that Canadian diplomats were “liaising with Israeli authorities” to provide consular assistance. There was no reaction from Canadian officials to Heap’s claims of being roughed up by press time Sunday night.
Heap, two other Canadians, and about 20 other activists were arrested by Israel, which has indicated it intends to deport them this week. Danny Heap said his brother will demand he be deported to Gaza.
Heap’s partner spoke with him briefly Sunday morning. Heap told her he has received a visit from a lawyer and from a Canadian consulate official but he is not allowed to speak with others who were arrested Friday.
David and Danny Heap are both sons of Dan Heap, a renowned Toronto activist and retired politician who has been in the news recently as he and his wife struggled to find a spot in a long-term care home.
Shortly before David was born, the senior Heap was protesting discrimination against blacks in Selma, Alabama, alongside Martin Luther King — something Danny said had inspired David.
“He feels like he’s doing the same thing, many years later.”
One of the other Canadians detained, Montrealer Ehab Lotayef, was imprisoned with Heap, his statement suggested. The third Canadian, Karen DeVito, was apparently held separately.
With files from The Canadian Press
Freedom Wave riders beaten, denied access to family; organizers demand accountability
November 5, 2011
Source:Canadian Boat to Gaza
Freedom Wave riders beaten, denied access to family; organizers demand accountability
Freedom Waves to Gaza organizers have not yet had any direct communication with the delegates from the ships Tahrir and Saoirse. Organizers are demanding that Israel immediately free the remaining people they have kidnapped and are illegally detaining; that they be able to speak with their families; that they receive immediate medical attention for all injuries inflicted by the Israeli military and that they are not harmed further.
“We have heard indirectly from our governments' ministries of foreign affairs (in Canada and Ireland), but that is simply not good enough. We want to speak with our people directly,” says Wendy Goldsmith, organizer with the Canadian Boat to Gaza. “Why will our governments not demand the delegates be able to speak to their families? We do not trust the Canadian government on this - as they have shown time and time again that they are complicit in Israel's violations of international law and gross human rights abuses.”
The last direct contact that organizers had with any delegate on either boat is this text message, from Trevor Hogan (from aboard the Irish boat Saoirse) at 10:08 PM Nov 3, 2011 Palestinian time: “Kidnapped, being held against our will by Israeli Army in international waters. Boat nearly destroyed. Need government to press for immediate release.” Trevor then called girlfriend moments later and said, “Did you get the text? Send it out.” Then the phone line went dead.
Palestinian Israeli Majd Kayal, delegate aboard the captured Canada Boat to Gaza and recently released from Givon Prison, confirms the IDF’s “peaceful” take-over of the Tahrir was anything but peaceful. An IDF video clearly shows the Israeli military firing a water cannon at the Tahrir on rough seas, endangering the lives of those aboard. Delegates offering non-violent resistance to the takeover of the civilian ship in international waters were threatened and then beaten by soldiers. One delegate, 45-year-old David Heap, professor at the University of Western Ontario, was particularly badly beaten. Israeli prison authorities are continuing to prevent Heap’s family from contacting him by phone.
“As a Palestinian, I was not surprised at how the IDF treated us,” said Kayal, after his release, noting this kind of abuse is a daily reality for the 1.5 million people of Gaza, who are indefinitely detained in an open-air prison. “However, for the Canadians and other Westerners onboard, it was a complete shock.”
As of now, family members are still being prevented from having telephone contact with their loved ones. Lawyers were able to visit briefly with some of the delegates being held at Givon Prison in Israel. But for family members, it is the not knowing that is the hardest. Said the wife of one of the delegates, “We just don’t understand why Israeli officials are acting as they are. My husband’s youngest is putting a brave face on it, but I know that he is very upset and worried about how his father is doing.”
“I am sorry to hear about those that were roughed up which of course is always the way when it comes to the Israeli sentiment towards any human being,” said Kathleen Newton, mother of Jihan Hafiz, a Democracy Now journalist still being illegally held by Israel after her abduction from the Tahrir. “I stand proud to be the mother of a daughter that wanted to stand up and make a difference in this otherwise very unfair world.”
Family members who have been able to speak with Canadian Consular staff have been told that several delegates showed varying degrees of visible bruising when Canadian Officials visited them. Nevertheless, Consular staff said they felt that everyone was “O.K.”
Canadians are urged to contact Foreign Affairs Emergency Hot line in Ottawa at 1-800-387-3124 .
The UN Human Rights Council Inquiry Report of September 2010 concluded that the blockade is illegal and Israeli policies in Gaza are a form of collective punishment. There is no legal justification for stopping or in any way impeding the passage of the totally peaceful Freedom Waves boats from the international solidarity movement with Palestinian people.
This situation is developing. For updates, stay tuned to: Twitter (@CanadaBoatGaza and #freedomwaves), Facebook.com/CanadaBoatGaza, tahrir.ca, ustogaza.org, freegazaoz.org , and irishshiptogaza.org.
Source:Canadian Boat to Gaza
Freedom Wave riders beaten, denied access to family; organizers demand accountability
Freedom Waves to Gaza organizers have not yet had any direct communication with the delegates from the ships Tahrir and Saoirse. Organizers are demanding that Israel immediately free the remaining people they have kidnapped and are illegally detaining; that they be able to speak with their families; that they receive immediate medical attention for all injuries inflicted by the Israeli military and that they are not harmed further.
“We have heard indirectly from our governments' ministries of foreign affairs (in Canada and Ireland), but that is simply not good enough. We want to speak with our people directly,” says Wendy Goldsmith, organizer with the Canadian Boat to Gaza. “Why will our governments not demand the delegates be able to speak to their families? We do not trust the Canadian government on this - as they have shown time and time again that they are complicit in Israel's violations of international law and gross human rights abuses.”
The last direct contact that organizers had with any delegate on either boat is this text message, from Trevor Hogan (from aboard the Irish boat Saoirse) at 10:08 PM Nov 3, 2011 Palestinian time: “Kidnapped, being held against our will by Israeli Army in international waters. Boat nearly destroyed. Need government to press for immediate release.” Trevor then called girlfriend moments later and said, “Did you get the text? Send it out.” Then the phone line went dead.
Palestinian Israeli Majd Kayal, delegate aboard the captured Canada Boat to Gaza and recently released from Givon Prison, confirms the IDF’s “peaceful” take-over of the Tahrir was anything but peaceful. An IDF video clearly shows the Israeli military firing a water cannon at the Tahrir on rough seas, endangering the lives of those aboard. Delegates offering non-violent resistance to the takeover of the civilian ship in international waters were threatened and then beaten by soldiers. One delegate, 45-year-old David Heap, professor at the University of Western Ontario, was particularly badly beaten. Israeli prison authorities are continuing to prevent Heap’s family from contacting him by phone.
“As a Palestinian, I was not surprised at how the IDF treated us,” said Kayal, after his release, noting this kind of abuse is a daily reality for the 1.5 million people of Gaza, who are indefinitely detained in an open-air prison. “However, for the Canadians and other Westerners onboard, it was a complete shock.”
As of now, family members are still being prevented from having telephone contact with their loved ones. Lawyers were able to visit briefly with some of the delegates being held at Givon Prison in Israel. But for family members, it is the not knowing that is the hardest. Said the wife of one of the delegates, “We just don’t understand why Israeli officials are acting as they are. My husband’s youngest is putting a brave face on it, but I know that he is very upset and worried about how his father is doing.”
“I am sorry to hear about those that were roughed up which of course is always the way when it comes to the Israeli sentiment towards any human being,” said Kathleen Newton, mother of Jihan Hafiz, a Democracy Now journalist still being illegally held by Israel after her abduction from the Tahrir. “I stand proud to be the mother of a daughter that wanted to stand up and make a difference in this otherwise very unfair world.”
Family members who have been able to speak with Canadian Consular staff have been told that several delegates showed varying degrees of visible bruising when Canadian Officials visited them. Nevertheless, Consular staff said they felt that everyone was “O.K.”
Canadians are urged to contact Foreign Affairs Emergency Hot line in Ottawa at 1-800-387-3124
The UN Human Rights Council Inquiry Report of September 2010 concluded that the blockade is illegal and Israeli policies in Gaza are a form of collective punishment. There is no legal justification for stopping or in any way impeding the passage of the totally peaceful Freedom Waves boats from the international solidarity movement with Palestinian people.
This situation is developing. For updates, stay tuned to: Twitter (@CanadaBoatGaza and #freedomwaves), Facebook.com/CanadaBoatGaza, tahrir.ca, ustogaza.org, freegazaoz.org , and irishshiptogaza.org.
Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers call for Baird to resign
November 7, 2011
Source:Canadian Boat to Gaza
With several Canadians still languishing in an Israeli prison, organizers of the Canadian Boat to Gaza are demanding Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird step down for failing to do his job.
“Our friends have been assaulted, tasered, beaten, kidnapped, robbed, and imprisoned and we have now learned that the Department Foreign Affairs is telling them they have to pay for their deportation flight,” says Wendy Goldsmith, an organizer with the Canadian Boat to Gaza.
“If Minister Baird wants to put the interests of a far-right Israeli government before Canadians, he should apply for the job of Israel’s ambassador,” adds Goldsmith. “Otherwise he should demand the immediate release of the Canadian political prisoners in Israel and an immediate end to Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza. Unfortunately, when it comes to Israel, Baird is soft on crime.”
The Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers say the Minister has failed to seek the immediate release of the Canadians and internationals who have been political prisoners of Israel since Friday. Instead, they say, the Minister has been spreading misinformation in an attempt to justify Israel’s illegal actions.
“Canadians are still imprisoned by Israel because they refuse to sign documents that falsely claim they entered Israel ‘voluntarily’ and ‘illegally’,” says Dylan Penner, an organizer with the Canadian Boat to Gaza.
“The fact is they were kidnapped and taken there against their will,” says Penner. “But Minister Baird is trying to create the impression that international waters are Israeli waters. He should really look at a map and stop misleading Canadians about international law.”
Two tweets from the Department of Foreign Affairs last week advised Canadians to “"avoid all travel" to regions of #Israel surrounding the #Gaza Strip”. However, there are no Israeli waters “surrounding” Gaza. There are Gaza’s coastal waters beyond which are international waters. The Israeli Navy captured the boat in international waters (approximately 50 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza), not Israeli waters. This is a violation of international law.
Baird has publicly discouraged Canadians from participating in flotillas aimed at breaking the illegal blockade of Gaza. The Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign views Minister Baird’s statement as an attempt to abdicate the Canadian Government's obligation to ensure the safety of the Canadians and to justify any crimes Israel may commit against peaceful unarmed civilians from Canada and all over the world.
Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers say it is also an attempt to enable the Harper government to maintain its complicity in Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza by providing political cover.
-30-
For updates, stay tuned to:
Twitter (@CanadaBoatGaza and #freedomwaves), Facebook.com/CanadaBoatGaza, www.tahrir.ca , www.ustogaza.org , www.freegazaoz.org , and www.irishshiptogaza.org .
Source:Canadian Boat to Gaza
With several Canadians still languishing in an Israeli prison, organizers of the Canadian Boat to Gaza are demanding Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird step down for failing to do his job.
“Our friends have been assaulted, tasered, beaten, kidnapped, robbed, and imprisoned and we have now learned that the Department Foreign Affairs is telling them they have to pay for their deportation flight,” says Wendy Goldsmith, an organizer with the Canadian Boat to Gaza.
“If Minister Baird wants to put the interests of a far-right Israeli government before Canadians, he should apply for the job of Israel’s ambassador,” adds Goldsmith. “Otherwise he should demand the immediate release of the Canadian political prisoners in Israel and an immediate end to Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza. Unfortunately, when it comes to Israel, Baird is soft on crime.”
The Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers say the Minister has failed to seek the immediate release of the Canadians and internationals who have been political prisoners of Israel since Friday. Instead, they say, the Minister has been spreading misinformation in an attempt to justify Israel’s illegal actions.
“Canadians are still imprisoned by Israel because they refuse to sign documents that falsely claim they entered Israel ‘voluntarily’ and ‘illegally’,” says Dylan Penner, an organizer with the Canadian Boat to Gaza.
“The fact is they were kidnapped and taken there against their will,” says Penner. “But Minister Baird is trying to create the impression that international waters are Israeli waters. He should really look at a map and stop misleading Canadians about international law.”
Two tweets from the Department of Foreign Affairs last week advised Canadians to “"avoid all travel" to regions of #Israel surrounding the #Gaza Strip”. However, there are no Israeli waters “surrounding” Gaza. There are Gaza’s coastal waters beyond which are international waters. The Israeli Navy captured the boat in international waters (approximately 50 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza), not Israeli waters. This is a violation of international law.
Baird has publicly discouraged Canadians from participating in flotillas aimed at breaking the illegal blockade of Gaza. The Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign views Minister Baird’s statement as an attempt to abdicate the Canadian Government's obligation to ensure the safety of the Canadians and to justify any crimes Israel may commit against peaceful unarmed civilians from Canada and all over the world.
Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers say it is also an attempt to enable the Harper government to maintain its complicity in Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza by providing political cover.
-30-
For updates, stay tuned to:
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Are You Eating This All-Time Favorite "Cancer-in-a-Can" Snack?
November 07 2011
By Dr. Mercola
Source:mercola.com
To understand the nature of Pringles and other stackable chips, forget the notion that they come from actual potatoes in any recognizable way.
The Pringles Company (in an effort to avoid taxes levied against "luxury foods" like chips in the UK) once even argued that the potato content of their chips was so low that they are technically not even potato chips.
So if they're not made of potatoes, what are they exactly?
The process begins with a slurry of rice, wheat, corn, and potato flakes that are pressed into shape.
This dough-like substance is then rolled out into an ultra-thin sheet cut into chip-cookies by a machine.
According to io9:
"The chips move forward on a conveyor belt until they're pressed onto molds, which give them the curve that makes them fit into one another.
Those molds move through boiling oil ... Then they're blown dry, sprayed with powdered flavors, and at last, flipped onto a slower-moving conveyor belt in a way that allows them to stack.
From then on, it's into the cans ... and off towards the innocent mouths of the consumers."
I suspect nearly everyone reading this likely enjoys the taste of potato chips. However, they are clearly one of the most toxic processed foods you can eat—whether they're made from actual potato shavings or not.
Potato Chips are Loaded with Cancer-Causing Chemical
One of the most hazardous ingredients in potato chips is not intentionally added, but rather is a byproduct of the processing.
Acrylamide, a cancer-causing and potentially neurotoxic chemical, is created when carbohydrate-rich foods are cooked at high temperatures, whether baked, fried, roasted or toasted. Some of the worst offenders include potato chips and French fries, but many foods cooked or processed at temperatures above 212°F (100°C) may contain acrylamide. As a general rule, the chemical is formed when food is heated enough to produce a fairly dry and brown/yellow surface. Hence, it can be found in:
* Potatoes: chips, French fries and other roasted or fried potato foods
* Grains: bread crust, toast, crisp bread, roasted breakfast cereals and various processed snacks
* Coffee; roasted coffee beans and ground coffee powder. Surprisingly, coffee substitutes based on chicory actually contains 2-3 times MORE acrylamide than real coffee
How Much Acrylamide are You Consuming?
The federal limit for acrylamide in drinking water is 0.5 parts per billion, or about 0.12 micrograms in an eight-ounce glass of water. However, a six-ounce serving of French fries can contain 60 micrograms of acrylamide, or about FIVE HUNDRED times over the allowable limit.
Similarly, potato chips are notoriously high in this dangerous chemical. So high, in fact, that in 2005 the state of California actually sued potato chip makers for failing to warn California consumers about the health risks of acrylamide in their products. A settlement was reached in 2008 when Frito-Lay and several other potato chip makers agreed to reduce the acrylamide levels in their chips to 275 parts per billion (ppb) by 2011, which is low enough to avoid needing a cancer warning label.
The 2005 report "How Potato Chips Stack Up: Levels of Cancer-Causing Acrylamide in Popular Brands of Potato Chips," issued by the California-based Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), spelled out the dangers of this popular snack. Their analysis found that all potato chip products tested exceeded the legal limit of acrylamide by a minimum of 39 times, and as much as 910 times! Some of the worst offenders at that time included:
* Cape Cod Robust Russet: 910 times the legal limit of acrylamide
* Kettle Chips (lightly salted): 505 times
* Kettle Chips (honey dijon): 495 times
Beware: Baked Chips May Be WORSE than Fried!
If you think you can avoid the health risks of potato chips by choosing baked varieties, which are typically advertised as being "healthier," think again. Remember that acrylamide is formed not only when foods are fried or broiled, but also when they are baked. And according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data on acrylamide levels in foods, baked chips may contain more than three times the level of acrylamide as regular chips!
Interestingly, the same trend holds true for other foods, too, which suggests that baking processed potatoes at high temperature may be one of the worst ways to cook them. For instance, according to the FDA's data, Ore Ida Golden Fries contained 107 ppb of acrylamide in the regular fried version and 1,098 when baked. So remember, ALL potato chips contain acrylamide, regardless of whether they are natural or not; baked or fried. Likewise, they will ALL influence your insulin levels in a very negative way.
Acrylamide is Not the Only Danger
Acrylamide is not the only dangerous genotoxic compound formed when food is heated to high temperatures.
A three-year long EU project, known as Heat-Generated Food Toxicants (HEATOX), whose findings were published at the end of 2007, found there are more than 800 heat-induced compounds, of which 52 are potential carcinogens. In addition to their finding that acrylamide does pose a public health threat, the HEATOX scientists also discovered that you're far less likely to ingest dangerous levels of the toxin when you eat home-cooked foods compared to industrially or restaurant-prepared foods.
Additionally, the HEATOX findings also suggest that although there are ways to decrease exposure to acrylamide, it cannot be eliminated completely.
According to their calculations, successful application of all presently known methods would reduce the acrylamide intake by 40 percent at the most—which makes me wonder whether chip manufacturers have really succeeded at this point in reducing acrylamide levels to within legal limits... There's no updated data as of yet, so there's no telling whether they've been able to comply with the 2005 settlement.
For more in-depth information about acrylamide, I recommend reading the online report Heat-generated Food Toxicants, Identification, Characterization and Risk Minimization. In general however, just remember that cooking food at high temperatures is ill advised. A few of the most well-known toxins created in high-temperature cooking include:
* Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs): These form when meat is cooked at high temperatures, and they're also linked to cancer. In terms of HCA, the worst part of the meat is the blackened section, which is why you should always avoid charring your meat, and never eat blackened sections.
* Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): When fat drips onto the heat source, causing excess smoke, and the smoke surrounds your food, it can transfer cancer-causing PAHs to the meat.
* Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs): When food is cooked at high temperatures (including when it is pasteurized or sterilized), it increases the formation of AGEs in your food. When you eat the food, it transfers the AGEs into your body. AGEs build up in your body over time leading to oxidative stress, inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease.
The Search for a "Healthful" Chip Continues...
Like a modern-day search for the Holy Grail, chip manufacturers keep searching for methods to improve the image of their health-harming but profitable snacks. For example, by the end of 2011, about half of Pepsi's Frito-Lay brand snacks will be reformulated with all-natural ingredients. The switch is part of PepsiCo's master plan to tap into the healthy foods market share. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the company hopes to boost their nutrition business from $10 billion to $30 billion by 2020.
The company will remove dietary hazards like monosodium glutamate (MSG), replacing it with natural seasonings, such as molasses and paprika. Artificial colors will be replaced with beet juice, purple cabbage and carrots. All in all, about different 60 snacks are scheduled to get an all-natural makeover.
This is certainly a good example of how consumer demand can alter the direction of food manufacturers in a positive way.
The reformulated chips may end up being less bad for you than the original formulations. However, chips will never be truly healthful. All-natural chips may be the lesser of two evils, but if consumed regularly, they will still push your health in the wrong direction... There's no getting away from the fact that modern plagues such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes have a dietary component, and potato chips and French fries will always be a losing bet if you want to avoid becoming another disease statistic.
How to Avoid Heat-Induced Toxins in Your Diet
Ideally, you should consume foods that are raw or minimally processed to avoid these types of toxic byproducts—the more raw food, the better. My nutrition plan emphasizes the need for at least one-third of your foods to be consumed raw. Personally, I consume about 80 percent of my food raw, and I find it is one of the most important factors that help keep me healthy.
It may take you awhile to switch over to a less processed diet, but throwing out the most obvious culprits would be a great start.
These would include:
* French fries and potato chips
* All sodas (both regular and diet, as artificial sweeteners may be more problematic than fructose)
* Doughnuts
Healthy Eating Made Easy
Aside from creating potentially toxic byproducts, cooking and processing also depletes the food of valuable micronutrients, which is another reason for eating as much raw food as possible. This includes protein sources such as eggs. Raw whole eggs from organic, pastured chickens are an incredible source of high-quality nutrients that many are deficient in. Raw milk is another good example of a food that is beneficial in its raw state but becomes harmful after it is pasteurized.
By opting for foods that will benefit your health, such as raw, preferably organic and/or locally-grown vegetables, organic grass-fed meats, healthy oils, raw dairy, nuts and seeds, you can change your health for the better. These are the foods that are truly natural, and quite easy to prepare once you get the hang of it.
For a step-by-step guide to make the transition to a healthier diet as simple and smooth as possible, simply follow the advice in my optimized nutrition plan.
Remember, eating fresh whole foods is the "secret" to getting healthier, losing weight and really enjoying your food. It's unfortunate that so many are under the mistaken belief that it's "next to impossible" to create a meal without processed foods. Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough tackle this issue head-on in their book Real Food Has Curves, which is a great starting point to "relearn" the basics of how to enjoy and prepare real food.
Once you get used to it, you'll find you can whip up a healthful meal from scratch in the same amount of time it would have taken you to drive down the street to pick up fast food. The main difference will be greater satisfaction, both physically and mentally, and perhaps even financially, as processed foods typically end up being more expensive than cooking from scratch.
By Dr. Mercola
Source:mercola.com
To understand the nature of Pringles and other stackable chips, forget the notion that they come from actual potatoes in any recognizable way.
The Pringles Company (in an effort to avoid taxes levied against "luxury foods" like chips in the UK) once even argued that the potato content of their chips was so low that they are technically not even potato chips.
So if they're not made of potatoes, what are they exactly?
The process begins with a slurry of rice, wheat, corn, and potato flakes that are pressed into shape.
This dough-like substance is then rolled out into an ultra-thin sheet cut into chip-cookies by a machine.
According to io9:
"The chips move forward on a conveyor belt until they're pressed onto molds, which give them the curve that makes them fit into one another.
Those molds move through boiling oil ... Then they're blown dry, sprayed with powdered flavors, and at last, flipped onto a slower-moving conveyor belt in a way that allows them to stack.
From then on, it's into the cans ... and off towards the innocent mouths of the consumers."
I suspect nearly everyone reading this likely enjoys the taste of potato chips. However, they are clearly one of the most toxic processed foods you can eat—whether they're made from actual potato shavings or not.
