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September 29, 2002 News |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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Teenager killed on Intifada anniversary Khaleej Times, 9/29/02GAZA CITY - A teenage demonstrator was killed in clashes with the Israeli army yesterday as thousands of Palestinians marked the second anniversary of their intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation. Arabs also demonstrated inside Israel and peace activists were due to lead rallies in major cities, as the security services went on high alert for fear of anniversary attacks by Palestinian militant groups. Mohammad Abu Ajwa, 17, was killed when a group of young Palestinians, who had just attended a commemorative demonstration in the Gaza Strip town of Deir el-Balah, clashed with Israeli soldiers manning a position near the adjacent Jewish settlement of Netzarim, Palestinian security sources said. His funeral in the refugee camp of Al Bureij was attended by 1,000 people. Three more Palestinians were wounded in the same incident, while similar clashes left seven youths hurt near Beit Lahia and three in Khan Yunis following a 3,000-strong demonstration, Palestinian medical and security sources said. Meanwhile, a local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, was shot dead in a chance killing in his home in the Gaza Strip early yesterday as Israeli troops fired on buildings in the area, witnesses said. Sami Attullah Abed Elal, 25, died after being hit in the chest by bullets fired from a tank operating in the eastern Salam district of Rafah, a town on the border with Egypt, his brother told reporters. The two men had gone on to the roof of their home to watch Israeli tanks which they had heard moving nearby, Zakharia Abed Elal said. "We saw two tanks near the border and we heard shooting. Suddenly my brother fell down and I told him not to joke about. "But then I saw he was all covered in blood, so I took him to the hospital." His brother was pronounced dead on arrival. Fatah later issued a statement saying one of its members had been killed. And in an announcement made over loudspeakers in Rafah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades sent condolences for the death of Abed Elal, who it said was one of its militants. The violence marred the celebrations in the Gaza Strip, where the biggest event was a 20,000-strong march through Gaza City, during which besieged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat addressed the crowd by phone from his battle-scarred Ramallah office. "We want to defend our holy places, both Christian and Muslim, to defend Jerusalem and every centimetre of our land. Our resolution will continue and we will be the winner, the victory will be ours," Mr Arafat told the crowd. Among the sea of Palestinian flags held aloft by demonstrators could also be seen many keffiyahs as people chanted: "We will support our president from siege to siege." - AFP
Mass protest in UK against Blair, Bush Khaleej Times, 9/29/02LONDON - Waving anti-war banners and chanting slogans against 'Bomber Bush and Bomber Blair', tens of thousands of Britons flocked to a vast peace rally in London yesterday to oppose a possible military strike on Iraq. Joint organisers Stop the War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain estimated more than 350,000 people took part in the rally at Hyde Park and a preceding march from the River Thames near the British parliament. Police put numbers lower, at 150,000. But that would still make it probably the biggest peace rally in Britain since a huge anti-nuclear demonstration in 1981 drew a quarter of a million. Myriad groups and personalities backed the march - from 'rebel' members of the ruling Labour Party and the mayor of London, to trade unions, religious leaders, artists,pop stars, rights activists and Gulf War veterans. "Our message to the US and British governments is that they would be very foolish to defy a coalition of this breadth and diversity. Just sticking a UN fig leaf on this does not make it any more humane," Stop the War spokesman Mike Marqusee said as the march began soon after midday. "It's the biggest peace protest in Europe for years." Not surprisingly, protesters directed their wrath at US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, America's closest ally in the build-up of pressure on Iraq. Washington and London are trying to get through the UN Security Council a tough resolution which would give Iraq one week to accept demands to disarm and 30 days to declare all its weapons of mass destruction programmes. 