Potato Chips are Loaded with Cancer-Causing Chemical
One of the most hazardous ingredients in potato chips is not intentionally added, but rather is a byproduct of the processing.
Acrylamide, a cancer-causing and potentially neurotoxic chemical, is created when carbohydrate-rich foods are cooked at high temperatures, whether baked, fried, roasted or toasted. Some of the worst offenders include potato chips and French fries, but many foods cooked or processed at temperatures above 212°F (100°C) may contain acrylamide. As a general rule, the chemical is formed when food is heated enough to produce a fairly dry and brown/yellow surface. Hence, it can be found in:
* Potatoes: chips, French fries and other roasted or fried potato foods
* Grains: bread crust, toast, crisp bread, roasted breakfast cereals and various processed snacks
* Coffee; roasted coffee beans and ground coffee powder. Surprisingly, coffee substitutes based on chicory actually contains 2-3 times MORE acrylamide than real coffee
How Much Acrylamide are You Consuming?
The federal limit for acrylamide in drinking water is 0.5 parts per billion, or about 0.12 micrograms in an eight-ounce glass of water. However, a six-ounce serving of French fries can contain 60 micrograms of acrylamide, or about FIVE HUNDRED times over the allowable limit.
Similarly, potato chips are notoriously high in this dangerous chemical. So high, in fact, that in 2005 the state of California actually sued potato chip makers for failing to warn California consumers about the health risks of acrylamide in their products. A settlement was reached in 2008 when Frito-Lay and several other potato chip makers agreed to reduce the acrylamide levels in their chips to 275 parts per billion (ppb) by 2011, which is low enough to avoid needing a cancer warning label.
The 2005 report "How Potato Chips Stack Up: Levels of Cancer-Causing Acrylamide in Popular Brands of Potato Chips," issued by the California-based Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), spelled out the dangers of this popular snack. Their analysis found that all potato chip products tested exceeded the legal limit of acrylamide by a minimum of 39 times, and as much as 910 times! Some of the worst offenders at that time included:
* Cape Cod Robust Russet: 910 times the legal limit of acrylamide
* Kettle Chips (lightly salted): 505 times
* Kettle Chips (honey dijon): 495 times
Beware: Baked Chips May Be WORSE than Fried!
If you think you can avoid the health risks of potato chips by choosing baked varieties, which are typically advertised as being "healthier," think again. Remember that acrylamide is formed not only when foods are fried or broiled, but also when they are baked. And according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data on acrylamide levels in foods, baked chips may contain more than three times the level of acrylamide as regular chips!
Interestingly, the same trend holds true for other foods, too, which suggests that baking processed potatoes at high temperature may be one of the worst ways to cook them. For instance, according to the FDA's data, Ore Ida Golden Fries contained 107 ppb of acrylamide in the regular fried version and 1,098 when baked. So remember, ALL potato chips contain acrylamide, regardless of whether they are natural or not; baked or fried. Likewise, they will ALL influence your insulin levels in a very negative way.
Acrylamide is Not the Only Danger
Acrylamide is not the only dangerous genotoxic compound formed when food is heated to high temperatures.
A three-year long EU project, known as Heat-Generated Food Toxicants (HEATOX), whose findings were published at the end of 2007, found there are more than 800 heat-induced compounds, of which 52 are potential carcinogens. In addition to their finding that acrylamide does pose a public health threat, the HEATOX scientists also discovered that you're far less likely to ingest dangerous levels of the toxin when you eat home-cooked foods compared to industrially or restaurant-prepared foods.
Additionally, the HEATOX findings also suggest that although there are ways to decrease exposure to acrylamide, it cannot be eliminated completely.
According to their calculations, successful application of all presently known methods would reduce the acrylamide intake by 40 percent at the most—which makes me wonder whether chip manufacturers have really succeeded at this point in reducing acrylamide levels to within legal limits... There's no updated data as of yet, so there's no telling whether they've been able to comply with the 2005 settlement.
For more in-depth information about acrylamide, I recommend reading the online report Heat-generated Food Toxicants, Identification, Characterization and Risk Minimization. In general however, just remember that cooking food at high temperatures is ill advised. A few of the most well-known toxins created in high-temperature cooking include:
* Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs): These form when meat is cooked at high temperatures, and they're also linked to cancer. In terms of HCA, the worst part of the meat is the blackened section, which is why you should always avoid charring your meat, and never eat blackened sections.
* Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): When fat drips onto the heat source, causing excess smoke, and the smoke surrounds your food, it can transfer cancer-causing PAHs to the meat.
* Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs): When food is cooked at high temperatures (including when it is pasteurized or sterilized), it increases the formation of AGEs in your food. When you eat the food, it transfers the AGEs into your body. AGEs build up in your body over time leading to oxidative stress, inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease.
The Search for a "Healthful" Chip Continues...
Like a modern-day search for the Holy Grail, chip manufacturers keep searching for methods to improve the image of their health-harming but profitable snacks. For example, by the end of 2011, about half of Pepsi's Frito-Lay brand snacks will be reformulated with all-natural ingredients. The switch is part of PepsiCo's master plan to tap into the healthy foods market share. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the company hopes to boost their nutrition business from $10 billion to $30 billion by 2020.
The company will remove dietary hazards like monosodium glutamate (MSG), replacing it with natural seasonings, such as molasses and paprika. Artificial colors will be replaced with beet juice, purple cabbage and carrots. All in all, about different 60 snacks are scheduled to get an all-natural makeover.
This is certainly a good example of how consumer demand can alter the direction of food manufacturers in a positive way.
The reformulated chips may end up being less bad for you than the original formulations. However, chips will never be truly healthful. All-natural chips may be the lesser of two evils, but if consumed regularly, they will still push your health in the wrong direction... There's no getting away from the fact that modern plagues such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes have a dietary component, and potato chips and French fries will always be a losing bet if you want to avoid becoming another disease statistic.
How to Avoid Heat-Induced Toxins in Your Diet
Ideally, you should consume foods that are raw or minimally processed to avoid these types of toxic byproducts—the more raw food, the better. My nutrition plan emphasizes the need for at least one-third of your foods to be consumed raw. Personally, I consume about 80 percent of my food raw, and I find it is one of the most important factors that help keep me healthy.
It may take you awhile to switch over to a less processed diet, but throwing out the most obvious culprits would be a great start.
These would include:
* French fries and potato chips
* All sodas (both regular and diet, as artificial sweeteners may be more problematic than fructose)
* Doughnuts
Healthy Eating Made Easy
Aside from creating potentially toxic byproducts, cooking and processing also depletes the food of valuable micronutrients, which is another reason for eating as much raw food as possible. This includes protein sources such as eggs. Raw whole eggs from organic, pastured chickens are an incredible source of high-quality nutrients that many are deficient in. Raw milk is another good example of a food that is beneficial in its raw state but becomes harmful after it is pasteurized.
By opting for foods that will benefit your health, such as raw, preferably organic and/or locally-grown vegetables, organic grass-fed meats, healthy oils, raw dairy, nuts and seeds, you can change your health for the better. These are the foods that are truly natural, and quite easy to prepare once you get the hang of it.
For a step-by-step guide to make the transition to a healthier diet as simple and smooth as possible, simply follow the advice in my optimized nutrition plan.
Remember, eating fresh whole foods is the "secret" to getting healthier, losing weight and really enjoying your food. It's unfortunate that so many are under the mistaken belief that it's "next to impossible" to create a meal without processed foods. Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough tackle this issue head-on in their book Real Food Has Curves, which is a great starting point to "relearn" the basics of how to enjoy and prepare real food.
Once you get used to it, you'll find you can whip up a healthful meal from scratch in the same amount of time it would have taken you to drive down the street to pick up fast food. The main difference will be greater satisfaction, both physically and mentally, and perhaps even financially, as processed foods typically end up being more expensive than cooking from scratch.
Egypt Islamists vow mass protests over ‘declaration of basic principles’
2011-11-02
Source:Middle East Online
CAIRO - Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood threatened on Wednesday to bring its supporters out onto the streets over the military government's plans to set out the basics of a new constitution ahead of an elected People's Assembly.
The Brotherhood and other smaller parties, most of them also Islamist, said that one million people would protest nationwide on November 18 if the plans to pre-empt the promised People's Assembly to be elected early next year were not abandoned.
The Islamists were reacting to comments by Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Salmi in Wednesday's edition of the state-owned daily Al-Ahram in which he said the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was "carefully considering" a plan for a "declaration of basic principles."
The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, called for Salmi's resignation.
"We call on Ali al-Salmi to step down and, if the government presses ahead with its plan, for all of its members to quit, because (this proposal) is a threat to Egypt's security," the party's vice chairman Saad al-Ketatni said.
"The national forces will not allow a small minority to impose its will on everyone," he said, reading a statement in the name of the party and its electoral allies.
He said that the government should "remember what happened to the system of the corrupt, all-powerful tyrant," a reference to the mass revolt which overthrew veteran president Hosni Mubarak's regime in February.
According to Al-Ahram, the declaration of principles being considered by the military government would state that "Egypt is a civil, democratic state which unites all of its citizens without distinction under the rule of law."
The clause is intended as a safeguard for Egypt's Coptic Christian minority which makes up between six and eight percent of the 80 million population.
The basic principles would also state that "sharia (Islamic law) is the main source of legislation," but not the sole one.
Source:Middle East Online
CAIRO - Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood threatened on Wednesday to bring its supporters out onto the streets over the military government's plans to set out the basics of a new constitution ahead of an elected People's Assembly.
The Brotherhood and other smaller parties, most of them also Islamist, said that one million people would protest nationwide on November 18 if the plans to pre-empt the promised People's Assembly to be elected early next year were not abandoned.
The Islamists were reacting to comments by Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Salmi in Wednesday's edition of the state-owned daily Al-Ahram in which he said the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was "carefully considering" a plan for a "declaration of basic principles."
The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, called for Salmi's resignation.
"We call on Ali al-Salmi to step down and, if the government presses ahead with its plan, for all of its members to quit, because (this proposal) is a threat to Egypt's security," the party's vice chairman Saad al-Ketatni said.
"The national forces will not allow a small minority to impose its will on everyone," he said, reading a statement in the name of the party and its electoral allies.
He said that the government should "remember what happened to the system of the corrupt, all-powerful tyrant," a reference to the mass revolt which overthrew veteran president Hosni Mubarak's regime in February.
According to Al-Ahram, the declaration of principles being considered by the military government would state that "Egypt is a civil, democratic state which unites all of its citizens without distinction under the rule of law."
The clause is intended as a safeguard for Egypt's Coptic Christian minority which makes up between six and eight percent of the 80 million population.
The basic principles would also state that "sharia (Islamic law) is the main source of legislation," but not the sole one.
Islamists step up reform demands
November 6th, 2011
By Taylor Luck
Source:Jordan Times
AMMAN - The Islamist movement rolled out new reform demands on Friday, urging a series of changes to the Kingdom’s political and economic institutions.
In a speech delivered at the Islamists’ first public rally since turning down Cabinet posts last month, Islamic Action Front (IAF) Secretary General Hamzah Mansour unveiled a list of demands to change the “politics” of the Kingdom.
The speech was widely viewed by observers as the Muslim Brotherhood’s response to Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh’s overtures, built upon previous conditions set by the movement for its participation in municipal elections.
Mansour reiterated the movement’s calls for constitutional amendments ensuring “the right of the people to form governments on the basis of a parliamentary majority” and protecting the Lower House against dissolution or early elections.
During the rally, held near the capital’s Interior Ministry Circle, Mansour also called for the release of all “political prisoners” and all citizens being held without charges along with the dissolution of the State Security Court.
The Islamist movement demanded an end to security services’ “intrusion” into public life, reiterating claims that “interference” has marred the political process in the Kingdom.
“We say enough of the security services’ interference in political and public life,” he said.
Mansour also demanded an immediate end to “political thuggery” - referring to the spate of attacks and threats against pro-reform activists that have increased since the beginning of the year and have largely gone unprosecuted.
On the economic front, the Islamist movement called for increased budget oversight and transparency in the use of public funds.
In addition, the IAF secretary general urged authorities to combat poverty and unemployment, linking citizens’ difficult living conditions with the need for tougher anti-corruption measures.
The former MP insisted that the demands are not Islamists’ pre-conditions for future cooperation with authorities, but rather the standards by which the current and future governments will be judged.
“These are not only our demands - these are the demands of the Jordanian people,” Mansour told The Jordan Times.
National unity was a common theme in Friday’s event, attended by some 1,000 independent activists and Islamist supporters, as speakers stressed that Jordanians from cities, camps, villages and the badia would all benefit from greater democratic reforms.
Ghaleb Abu Summaqa of the Tribal Coalition for Reform - a grouping of activists from the Bani Hassan, Bani Sakher, Daaja and Ajarmeh tribes - said calls for political and economic change are not restricted to single segment of Jordanian society.
“Many people say tribes are against reform, but we are here to say that they are wrong: we want change and we want change now,” Abu Summaqa told The Jordan Times.
“We are the foundations of this country, so we believe reform should start with us.”
Abu Summaqa dismissed any ideological or social barriers preventing tribes from partnering with the Islamist movement, claiming that independents, Islamists, leftists and conservatives are united in their pro-reform demands.
“We are all Jordanians and we will gladly work with anyone to improve the situation in our country,” he said.
The two-hour rally, which also featured speeches by Rahi Suleimat of the Bani Hamida tribe and Hamzeh Issa of the Popular Youth Movement, was noticeably devoid of Islamist rhetoric, with speakers choosing to focus on domestic issues rather than regional or moral concerns.
According to observers, the tone of Friday’s rally is in line with a strategic shift within the Islamist movement to distance itself from its traditional focus on the Palestinian cause and concentrate on local social, economic and political issues.
The event ended the Islamists’ three-week absence from the streets, which according to sources was prompted largely by an internal debate within the movement over its stance on the new government.
By Taylor Luck
Source:Jordan Times
AMMAN - The Islamist movement rolled out new reform demands on Friday, urging a series of changes to the Kingdom’s political and economic institutions.
In a speech delivered at the Islamists’ first public rally since turning down Cabinet posts last month, Islamic Action Front (IAF) Secretary General Hamzah Mansour unveiled a list of demands to change the “politics” of the Kingdom.
The speech was widely viewed by observers as the Muslim Brotherhood’s response to Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh’s overtures, built upon previous conditions set by the movement for its participation in municipal elections.
Mansour reiterated the movement’s calls for constitutional amendments ensuring “the right of the people to form governments on the basis of a parliamentary majority” and protecting the Lower House against dissolution or early elections.
During the rally, held near the capital’s Interior Ministry Circle, Mansour also called for the release of all “political prisoners” and all citizens being held without charges along with the dissolution of the State Security Court.
The Islamist movement demanded an end to security services’ “intrusion” into public life, reiterating claims that “interference” has marred the political process in the Kingdom.
“We say enough of the security services’ interference in political and public life,” he said.
Mansour also demanded an immediate end to “political thuggery” - referring to the spate of attacks and threats against pro-reform activists that have increased since the beginning of the year and have largely gone unprosecuted.
On the economic front, the Islamist movement called for increased budget oversight and transparency in the use of public funds.
In addition, the IAF secretary general urged authorities to combat poverty and unemployment, linking citizens’ difficult living conditions with the need for tougher anti-corruption measures.
The former MP insisted that the demands are not Islamists’ pre-conditions for future cooperation with authorities, but rather the standards by which the current and future governments will be judged.
“These are not only our demands - these are the demands of the Jordanian people,” Mansour told The Jordan Times.
National unity was a common theme in Friday’s event, attended by some 1,000 independent activists and Islamist supporters, as speakers stressed that Jordanians from cities, camps, villages and the badia would all benefit from greater democratic reforms.
Ghaleb Abu Summaqa of the Tribal Coalition for Reform - a grouping of activists from the Bani Hassan, Bani Sakher, Daaja and Ajarmeh tribes - said calls for political and economic change are not restricted to single segment of Jordanian society.
“Many people say tribes are against reform, but we are here to say that they are wrong: we want change and we want change now,” Abu Summaqa told The Jordan Times.
“We are the foundations of this country, so we believe reform should start with us.”
Abu Summaqa dismissed any ideological or social barriers preventing tribes from partnering with the Islamist movement, claiming that independents, Islamists, leftists and conservatives are united in their pro-reform demands.
“We are all Jordanians and we will gladly work with anyone to improve the situation in our country,” he said.
The two-hour rally, which also featured speeches by Rahi Suleimat of the Bani Hamida tribe and Hamzeh Issa of the Popular Youth Movement, was noticeably devoid of Islamist rhetoric, with speakers choosing to focus on domestic issues rather than regional or moral concerns.
According to observers, the tone of Friday’s rally is in line with a strategic shift within the Islamist movement to distance itself from its traditional focus on the Palestinian cause and concentrate on local social, economic and political issues.
The event ended the Islamists’ three-week absence from the streets, which according to sources was prompted largely by an internal debate within the movement over its stance on the new government.
Pro-reform protesters single out security services
November 6th, 2011
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
AMMAN - As weekly pro-reform protests entered their 11th month on Friday, activists across the country hit the streets to reject what they claimed as security services’ “hold” on public life.
In a demonstration at Al Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman held under the slogan “no reform under the grip of security agencies”, dozens of youths and leftist activists called for an end to “interference” by intelligence agencies in political life.
Fakher Daas, head of the Wihda Party youth branch and protest organiser, said the demonstration aimed to send the message that although the head of the government may have changed, obstacles facing reform efforts remain.
“Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh is just one person, we are here to change the whole system - and that starts with rolling back the influence of security services in all aspects of life,” he said.
“Until security services exit from all aspects of public life, reform in Jordan will be impossible,” Daas added.
Activists insisted that ongoing weekly demands for reform are an indictment of the way the political system operates, not a referendum of a specific government’s performance.
“We never had anything against Marouf Bakhit or Samir Rifai personally, and we are not against Awn Khasawneh,” said Amjad Qasawneh, a member of the Popular Youth Movement Coalition for Change.
“What we are rejecting is the political system itself - it is broken and until we fix it, we cannot tackle corruption or ensure public freedoms,” the Al al Bayt University student added.
Amjad Ouran, a member of the Hay Al Tafaileh Freedom Movement, said activists are driven by frustration over a stalled economy, limited transparency and a lack of progress in tackling corruption.
“Who really profited from the privatisation process? Where are all the public funds going? Why haven’t any senior officials been brought to justice?” he remarked.
“The same questions we had 11 months ago still haven’t been answered, so we are going to keep pressure on decision makers.”
A few metres away from Al Husseini Mosque, some two-dozen so-called government loyalists staged a counter-demonstration, rejecting calls for elected governments and labelling pro-reform activists as “Iranian agents”.
Ibrahim Taher said he was driven by a “patriotic duty” to brave rainy weather and raise banners denouncing the reformists’ demands.
“I have no money, I have nothing to eat - the only people who will look after me is the Hashemite leadership and I will die before anyone threatens them,” he said.
Both the sit-in and the counter-demonstration, which lasted less than a half-hour, ended without incident.
Not all in downtown Amman were impressed with Friday’s civic activism, pro-reform or otherwise.
Saleh Zawahreh, a sweets vendor located across from Al Husseini Mosque, said traders have grown wary of weekly demonstrations which they claim have driven away customers in droves.
“When people think of downtown Amman, now all they think of is two words: marches and protests.”
Traders questioned the wisdom of activists’ selection of the Friday ahead of Eid Al Adha, one of the major shopping days of the year, to make their voices heard.
“Why this Friday? This is the one day that the whole of downtown comes to life,” Zawahreh remarked.
Ibrahim, a garment vendor stationed next to Al Husseini Mosque, which has served as the launching point for weekly demos, claimed sales have plummeted over the past several months, adding that this holiday season’s revenues pale in comparisons to past Eid Al Adhas.
“I can’t afford to make a sacrifice this year and they are stopping traffic to demand economic reform,” the 24-year-old said.
Meanwhile in Karak, three separate pro-reform marches were held across the governorate while tens of activists hit the streets in Jerash and Tafileh, demanding the dismissal of the Lower House and Senate and the formation of elected governments.
Friday’s protests, the second since the selection of Khasawneh as prime minister last month, were marked by a lack of slogans calling for the government’s ouster.
Jordan’s pro-reform movement dates back to a small-scale January protest in the town of Theeban, south of Madaba, calling for economic reforms and the resignation of the Samir Rifai government.
Eleven months and two governments later, the protest movement has branched out across the Kingdom along with the rise of so-called popular movements, adopting various causes ranging from municipal services to an end to privatisation.
With participants often numbering in the hundreds, the demonstrations have been largely peaceful; the vast majority of the some 700-odd protests and marches that have taken place in the Kingdom this year have ended without incident.
By Taylor Luck
Source: Jordan Times
AMMAN - As weekly pro-reform protests entered their 11th month on Friday, activists across the country hit the streets to reject what they claimed as security services’ “hold” on public life.
In a demonstration at Al Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman held under the slogan “no reform under the grip of security agencies”, dozens of youths and leftist activists called for an end to “interference” by intelligence agencies in political life.
Fakher Daas, head of the Wihda Party youth branch and protest organiser, said the demonstration aimed to send the message that although the head of the government may have changed, obstacles facing reform efforts remain.
“Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh is just one person, we are here to change the whole system - and that starts with rolling back the influence of security services in all aspects of life,” he said.
“Until security services exit from all aspects of public life, reform in Jordan will be impossible,” Daas added.
Activists insisted that ongoing weekly demands for reform are an indictment of the way the political system operates, not a referendum of a specific government’s performance.
“We never had anything against Marouf Bakhit or Samir Rifai personally, and we are not against Awn Khasawneh,” said Amjad Qasawneh, a member of the Popular Youth Movement Coalition for Change.
“What we are rejecting is the political system itself - it is broken and until we fix it, we cannot tackle corruption or ensure public freedoms,” the Al al Bayt University student added.
Amjad Ouran, a member of the Hay Al Tafaileh Freedom Movement, said activists are driven by frustration over a stalled economy, limited transparency and a lack of progress in tackling corruption.
“Who really profited from the privatisation process? Where are all the public funds going? Why haven’t any senior officials been brought to justice?” he remarked.
“The same questions we had 11 months ago still haven’t been answered, so we are going to keep pressure on decision makers.”
A few metres away from Al Husseini Mosque, some two-dozen so-called government loyalists staged a counter-demonstration, rejecting calls for elected governments and labelling pro-reform activists as “Iranian agents”.
Ibrahim Taher said he was driven by a “patriotic duty” to brave rainy weather and raise banners denouncing the reformists’ demands.
“I have no money, I have nothing to eat - the only people who will look after me is the Hashemite leadership and I will die before anyone threatens them,” he said.
Both the sit-in and the counter-demonstration, which lasted less than a half-hour, ended without incident.
Not all in downtown Amman were impressed with Friday’s civic activism, pro-reform or otherwise.
Saleh Zawahreh, a sweets vendor located across from Al Husseini Mosque, said traders have grown wary of weekly demonstrations which they claim have driven away customers in droves.