'Bomber Bush, Bomber Blair, we'll resist you everywhere!' chanted students. Effigies parodied the pair as war-mongers. Protesters shouted 'shame' as they passed Mr Blair's residence. "Hopefully our leaders will see the huge feeling against the war," said Anne Gleeson, a school catering assistant marching with her husband and two children. All wore Palestinian scarves. The demonstrators were rallying under two main slogans - 'Don't Attack Iraq' and 'Freedom for Palestine'. Ismail Adam Patel, head of the Muslim group Friends Of Al'Aqsa, said the two issues were inextricable. "Until we solve the Palestine issue, we are not going to get any peace in the Middle East. Why are we going after Iraq when Israel has far more weapons of mass destruction?" he said at the march. Thousands of Muslims, from Britain's 2.5 million-strong Islamic community, joined yesterday's march. Many protesters, from all strata of society, brought children. Some Church of England ministers were also dotted among the demonstrators. Polls show most of Britain's 60 million people oppose their nation joining a purely US-led attempt to topple President Saddam Hussein. But the picture changes if the United Nations approves such action, with about two-thirds then in favour. Most of Mr Blair's critics dislike Saddam as much as the prime minister does, but they say a war on Iraq would be an unjustified aggression that would destabilise the Middle East, cement US hegemony and snub international public opinion. Opponents also say Washington and London are behaving hypocritically given their previous support of Iraq under Saddam in the years before the 1991 Gulf War, and are refusing to admit their real economic motives for wanting to control Iraqi oil. "Clearly it's about oil and US dominance," film-director Ken Loach said on the march. - Reuters
Russia firm after Iraq talks with US envoy MOSCOW - Russia stood firm yesterday in calling for the rapid return to Iraq of UN arms monitors after talks with a US envoy urging Moscow to back a tough, new Security Council resolution already denounced by Baghdad. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov restated Russia's position that only the inspectors could determine whether Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. But Russia, he said, was prepared to listen to the viewpoints of other Security Council members. "Our position is that UN weapons inspectors should return to Iraq as quickly as possible," Mr Ivanov said in comments broadcast on television. "The necessary conditions for this exist. But we are prepared to look carefully at the position of all the members of the UN Security Council." Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr Ivanov have said Iraq's agreement this month to allow UN arms inspectors back into the country is sufficient to avoid any use of force. Moscow says a British report issued this week contained no 'clear proof' that Iraq held dangerous weapons. Mr Ivanov steered clear of criticising the new resolution after 90 minutes of talks, but said Russian experts were discussing it with US and British officials. US Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who made little headway in trying to persuade France to back the new resolution on Friday, made no reference to the new US-drafted resolution. He said he was pleased Russia, like other members of the Security Council, believed Iraq posed a 'challenge' to be resolved. "I think it is fair to say everybody agreed there was a challenge to the United Nations, to the Security Council, and that all of us who are permanent members...want to see if we can solve it," Mr Grossman told reporters. "I was very pleased to hear that." The current version of the resolution, distributed at the United Nations on Friday, would give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein seven days to accept demands to disarm and 30 days to declare all weapons on his territory. Iraq served notice that it had no intention of accepting the new resolution. Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said the United States faced a 'fierce war' if it attacked. Iraq agreed this month to readmit the inspectors, last in Baghdad in 1998, but said their mission would be strictly in accordance with existing resolutions and what it said were understandings with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. After Mr Grossman's talks in Paris on Friday, French officials said President Jacques Chirac had stood by an alternative plan to submit two resolutions to the Security Council - one on readmitting arms inspectors and a second providing for tough measures only if they met difficulties. Mr Grossman was accompanied to Paris and Moscow by Peter Ricketts, political director of Britain's Foreign Office, who made little comment on the talks. Mr Ricketts said all five permanent Security Council states were studying the British document. Russia, hoping eventually to cash in on oil deals in Iraq, has said a clean bill of health would be a first step to lifting sanctions imposed on Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War. The United States has said it wants Saddam removed from power and sees a new UN Security Council resolution as a means of adding legitimacy to any armed strike on Baghdad. - Reuters
Religious party gets a boost in Morocco polls Khaleej Times, 9/29/02RABAT - The sole Islamist party in Morocco's parliament yesterday claimed a strong position in general elections ahead of official results, saying it was confident it would be among the top three. Abdelilah Benkirane, a leader of the moderate Justice and Development Party (PJD), told journalists he expected his group to take 40 to 50 of the 325 seats in the Chamber of Representatives. The fate of the Islamists was being watched with keen interest in this election. The poll, the first since King Mohammed came to the throne in 1999, is seen as a key test of the country's progress towards democracy. Voters in the north African nation voted on Friday to elect a new parliament with authorities pledging a fair exercise. Provisional showings indicated a jump in support for the PJD, the sole Islamist party in the