“When people think of downtown Amman, now all they think of is two words: marches and protests.”
Traders questioned the wisdom of activists’ selection of the Friday ahead of Eid Al Adha, one of the major shopping days of the year, to make their voices heard.
“Why this Friday? This is the one day that the whole of downtown comes to life,” Zawahreh remarked.
Ibrahim, a garment vendor stationed next to Al Husseini Mosque, which has served as the launching point for weekly demos, claimed sales have plummeted over the past several months, adding that this holiday season’s revenues pale in comparisons to past Eid Al Adhas.
“I can’t afford to make a sacrifice this year and they are stopping traffic to demand economic reform,” the 24-year-old said.
Meanwhile in Karak, three separate pro-reform marches were held across the governorate while tens of activists hit the streets in Jerash and Tafileh, demanding the dismissal of the Lower House and Senate and the formation of elected governments.
Friday’s protests, the second since the selection of Khasawneh as prime minister last month, were marked by a lack of slogans calling for the government’s ouster.
Jordan’s pro-reform movement dates back to a small-scale January protest in the town of Theeban, south of Madaba, calling for economic reforms and the resignation of the Samir Rifai government.
Eleven months and two governments later, the protest movement has branched out across the Kingdom along with the rise of so-called popular movements, adopting various causes ranging from municipal services to an end to privatisation.
With participants often numbering in the hundreds, the demonstrations have been largely peaceful; the vast majority of the some 700-odd protests and marches that have taken place in the Kingdom this year have ended without incident.
Jailed for Sailing to Gaza, Challenging the Blockade
November 4, 2011
By Medea Benjamin and Robert Naiman
Source:AlterNet
Two boats full of courageous passengers were on their way to Gaza when they were intercepted on Friday, November 4, by the Israeli military in international waters. We call the passengers courageous because they sailed from Turkey on November 2 with the knowledge that at any moment they might be boarded by Israeli commandos intent on stopping them—perhaps violently, as the Israeli military did in 2010 when they killed nine humanitarian aid workers on the Turkish boat named Mavi Marmara.
The boats—one from Canada and one from Ireland—were carrying 27 passengers, including press and peace activists from Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia and Palestine. They were unarmed, and the Israeli military knew that. They were simply peace activists wanting to connect with civilians in Gaza, and the Israeli military knew that. Yet naked aggression was used against them in international waters—something that is normally considered an act of piracy.
The passengers on the boats were sailing to Gaza to challenge the U.S.-supported Israeli blockade that is crippling the lives of 1.6 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They were sailing to stand up against unaccountable power—the power of the Israeli government—that has been violating the basic rights of the 5.5 million Palestinians that live inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders or in the Occupied Territories. They were sailing for us, civil society, who believe in human rights and the rule of law.
The Arab Spring - which has now spread to cities across the United States in the form of the "#occupy" movement, and has been echoed in protests against economic injustice in Europe and Israel as well - has fundamentally been a challenge to unaccountable power. Some countries experiencing this protest wave are dictatorships under military rule or ruled by monarchies; others are generally considered "democracies.” But in all instances the majority feel that they have been shut out of decision-making and have been harmed by policies benefiting a narrow elite with disproportionate power.
The blockade of Gaza's civilians is an extreme example of unaccountable power. Palestinians in Gaza aren’t allowed to vote for Israeli or American politicians. But due to political decisions taken in Israel and the United States, Palestinians in Gaza are prevented from exporting their goods, traveling freely, farming their land, fishing their waters or importing construction materials to build their homes and factories.
We have been to Gaza before, where we have seen the devastation firsthand. We have also been to Israel and the West Bank, where we have seen how the Israeli government is detaining Palestinians at checkpoints, building walls that cut them off from their lands, demolishing their houses, arbitrarily imprisoning their relatives and imposing economic restrictions that prevent them from earning a living. We have seen how Palestinians, like people everywhere, are desperate to live normal and dignified lives.
A UN Report released in September found that “Israel’s oppressive policies [in Gaza] constitute a form of collective punishment of civilians”, that these policies violate both international humanitarian and human rights law, and that the illegal siege of Gaza should be lifted. The International Committee of the Red Cross also called the blockade of Gaza a violation of international law because it constitutes "collective punishment" of a civilian population for actions for which the civilians are not responsible. The Red Cross is a neutral humanitarian organization. It doesn't usually go around making pronouncements on matters of public policy. The fact that it has done so in this case should be a strong signal to the international community that the blockade of Gaza is extreme and must fall.
History has shown us again and again that when political leaders decide it's in their interest, then peace, diplomacy, negotiations are possible. Recently, Israel and Hamas - with the help of the new Egyptian government - successfully negotiated a prisoner exchange that had eluded them for five years. In speeches, the Israeli government "opposes negotiations with Hamas," and in speeches, Hamas "opposes negotiations with Israel.” But when they decided it was in their interest, they had no problem sitting down at the table and hammering out an agreement.
If Israel and Hamas can negotiate an agreement to release prisoners, then surely Israel and Hamas can negotiate an agreement to lift the blockade on Gaza's civilians.
But the people of Gaza can’t wait for political leaders to decide it’s in their interest to negotiate, so it’s up to us—as civil society—to step up the pressure. That’s what these waves of boats are doing. That’s what the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is doing.
More than a year ago, President Obama called the blockade unsustainable. "It seems to us that there should be ways of focusing narrowly on arms shipments, rather than focusing in a blanket way on stopping everything and then, in a piecemeal way, allowing things into Gaza," he said. That hasn't happened. Why not? Why shouldn't it happen now? What does blocking Palestinian exports from Gaza to Europe or keeping people from getting medical treatment abroad have to do with arms shipments?
The Israeli military stopped these two small ships carrying peace activists to Gaza, but they won’t stop the Palestinians who are demanding freedom, and they won’t stop the solidarity movement. We won't stop challenging the blockade on Gaza's civilians—by land and by sea-- until the blockade falls. And we won't stop challenging the denial of Palestinian democratic aspirations until those aspirations are realized.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK:Women for Peace.
Robert Naiman is the Director of Just Foreign Policy.
By Medea Benjamin and Robert Naiman
Source:AlterNet
Two boats full of courageous passengers were on their way to Gaza when they were intercepted on Friday, November 4, by the Israeli military in international waters. We call the passengers courageous because they sailed from Turkey on November 2 with the knowledge that at any moment they might be boarded by Israeli commandos intent on stopping them—perhaps violently, as the Israeli military did in 2010 when they killed nine humanitarian aid workers on the Turkish boat named Mavi Marmara.
The boats—one from Canada and one from Ireland—were carrying 27 passengers, including press and peace activists from Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia and Palestine. They were unarmed, and the Israeli military knew that. They were simply peace activists wanting to connect with civilians in Gaza, and the Israeli military knew that. Yet naked aggression was used against them in international waters—something that is normally considered an act of piracy.
The passengers on the boats were sailing to Gaza to challenge the U.S.-supported Israeli blockade that is crippling the lives of 1.6 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They were sailing to stand up against unaccountable power—the power of the Israeli government—that has been violating the basic rights of the 5.5 million Palestinians that live inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders or in the Occupied Territories. They were sailing for us, civil society, who believe in human rights and the rule of law.
The Arab Spring - which has now spread to cities across the United States in the form of the "#occupy" movement, and has been echoed in protests against economic injustice in Europe and Israel as well - has fundamentally been a challenge to unaccountable power. Some countries experiencing this protest wave are dictatorships under military rule or ruled by monarchies; others are generally considered "democracies.” But in all instances the majority feel that they have been shut out of decision-making and have been harmed by policies benefiting a narrow elite with disproportionate power.
The blockade of Gaza's civilians is an extreme example of unaccountable power. Palestinians in Gaza aren’t allowed to vote for Israeli or American politicians. But due to political decisions taken in Israel and the United States, Palestinians in Gaza are prevented from exporting their goods, traveling freely, farming their land, fishing their waters or importing construction materials to build their homes and factories.
We have been to Gaza before, where we have seen the devastation firsthand. We have also been to Israel and the West Bank, where we have seen how the Israeli government is detaining Palestinians at checkpoints, building walls that cut them off from their lands, demolishing their houses, arbitrarily imprisoning their relatives and imposing economic restrictions that prevent them from earning a living. We have seen how Palestinians, like people everywhere, are desperate to live normal and dignified lives.
A UN Report released in September found that “Israel’s oppressive policies [in Gaza] constitute a form of collective punishment of civilians”, that these policies violate both international humanitarian and human rights law, and that the illegal siege of Gaza should be lifted. The International Committee of the Red Cross also called the blockade of Gaza a violation of international law because it constitutes "collective punishment" of a civilian population for actions for which the civilians are not responsible. The Red Cross is a neutral humanitarian organization. It doesn't usually go around making pronouncements on matters of public policy. The fact that it has done so in this case should be a strong signal to the international community that the blockade of Gaza is extreme and must fall.
History has shown us again and again that when political leaders decide it's in their interest, then peace, diplomacy, negotiations are possible. Recently, Israel and Hamas - with the help of the new Egyptian government - successfully negotiated a prisoner exchange that had eluded them for five years. In speeches, the Israeli government "opposes negotiations with Hamas," and in speeches, Hamas "opposes negotiations with Israel.” But when they decided it was in their interest, they had no problem sitting down at the table and hammering out an agreement.
If Israel and Hamas can negotiate an agreement to release prisoners, then surely Israel and Hamas can negotiate an agreement to lift the blockade on Gaza's civilians.
But the people of Gaza can’t wait for political leaders to decide it’s in their interest to negotiate, so it’s up to us—as civil society—to step up the pressure. That’s what these waves of boats are doing. That’s what the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is doing.
More than a year ago, President Obama called the blockade unsustainable. "It seems to us that there should be ways of focusing narrowly on arms shipments, rather than focusing in a blanket way on stopping everything and then, in a piecemeal way, allowing things into Gaza," he said. That hasn't happened. Why not? Why shouldn't it happen now? What does blocking Palestinian exports from Gaza to Europe or keeping people from getting medical treatment abroad have to do with arms shipments?
The Israeli military stopped these two small ships carrying peace activists to Gaza, but they won’t stop the Palestinians who are demanding freedom, and they won’t stop the solidarity movement. We won't stop challenging the blockade on Gaza's civilians—by land and by sea-- until the blockade falls. And we won't stop challenging the denial of Palestinian democratic aspirations until those aspirations are realized.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK:Women for Peace.
Robert Naiman is the Director of Just Foreign Policy.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Eilaboun massacre
A terrifying massacre happened, with memories that hardly exist in our minds a massacre was forgotten by people who tried to describe those horrified days.
In the early morning of 30.10.1948 which started as every morning, the sun shining over the world turning that day to a deep red day in the memory of everyone.
The people refused to leave in spite of the horrible news about the Israeli army that was about to invade the village in any moment.
The army entered the village and found the people inside the church holding white flags. The army took the people out of the church and killed 14 young men and the rest were kicked out towards the north heading to Lebanon, and in order to terrify the people and erg them to leave as quickly as possible they shot another person turning the number of victims to 15 added to tens of injured people who survived miraculously.
The return
After 50 days out of Palestine people started to return from the refugee camp towards the village.
People of Eilaboun were allowed to return after great efforts that were made by a local priest called Morcous Mouallem. He sent many letters to many generals and different ministries asking to let the people of his village to return he also was helped by the mandate of Lebanon in the United Nations.
As a result, a committee of observers from the United Nations arrived to the village in order to see the remains of the massacre.
In the 20th.11.1948 the priest sent two men to Lebanon to ask the people to return.