assembly, with only 14 deputies in the outgoing lower house. "According to estimates we will be nearer 50 than 40," Mr Benkirane predicted. Mr Benkirane said the PJD would be in the top three, together with Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi's Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and government coalition ally, the nationalist Istiqlal party. A total of 26 parties ran in the poll. Mr Benkirane said the PJD had decided to put up candidates in only 56 of the 91 constituencies "in order to prevent a landslide that would have been impossible for the country to bear both at home and abroad. The Algerian scenario is the phobia of all Moroccans today," he said in a reference to the 1991 landslide victory of the Islamists in Algeria. The Algerian army cancelled those election results after the Islamists' success, leading to a campaign of violence by armed extremists in Algeria. Interior Minister Driss Jettou said on Friday ballot slips counted so far gave a boost to the PJD. Election officials said voter participation was low, with estimates ranging between 52 and 55 per cent of the 14 million eligible voters, down from 58 percent in the last election in 1997. King Mohammed, who acceded to the throne in 1999 on the death of his father King Hassan, and Mr Youssoufi's outgoing government said they wanted the vote to be a worthy symbol of Morocco's transition to democracy, that would lay to rest memories of past corruption-marred elections. One of the first steps the new monarch took in 1999 to help to shed the image of a kingdom tarnished by fraud was to sack then interior minister Driss Basri, considered a tough enforcer of law and order under King Hassan. Voters, including around 6.9 million women who were eligible to cast their ballots, were to pass judgment on five years of the leftist coalition government under Youssoufi, the head of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP). Mr Youssoufi, 78, who is not standing for re-election, has claimed some successes, such as cutting the country's external debt from over 19 billion dollars in 1997 to nearly $14 billion in 2001, and helping Morocco along the road to democracy. But his opponents accuse him of failing to tackle unemployment, which has surged above 21 per cent, corruption and the poor state of urban housing. Moroccan women, largely excluded from politics in the past, are guaranteed 10 per cent of parliamentary seats, thanks to a new electoral code adopted in July. The new voting system provides for a single-round, proportional representation vote which has had the effect of seeing a proliferation of political parties, according to some analysts. - AFP
Anti-war Britons slam Bush and Blair LONDON - Waving anti-war banners and chanting slogans against "Bomber Bush and Bomber Blair", tens of thousands of Britons joined a big peace rally in London to oppose a military strike on Iraq. Joint organisers Stop the War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain estimated at least 100,000 people had joined the march from the River Thames near parliament to Hyde Park in the heart of the British capital. A number of groups and individuals backed the march -- from "rebel" members of the ruling Labour Party and the mayor of London, to trade unions, religious leaders, artists, pop stars, intellectuals, rights activists and Gulf War veterans. "Our message to the US and British governments is that they would be very foolish to defy a coalition of this breadth and diversity. Just sticking a UN fig leaf on this does not make it any more humane," Stop the War spokesman Mike Marqusee told Reuters at the start of the march soon after midday. Not surprisingly, protesters directed their wrath at US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, America's closest ally in the build-up of pressure on Iraq. Washington and London are trying to get through the UN Security Council a tough resolution which would give Iraq less than six weeks to disclose any weapons of mass destruction and hold the threat of military action over its head. "Bomber Bush, Bomber Blair, we'll resist you everywhere!" chanted British students at Saturday's march. "Hopefully our leaders will see the huge feeling against the war," said Anne Gleeson, a school catering assistant marching with her husband and two children. All wore Palestinian scarves. The demonstrators were rallying under two main slogans - "Don't Attack Iraq" and "Freedom for Palestine". Police said 40,000 people had assembled by early afternoon, but organisers put the figure at more than 100,000 and said that could double. Ismail Adam Patel, head of the Muslim group Friends Of Al'Aqsa, said the two issues were inextricable. "Until we solve the Palestine issue, we are not going to get any peace in the Middle East. Why are we going after Iraq when Israel has far more weapons of mass destruction?" he told Reuters at the march. Thousands of Muslims, from Britain's 2.5 million-strong Islamic community, joined Saturday's march. Many protesters brought children with them. Some Church of England ministers were also dotted among the demonstrators. - Reuters
Syria and
UAE 'against attack on any Arab nation'
Syria and the UAE oppose aggression against any Arab country, a senior
Syrian minister said yesterday.
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's. |
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