The massacre of the Mawassi
The Mawassi tribe lived nearby Eilaboun and it had good relations with the people of Eilaboun.
On the massacre day (2.11.1948) some soliers met two of the mawassi who were looking after their cows so they were shot, one of them was 13 and the second was 16.
In the next day the army invaded the tribe and chose 14 men to be shot down, one man called Saaed Mouhamed Eldeeb saw everything and told the story to other people most of the tribe escaped to Syria.
Eilaboun was like other Palestinian villages that were put under the Jewish authority, those villages suffered from ethnic cleansing.
My grandmother told me this story with tearful eyes:-
" on the black day we all gathered inside the church when we knew about the coming of the Israeli army with his blooded hands. By entering the village and forcing all people to gather in neighborhood yard which was used to celebrate weddings and it turned it into the yard of martyrs.
One of the soldiers named " Hayem Batata" chose 12 young men randomly by pointing at them with one hand while the other hand was holding a rifle, which was used to shoot those guys.
Meanwhile tens of men were arrested including my husband and the other people old men, women children , were moved in front of the tanks towards Mag'ar village.
At the entrance of the village two men tried to escape so they were shot immediately.
People were hungry and thirsty passing the village of Mag'ar reaching KufrEnan junction another man from the village was shot and many were injured and 40 men were arrested. The Israeli army intended to kill 50 men but one man named Ebrahim Hawa paid the army 100 Palestinian Liras as a ransom.
I walked holding my new born baby in one hand and a two year old baby in the other hand and followed by my two daughters. I was desperate and helpless for a minute I thought that I should leave the baby behind in order to save the other children, but my mother held the baby while she was dragging her injured mother at the same time , so she held the baby in her teeth by her diaper.
Those were hard days, we looked for food in the cow dung and drank dirty water which was put for pigs it drink in the village of Elberthiaa.
I saw many women leaving their newborn babies behind under the trees in order to save the other children in the family. The ones who survived reached the refugee camp ELmeyee Wemyee in Lebanon with no shelter or food they started a new life away form home. We stayed without a shelter for 70 days suffering and starving. So some families decided to give in their kids to Monasteries and orphanages.
Finally we were allowed to return home an we did, but our properties were gone, clothing, food, cattle, nothing was left.
But we over came those hard days with our strong will and determination.
The victims of Eilaboun
Fadel Fadlo Eilabouni
Foad Nofal Zureik
Melad Fayad Sliman
Michyel Mitri Shami
Naeem Gantous Zureik
Mouhamed Khaled Asaad
Abdullah Simaan Shoufani
Badee Jeries Zureik
Raja Michyel Haleel Nakhly
Jeries Shibli Hayek
Ziki Moussa Nakhly Skafi
Hanna Ibraheem Khouri Ashkar
Azar Salem Mousalam
Simaan Jeries Shoufani
In the early morning of 30.10.1948 which started as every morning, the sun shining over the world turning that day to a deep red day in the memory of everyone.
The people refused to leave in spite of the horrible news about the Israeli army that was about to invade the village in any moment.
The army entered the village and found the people inside the church holding white flags. The army took the people out of the church and killed 14 young men and the rest were kicked out towards the north heading to Lebanon, and in order to terrify the people and erg them to leave as quickly as possible they shot another person turning the number of victims to 15 added to tens of injured people who survived miraculously.
The return
After 50 days out of Palestine people started to return from the refugee camp towards the village.
People of Eilaboun were allowed to return after great efforts that were made by a local priest called Morcous Mouallem. He sent many letters to many generals and different ministries asking to let the people of his village to return he also was helped by the mandate of Lebanon in the United Nations.
As a result, a committee of observers from the United Nations arrived to the village in order to see the remains of the massacre.
In the 20th.11.1948 the priest sent two men to Lebanon to ask the people to return.
The massacre of the Mawassi
The Mawassi tribe lived nearby Eilaboun and it had good relations with the people of Eilaboun.
On the massacre day (2.11.1948) some soliers met two of the mawassi who were looking after their cows so they were shot, one of them was 13 and the second was 16.
In the next day the army invaded the tribe and chose 14 men to be shot down, one man called Saaed Mouhamed Eldeeb saw everything and told the story to other people most of the tribe escaped to Syria.
Eilaboun was like other Palestinian villages that were put under the Jewish authority, those villages suffered from ethnic cleansing.
My grandmother told me this story with tearful eyes:-
" on the black day we all gathered inside the church when we knew about the coming of the Israeli army with his blooded hands. By entering the village and forcing all people to gather in neighborhood yard which was used to celebrate weddings and it turned it into the yard of martyrs.
One of the soldiers named " Hayem Batata" chose 12 young men randomly by pointing at them with one hand while the other hand was holding a rifle, which was used to shoot those guys.
Meanwhile tens of men were arrested including my husband and the other people old men, women children , were moved in front of the tanks towards Mag'ar village.
At the entrance of the village two men tried to escape so they were shot immediately.
People were hungry and thirsty passing the village of Mag'ar reaching KufrEnan junction another man from the village was shot and many were injured and 40 men were arrested. The Israeli army intended to kill 50 men but one man named Ebrahim Hawa paid the army 100 Palestinian Liras as a ransom.
I walked holding my new born baby in one hand and a two year old baby in the other hand and followed by my two daughters. I was desperate and helpless for a minute I thought that I should leave the baby behind in order to save the other children, but my mother held the baby while she was dragging her injured mother at the same time , so she held the baby in her teeth by her diaper.
Those were hard days, we looked for food in the cow dung and drank dirty water which was put for pigs it drink in the village of Elberthiaa.
I saw many women leaving their newborn babies behind under the trees in order to save the other children in the family. The ones who survived reached the refugee camp ELmeyee Wemyee in Lebanon with no shelter or food they started a new life away form home. We stayed without a shelter for 70 days suffering and starving. So some families decided to give in their kids to Monasteries and orphanages.
Finally we were allowed to return home an we did, but our properties were gone, clothing, food, cattle, nothing was left.
But we over came those hard days with our strong will and determination.
The victims of Eilaboun
Fadel Fadlo Eilabouni
Foad Nofal Zureik
Melad Fayad Sliman
Michyel Mitri Shami
Naeem Gantous Zureik
Mouhamed Khaled Asaad
Abdullah Simaan Shoufani
Badee Jeries Zureik
Raja Michyel Haleel Nakhly
Jeries Shibli Hayek
Ziki Moussa Nakhly Skafi
Hanna Ibraheem Khouri Ashkar
Azar Salem Mousalam
Simaan Jeries Shoufani
Impressions of Israeli Executions in the West Bank
January 7, 2009
Vijay Raghavan
Source: If Americans Knew
Much planning had gone into our family vacation in Israel-Palestine. We could spare only the last two weeks of 2009, and so had developed an uncompromising itinerary for each day, allowing a mere half-day to recover from jet lag from our trip from California. After devoting most of the first week to visiting holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho, we were, in the words of our 17-year-old, quite “churched out.” We are a typical American family in at least one regard: we have two other children (ages five and two), and we are all blessed with limited attention span. Absorbing detailed references to the Old and New Testaments in the places we visited was beyond our capabilities. Our hired tour guide and driver, Issa Habash1, had long ago taken notice of our monumental ignorance and had given up on reciting chapter and verse from the Bible
On December 26, 2009 we headed north from Bethlehem, where we had celebrated Christmas. Entering the city of Nablus, we stopped briefly at Jacob’s Well, just enough time to use the facilities and for a photo-op of my wife drawing water from the fabled well. Our plans for the rest of Nablus were somewhat vague; Issa suggested we take in an ancient Samaritan synagogue, but everyone else rebelled against this idea. My wife was more interested in seeing a soap factory or a store with the legendary spices of Nablus. As a former academic, I was keen on touring the an-Najah National University, which is the largest one in Palestine. I had even made a tentative arrangement with a local, Ala Abdessalam, to show us around. Ala is affiliated with the university but also functions as a coordinator for human rights groups and youth exchange programs operating in Nablus.
When we left Jacob’s Well, it was a little after eleven in the morning. We called Ala on his cell-phone and were told that he was no longer available for the tour. Apparently the Israeli Special Forces had killed some people in a pre-dawn operation in the Old City, and Ala was busy taking pictures and interviewing people. However, if we were up to the challenge, we could tag along while he went about his business. He said that it might even help him to have international observers with him.
We agreed to this proposal, albeit with some nervousness. Until that point we had not encountered any trouble in the Palestine Territories—to the contrary, the people we had met were extremely friendly and ready to debate political issues involving Israel, Palestine, and the United States quite openly. Still, we were uneasy about visiting the neighborhood where people had been killed that very day.
Ala met us at the outskirts of the Old City. He was accompanied by two other volunteers. All of us, including Issa, got down from the van and set off on foot. Our intrepid five-year-old led the way, taking his stuffed toy cat along for security (see Figure 1). Soon, a mentally challenged man joined the group and started yelling at us. Ala assured me that the man was harmless (“Isn’t there someone like this in every village?” was his comment.) Noticing my wife’s anxiety, one of the volunteers linked arms with our five-year-old and the two marched along happily.
Ala explained that there had been three distinct “termination” operations conducted by the Israeli Special Forces. The operations had been well coordinated, taking place between 2:00 and 4:00 AM, in three different houses within 2 kilometers of each other. Ala had already taken down preliminary testimony from the neighbors. In accordance with Muslim customs, the funerals had to be done promptly, and so Ala had to break off his interviews. He warned us that there would be a lot of mourners in each house that we visited.
At the first house, we were met by two neighbors, a young man and an older woman. Ala rattled off questions and translated briskly from Arabic to English for the benefit of my wife, our 17-year-old and myself. I asked an occasional question.
The man who had been killed was named Ghasan Abu Sharakh. He had been living in the house with his mother. At around 3:00 AM, the neighborhood was awakened by commotion in the streets. A convoy of about 30 jeeps had appeared suddenly, along with a Hummer and a bulldozer. Some 70 soldiers and at least one dog had spread around and a few soldiers had quickly entered the house.
“Nobody took pictures?” I asked. It seemed remarkable to me, in this age of ubiquitous cell-phone cameras, that it had not occurred to anyone to film the whole thing.
Ala explained patiently to me that if you were anywhere near an Israeli raid you did two things. First, you made sure that you did not have a camera; if the Israelis found one on you they would beat you senseless. Second, you visited a toilet as soon as you could—if you were rounded up you might not get to use the potty for a long time.
The old lady continued the story. Ghasan had been sleeping upstairs when the door of his house had been blasted open (see Figure 2). When he came downstairs to the door, he was immediately shot in the face. His mother, who was right behind him, had watched her son’s head explode and spill blood all over the room (see Figure 3). The old lady was sure that the Israelis would have shot the mother too if she had been the one to come to the door first.
I took some pictures and tried to think of meaningful questions to ask. My wife held on tightly to the two-year-old. The old lady asked us to enter the house and go upstairs to the living area. Ala assured my wife that it was alright for her as a foreigner to not wear a hijab; he told her to simply pay her respects to Ghasan’s mother when we met her.
There were many people inside the house. A local TV station was interviewing the mother. A groan emanated from the assembly when the mother related something (see Figure 4). Ala translated for us: “... the soldiers kept putting bullets into my son’s body even though his face was completely gone.”
Somehow a path opened up as people made way for us to reach Ghasan’s mother. Holding on to the two-year-old, my wife kneeled down and held the woman’s hand. Ala moved up to translate, but my wife was having difficulty forming words. It did not matter—grief has a universal language and whatever needed to be said by one woman to another in this situation had already been communicated.
Outside the house, Ala informed us that the mother had also lost her elder son in a similar way three years ago.
“Will there be an investigation?” I asked. “An autopsy?”
Ala shrugged. “What’s the point? Everyone knows the cause of death and who did the killing.”
“Still—”
“In any case Muslims do not like autopsies and embalming. Martyrs are to be buried in their own clothes soon after death.”
I took out my notebook and scribbled in all the details I could remember. A Scottish youth volunteer joined us at this point. He already knew Ala and also seemed to be familiar with the neighborhood. He said that he had been living in Nablus for a month. I asked him if he kept a diary or a journal. He glanced at my notebook said that it was best not to keep a written record: “The Israelis will read it at the airport and put you on a black list if they see any pro-Palestine sentiments.” Really?
Only a few details differed in the second killing. Raed Surkaji had been an activist some seven years before, and had been sent to an Israeli prison. He had been released eleven months ago, as part of a negotiated arrangement between the Palestine Authority and Israel. Since that time he had been living in Nablus. This fateful morning he had been sleeping with his pregnant wife when the Israeli soldiers arrived and knocked down the door of his house. He too had been shot in the face through the glass (see Figure 5) when he went up to the door.
Raed’s wife told Ala that she had pleaded with the soldiers to stop, but they kept shooting her husband long after he had died. They told her that she should be happy that they were letting her live. The commander came running up from the alley and pumped more bullets into the chest of the corpse. Then they had all left, laughing and shouting victorious slogans. Ala said that he had come to the house earlier that morning. At that time, the room had not been cleaned and there was flesh and brain substance all over the place. He pointed to two soap bars that still had some grisly matter on them (see Figure 6).
When I approached Raed’s wife, she pointed to her foot. Ala told me that when she walked out of the room glass shards had pierced her foot. She was unable to walk and had to be carried to the hospital for treatment. I had composed something to say to her, but when I looked into her eyes, I too found that I could not speak, just like my wife in the previous house. I touched her foot silently. But this time my wife managed to get out some words: she told Raed’s wife that she was sorry for her loss. Ala translated and the woman said “she was honored that we cared.” We were quite overcome with sadness when we left.
Outside, Ala wanted to go to the third house right away. He told us that this case was different—the man who was killed had worked in the Palestine Authority security service. Therefore he had had a pistol with him. He had hidden himself in the cellar when he heard the noise outside, but it had mattered little; he too was killed as swiftly as the others.
“How far is the house?” I asked Ala.
“Only a kilometer away.”
I looked at my wife, and she shook her head. We had seen enough.
We discussed the day’s events over a late lunch. The first and most obvious question was why the three men had been killed. On this question, Issa and Ala had different opinions.
Issa thought that the operation was Israeli retaliation for some crime that the three men had committed. An Israeli settler, Meir Avshalom Hai, from the nearby settlement of Shavei Shomron had been killed in his car on Christmas Eve. The al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade had already claimed responsibility for the killing. Issa was positive that the Israelis would have had evidence connecting the three people to the killing of the settler.
Ala was skeptical. He said that neither Ghasan nor Raed was armed, and even the Israelis would not claim that they possessed deadly weapons. According to the family and the neighbors, the men did have active links to al-Aqsa. “These killings were random,” Ala declared. “These guys were simply no use alive to the Israelis,” he said.
I could not accept the idea of random killings by the Israeli government. Since December 26, I have read all I could find on the Nablus operation, though I am handicapped by having to limit myself to English sources. News reports in Israel and Palestine are susceptible to the spin from the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, which makes it difficult to piece together even simple aspects of the truth. For example, Ala had told us that a “large number of people” had attended the funeral of the three people on December 26, but estimates of this large number varied from “a few thousand” to “about 10,000” to “well over 20,000,” depending on whether you read the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Al Jazeera, or the Ma’an News Agency. (The first one is pro-Israel, the last is pro-Palestine, and the other two are somewhere in-between.) Another detail on which there is no agreement is the spelling of the names of the people killed. This may well be a problem of transliterating Arabic names; I myself have rendered the names the way Ala spelled them out for me.
Much more disconcerting than these discrepancies in inessential details is the wholesale disagreement among the news sources on crucial facts, such as: the location where the men were killed (inside the house, upstairs, downstairs), whether they had been armed, whether they had been given a chance to surrender, whether taking prisoners was an option, etc. The following is a small selection of key points in the news reports I read.
The Ma’an News Agency2 mentions that the second man, Raed, was shot not only in front of his wife but also in front of his two children. This detail did not emerge in our meeting with Raed’s wife, but perhaps it was true and she did not consider it important to mention her children. The new report also indicates that the first man, Ghasan, was taken outside his house and shot. This does not match the physical evidence we saw in the house and I have puzzled over how the report could have gotten it so wrong. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing; could it be that the downstairs area where Ghasan was killed is not considered to be part of the house proper?
Al Jazeera3 notes that “the three men targeted by the Israelis had been disarmed under security measures taken by [the Palestinian Authority President] Abbas's police force.” The inference we are asked to make is that this was a cold-blooded execution of unarmed men.
The Jerusalem Post states4 that the Israelis soldiers came from the Judea and Samaria Division’s Special Forces unit and the Kfir Brigade’s battalion under the command of Col. Itzik Bar. The Post is unequivocal that the three men killed were Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade operatives, and claims that the Israelis recovered two M-16’s and two pistols in the third man’s hideout, contradicting the Al Jazeera version. It also claims that Raed “left his house holding his wife in front of him” and the IDF troops “acting on information that he was armed, opened fire, killing [Raed] and wounding his wife in the leg.” This certainly does not match the physical evidence of destruction in the house that we saw ourselves, nor does it match Raed’s wife’s testimony. If I had to guess, I would say that this version of events is an Israeli attempt to spin the killing as an operational decision rather than a pre-meditated execution. Also according to the Jerusalem Post, “the troops entered Ghasan’s home, which was filled with other family members, located him and shot him dead as well. No one else was hurt.” In these sentences one can see only the mildest form of retrospective rationalization—it seems more humane than the account we ourselves had heard of Ghasan being shot dead in front of a single person: his mother.
Western sources such as BBC5 are disappointing; they simply stitch together reports based on what the Israeli forces or the Palestinian Authority said, without any attempt at independent verification. Fox News6 is an exception: it gives a revised Israeli version offered for American consumption: “The forces surrounded the homes of the three ... Lerner, the army major, said all three turned down a chance to surrender. Lerner confirmed that none of the wanted men returned fire, including Subeh [the third man], who had two pistols and two assault rifles on him ... Asked why soldiers opened fire, Lerner said troops "had to operate under the assumption that they (the suspects) are dangerous."” However, Fox makes it clear that it has not bought this explanation. It notes that “the relatives of [Ghasan] and [Raed] said they were killed without warning.”
Where does this leave us? My wife and I have talked about this experience over and over, and have been led to a modest but inexorable conclusion: whatever we heard in translation in the two houses was the simple truth. We may be gullible American tourists, but there is a different, more compelling reason for our conclusion—real grief is difficult to fake. We cannot conceive of a reality in which Raed’s wife and Ghasan’s mother would be so depraved as to portray the deaths of their loved ones other than how they actually happened, just in order to suit some twisted ideology. Therefore we believe that the Israeli forces did execute two unarmed men in cold blood and keep putting bullets into them long after they had died.
This conclusion is troubling when combined with what the news sources actually agree on. All reports generally accept that the “termination” operation had been authorized at the highest levels of the Israeli government. Indeed, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, had praised the commando operation in Nablus, and said that Israel would “continue to defend aggressively and respond to every attack against Israeli citizens and every rocket strike.”7 This high-level sanction makes the operation more chilling. Even if Netanyahu had conclusive evidence linking the three men to the killing of the Israeli settler, there should be better accountability and due process in a law-abiding nation. The three men could easily have been arrested, given the overwhelming force that the Israelis had against them. Why was it necessary to raid the houses and kill unarmed men with great brutality in front of their family, and then walk away with impunity? Surely this cannot be the way of civilized countries.
As we continued our travels through other cities in Israel, I discussed the Nablus killings with various people. When I brought up the disturbing question mentioned above, I was surprised by the similar answer that I got independently from two persons who occupy relatively high positions. Disclosing their job description will be tantamount to disclosing who they are, so I will avoid that; in any case, it is their response that is revealing. One of them put it this way: “It’s important for the Israeli government to show that it’s always in control. It’s not so important to be right. It’s not so important to kill the real perpetrators, but it’s very important to send a message. The message is that retaliation for any aggression will be swift, overwhelming, and precise. It’s irrelevant if the real culprits in the killing of the Shavei Shomron settler got away.”
Al Jazeera and Haaretz mentioned that the US government has “questioned” Israel over the operation. As American citizens, my wife and I intend to offer our account to the State Department and to our Congressman, along with the photographs I took. We will do this as a matter of civic duty, but we are not good witnesses. What we saw and heard came after the fact, and may have lost many details in translation. The best witnesses are people like Raed’s wife and Ghasan’s mother. If the US government or UN observers or human rights organizations wish to interview them, they will find a compelling story. From our experience, they are not afraid to talk. Whether it will help in bringing about peace is a different matter.
Vijay Raghavan
Source: If Americans Knew
Much planning had gone into our family vacation in Israel-Palestine. We could spare only the last two weeks of 2009, and so had developed an uncompromising itinerary for each day, allowing a mere half-day to recover from jet lag from our trip from California. After devoting most of the first week to visiting holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho, we were, in the words of our 17-year-old, quite “churched out.” We are a typical American family in at least one regard: we have two other children (ages five and two), and we are all blessed with limited attention span. Absorbing detailed references to the Old and New Testaments in the places we visited was beyond our capabilities. Our hired tour guide and driver, Issa Habash1, had long ago taken notice of our monumental ignorance and had given up on reciting chapter and verse from the Bible
On December 26, 2009 we headed north from Bethlehem, where we had celebrated Christmas. Entering the city of Nablus, we stopped briefly at Jacob’s Well, just enough time to use the facilities and for a photo-op of my wife drawing water from the fabled well. Our plans for the rest of Nablus were somewhat vague; Issa suggested we take in an ancient Samaritan synagogue, but everyone else rebelled against this idea. My wife was more interested in seeing a soap factory or a store with the legendary spices of Nablus. As a former academic, I was keen on touring the an-Najah National University, which is the largest one in Palestine. I had even made a tentative arrangement with a local, Ala Abdessalam, to show us around. Ala is affiliated with the university but also functions as a coordinator for human rights groups and youth exchange programs operating in Nablus.
When we left Jacob’s Well, it was a little after eleven in the morning. We called Ala on his cell-phone and were told that he was no longer available for the tour. Apparently the Israeli Special Forces had killed some people in a pre-dawn operation in the Old City, and Ala was busy taking pictures and interviewing people. However, if we were up to the challenge, we could tag along while he went about his business. He said that it might even help him to have international observers with him.
We agreed to this proposal, albeit with some nervousness. Until that point we had not encountered any trouble in the Palestine Territories—to the contrary, the people we had met were extremely friendly and ready to debate political issues involving Israel, Palestine, and the United States quite openly. Still, we were uneasy about visiting the neighborhood where people had been killed that very day.
Ala met us at the outskirts of the Old City. He was accompanied by two other volunteers. All of us, including Issa, got down from the van and set off on foot. Our intrepid five-year-old led the way, taking his stuffed toy cat along for security (see Figure 1). Soon, a mentally challenged man joined the group and started yelling at us. Ala assured me that the man was harmless (“Isn’t there someone like this in every village?” was his comment.) Noticing my wife’s anxiety, one of the volunteers linked arms with our five-year-old and the two marched along happily.
Ala explained that there had been three distinct “termination” operations conducted by the Israeli Special Forces. The operations had been well coordinated, taking place between 2:00 and 4:00 AM, in three different houses within 2 kilometers of each other. Ala had already taken down preliminary testimony from the neighbors. In accordance with Muslim customs, the funerals had to be done promptly, and so Ala had to break off his interviews. He warned us that there would be a lot of mourners in each house that we visited.
At the first house, we were met by two neighbors, a young man and an older woman. Ala rattled off questions and translated briskly from Arabic to English for the benefit of my wife, our 17-year-old and myself. I asked an occasional question.
The man who had been killed was named Ghasan Abu Sharakh. He had been living in the house with his mother. At around 3:00 AM, the neighborhood was awakened by commotion in the streets. A convoy of about 30 jeeps had appeared suddenly, along with a Hummer and a bulldozer. Some 70 soldiers and at least one dog had spread around and a few soldiers had quickly entered the house.
“Nobody took pictures?” I asked. It seemed remarkable to me, in this age of ubiquitous cell-phone cameras, that it had not occurred to anyone to film the whole thing.
Ala explained patiently to me that if you were anywhere near an Israeli raid you did two things. First, you made sure that you did not have a camera; if the Israelis found one on you they would beat you senseless. Second, you visited a toilet as soon as you could—if you were rounded up you might not get to use the potty for a long time.
The old lady continued the story. Ghasan had been sleeping upstairs when the door of his house had been blasted open (see Figure 2). When he came downstairs to the door, he was immediately shot in the face. His mother, who was right behind him, had watched her son’s head explode and spill blood all over the room (see Figure 3). The old lady was sure that the Israelis would have shot the mother too if she had been the one to come to the door first.
I took some pictures and tried to think of meaningful questions to ask. My wife held on tightly to the two-year-old. The old lady asked us to enter the house and go upstairs to the living area. Ala assured my wife that it was alright for her as a foreigner to not wear a hijab; he told her to simply pay her respects to Ghasan’s mother when we met her.
There were many people inside the house. A local TV station was interviewing the mother. A groan emanated from the assembly when the mother related something (see Figure 4). Ala translated for us: “... the soldiers kept putting bullets into my son’s body even though his face was completely gone.”
Somehow a path opened up as people made way for us to reach Ghasan’s mother. Holding on to the two-year-old, my wife kneeled down and held the woman’s hand. Ala moved up to translate, but my wife was having difficulty forming words. It did not matter—grief has a universal language and whatever needed to be said by one woman to another in this situation had already been communicated.
Outside the house, Ala informed us that the mother had also lost her elder son in a similar way three years ago.
“Will there be an investigation?” I asked. “An autopsy?”
Ala shrugged. “What’s the point? Everyone knows the cause of death and who did the killing.”
“Still—”
“In any case Muslims do not like autopsies and embalming. Martyrs are to be buried in their own clothes soon after death.”
I took out my notebook and scribbled in all the details I could remember. A Scottish youth volunteer joined us at this point. He already knew Ala and also seemed to be familiar with the neighborhood. He said that he had been living in Nablus for a month. I asked him if he kept a diary or a journal. He glanced at my notebook said that it was best not to keep a written record: “The Israelis will read it at the airport and put you on a black list if they see any pro-Palestine sentiments.” Really?
Only a few details differed in the second killing. Raed Surkaji had been an activist some seven years before, and had been sent to an Israeli prison. He had been released eleven months ago, as part of a negotiated arrangement between the Palestine Authority and Israel. Since that time he had been living in Nablus. This fateful morning he had been sleeping with his pregnant wife when the Israeli soldiers arrived and knocked down the door of his house. He too had been shot in the face through the glass (see Figure 5) when he went up to the door.
Raed’s wife told Ala that she had pleaded with the soldiers to stop, but they kept shooting her husband long after he had died. They told her that she should be happy that they were letting her live. The commander came running up from the alley and pumped more bullets into the chest of the corpse. Then they had all left, laughing and shouting victorious slogans. Ala said that he had come to the house earlier that morning. At that time, the room had not been cleaned and there was flesh and brain substance all over the place. He pointed to two soap bars that still had some grisly matter on them (see Figure 6).
When I approached Raed’s wife, she pointed to her foot. Ala told me that when she walked out of the room glass shards had pierced her foot. She was unable to walk and had to be carried to the hospital for treatment. I had composed something to say to her, but when I looked into her eyes, I too found that I could not speak, just like my wife in the previous house. I touched her foot silently. But this time my wife managed to get out some words: she told Raed’s wife that she was sorry for her loss. Ala translated and the woman said “she was honored that we cared.” We were quite overcome with sadness when we left.
Outside, Ala wanted to go to the third house right away. He told us that this case was different—the man who was killed had worked in the Palestine Authority security service. Therefore he had had a pistol with him. He had hidden himself in the cellar when he heard the noise outside, but it had mattered little; he too was killed as swiftly as the others.
“How far is the house?” I asked Ala.
“Only a kilometer away.”
I looked at my wife, and she shook her head. We had seen enough.
We discussed the day’s events over a late lunch. The first and most obvious question was why the three men had been killed. On this question, Issa and Ala had different opinions.
Issa thought that the operation was Israeli retaliation for some crime that the three men had committed. An Israeli settler, Meir Avshalom Hai, from the nearby settlement of Shavei Shomron had been killed in his car on Christmas Eve. The al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade had already claimed responsibility for the killing. Issa was positive that the Israelis would have had evidence connecting the three people to the killing of the settler.
Ala was skeptical. He said that neither Ghasan nor Raed was armed, and even the Israelis would not claim that they possessed deadly weapons. According to the family and the neighbors, the men did have active links to al-Aqsa. “These killings were random,” Ala declared. “These guys were simply no use alive to the Israelis,” he said.
I could not accept the idea of random killings by the Israeli government. Since December 26, I have read all I could find on the Nablus operation, though I am handicapped by having to limit myself to English sources. News reports in Israel and Palestine are susceptible to the spin from the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, which makes it difficult to piece together even simple aspects of the truth. For example, Ala had told us that a “large number of people” had attended the funeral of the three people on December 26, but estimates of this large number varied from “a few thousand” to “about 10,000” to “well over 20,000,” depending on whether you read the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Al Jazeera, or the Ma’an News Agency. (The first one is pro-Israel, the last is pro-Palestine, and the other two are somewhere in-between.) Another detail on which there is no agreement is the spelling of the names of the people killed. This may well be a problem of transliterating Arabic names; I myself have rendered the names the way Ala spelled them out for me.
Much more disconcerting than these discrepancies in inessential details is the wholesale disagreement among the news sources on crucial facts, such as: the location where the men were killed (inside the house, upstairs, downstairs), whether they had been armed, whether they had been given a chance to surrender, whether taking prisoners was an option, etc. The following is a small selection of key points in the news reports I read.
The Ma’an News Agency2 mentions that the second man, Raed, was shot not only in front of his wife but also in front of his two children. This detail did not emerge in our meeting with Raed’s wife, but perhaps it was true and she did not consider it important to mention her children. The new report also indicates that the first man, Ghasan, was taken outside his house and shot. This does not match the physical evidence we saw in the house and I have puzzled over how the report could have gotten it so wrong. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing; could it be that the downstairs area where Ghasan was killed is not considered to be part of the house proper?
Al Jazeera3 notes that “the three men targeted by the Israelis had been disarmed under security measures taken by [the Palestinian Authority President] Abbas's police force.” The inference we are asked to make is that this was a cold-blooded execution of unarmed men.
The Jerusalem Post states4 that the Israelis soldiers came from the Judea and Samaria Division’s Special Forces unit and the Kfir Brigade’s battalion under the command of Col. Itzik Bar. The Post is unequivocal that the three men killed were Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade operatives, and claims that the Israelis recovered two M-16’s and two pistols in the third man’s hideout, contradicting the Al Jazeera version. It also claims that Raed “left his house holding his wife in front of him” and the IDF troops “acting on information that he was armed, opened fire, killing [Raed] and wounding his wife in the leg.” This certainly does not match the physical evidence of destruction in the house that we saw ourselves, nor does it match Raed’s wife’s testimony. If I had to guess, I would say that this version of events is an Israeli attempt to spin the killing as an operational decision rather than a pre-meditated execution. Also according to the Jerusalem Post, “the troops entered Ghasan’s home, which was filled with other family members, located him and shot him dead as well. No one else was hurt.” In these sentences one can see only the mildest form of retrospective rationalization—it seems more humane than the account we ourselves had heard of Ghasan being shot dead in front of a single person: his mother.
Western sources such as BBC5 are disappointing; they simply stitch together reports based on what the Israeli forces or the Palestinian Authority said, without any attempt at independent verification. Fox News6 is an exception: it gives a revised Israeli version offered for American consumption: “The forces surrounded the homes of the three ... Lerner, the army major, said all three turned down a chance to surrender. Lerner confirmed that none of the wanted men returned fire, including Subeh [the third man], who had two pistols and two assault rifles on him ... Asked why soldiers opened fire, Lerner said troops "had to operate under the assumption that they (the suspects) are dangerous."” However, Fox makes it clear that it has not bought this explanation. It notes that “the relatives of [Ghasan] and [Raed] said they were killed without warning.”
Where does this leave us? My wife and I have talked about this experience over and over, and have been led to a modest but inexorable conclusion: whatever we heard in translation in the two houses was the simple truth. We may be gullible American tourists, but there is a different, more compelling reason for our conclusion—real grief is difficult to fake. We cannot conceive of a reality in which Raed’s wife and Ghasan’s mother would be so depraved as to portray the deaths of their loved ones other than how they actually happened, just in order to suit some twisted ideology. Therefore we believe that the Israeli forces did execute two unarmed men in cold blood and keep putting bullets into them long after they had died.
This conclusion is troubling when combined with what the news sources actually agree on. All reports generally accept that the “termination” operation had been authorized at the highest levels of the Israeli government. Indeed, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, had praised the commando operation in Nablus, and said that Israel would “continue to defend aggressively and respond to every attack against Israeli citizens and every rocket strike.”7 This high-level sanction makes the operation more chilling. Even if Netanyahu had conclusive evidence linking the three men to the killing of the Israeli settler, there should be better accountability and due process in a law-abiding nation. The three men could easily have been arrested, given the overwhelming force that the Israelis had against them. Why was it necessary to raid the houses and kill unarmed men with great brutality in front of their family, and then walk away with impunity? Surely this cannot be the way of civilized countries.
As we continued our travels through other cities in Israel, I discussed the Nablus killings with various people. When I brought up the disturbing question mentioned above, I was surprised by the similar answer that I got independently from two persons who occupy relatively high positions. Disclosing their job description will be tantamount to disclosing who they are, so I will avoid that; in any case, it is their response that is revealing. One of them put it this way: “It’s important for the Israeli government to show that it’s always in control. It’s not so important to be right. It’s not so important to kill the real perpetrators, but it’s very important to send a message. The message is that retaliation for any aggression will be swift, overwhelming, and precise. It’s irrelevant if the real culprits in the killing of the Shavei Shomron settler got away.”
Al Jazeera and Haaretz mentioned that the US government has “questioned” Israel over the operation. As American citizens, my wife and I intend to offer our account to the State Department and to our Congressman, along with the photographs I took. We will do this as a matter of civic duty, but we are not good witnesses. What we saw and heard came after the fact, and may have lost many details in translation. The best witnesses are people like Raed’s wife and Ghasan’s mother. If the US government or UN observers or human rights organizations wish to interview them, they will find a compelling story. From our experience, they are not afraid to talk. Whether it will help in bringing about peace is a different matter.
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