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Cluster Bomb Victims Push for Ban

Tarjei Kidd Olsen 22 February 2007


OSLO, Norway, Feb 22 (IPS) - As Branislav Kapetanovic brushes aside some grass to get a better view, his arms and legs are ripped off by a cluster bomb dropped by NATO. His eardrums burst. On the way to hospital his heart stops, but he survives to tell the tale. Four years and more than 20 surgical operations later, he recounted the fateful day to delegates at a large non-governmental organisation and civil society forum in Oslo Wednesday. In his wheelchair, gesticulating with stumps where hands and arms once were, Kapetanovic laid out the case against cluster bombs. 

DJ Revolutions: Spinning Beats for Freedom

Ismail Khalidi 22 February 2007


With the announcement earlier this month that the British group Massive Attack was holding a series of concerts in London to support Palestinian refugee communities was another piece of good news: that Checkpoint 303 was going to be performing a DJ set to open the three benefit shows. The international group of DJs or SCs (“Sound Catchers” and “Sound Cutters”) and musicians that make up Checkpoint 303 has quietly been bringing the noise on the internet by unleashing wickedly original sound tapestries and instrumentals (free of charge) on their website, www.checkpoint303.com for over two years now. 

Gaza power supply under pressure

22 February 2007


The Gaza Strip in the Occupied Palestinian Territories continues to suffer daily power cuts eight months after Israel bombed its only power station, leaving health services relying on expensive generators and residents without regular electricity or water. The cuts have continued despite new transformers being installed in November 2006 at the privately owned Gaza Power Generating Company (GPGC) power station. All six of the original transformers were destroyed by Israeli warplanes days after Palestinian militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier last June. 

PCHR: Palestinian killed, 2 wounded, in weapons misuse

21 February 2007


PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 8:50 on Wednesday, 21 February 2007, Mahmoud Awad El-Sumeiri (34) from Wadi El-Salqa village (east of Deir El-Balah) was killed by shrapnel throughout his body. The shrapnel was the result of the explosion of a homemade bomb that exploded when the victim handled it in a farm near his house. El-Sumeiri was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. He was transferred to the forensic medicine department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. 

Rice Faces Formidable White House Foe

Jim Lobe 21 February 2007


WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (IPS) - If, as she insists, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is determined to make concrete progress toward achieving George W. Bush’s vision of a two-state solution, one in which Israel would be required to make major territorial concessions, it appears that she faces a major foe in the White House. No, not only Dick Cheney and the surviving members of the neo-conservative clique that surrounded him and former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld during Bush’s first term — although the vice president’s office remains a formidable force against any concessions to a Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas, despite Saudi Arabia’s role in midwifing its birth at Mecca last week. 

Reinforcing the Occupation: Israel's High Court

Louis Frankenthaler 21 February 2007


Journalist Gideon Levy wrote in the Israeli daily Haaretz: “From now on, the [Israeli] Supreme Court will act without Aharon Barak. It will, however, presumably continue to act within his legacy, which has authorized nearly all injustices in the territories. Barak, meanwhile, will continue to be depicted in Israel and the world as a pursuer of justice.” The Israeli High Court of Justice under the presidency of Professor Barak has impressed many observers as being many things: progressive, daring, precedent setting. However, the actual results of the Barak Court offer little in the way of comparison to a Court like the Warren Court in the United States. 

Israeli authorities destroy crops of Bedouin citizens

21 February 2007


At this moment the Israeli government is plowing the crops, in order to destroy them, of Bedouins in the Negev. 500 dunams (120 acres) of Halil al-Zarqan’s lands, of the small village Al-Mazraa in the Eastern Negev are being destroyed this morning by governmental tractors. Israel does not recognize the traditional ownership of its Bedouin citizens over land in the Negev. Since 1948, Israel has used one method or another to confiscate 98 percent of the lands that were owned and used by the Bedouins prior to the establishment of the State. Now the government is battling its poorest citizens over the last 2 percent of their traditional lands. 

EI's Ali Abunimah discusses Rice trip on Flashpoints

21 February 2007


EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was interviewed on Flashpoints Radio on Tuesday, 20 February 2007. He discussed the previous day’s talks in Jerusalem with Condoleezza Rice as she presses for Bush’s vision for a future Palestinian state. He told host Nora Barrows-Friedman, “The United States and Israel expect Abbas to act as their quisling, really, just a collaborator representing them. And Abbas’ transgressions in their books are that he has placed the desire among Palestinians for unity and democracy above the demands of the occupier and the United States.” 

Texas Independence Day Protest over Jailed Palestinian Family

Greg Moses 21 February 2007


There are different kinds of angry. Jay Johnson-Castro has tears in his eyes when he thinks about Suzi Hazahza at the immigration prison of Haskell, Texas. But he’s not going to cry without doing something, so next week, Johnson-Castro will walk sixty miles from Abilene to Haskell and hold a vigil for the release of Suzi Hazahza and “anyone else” being mistreated for their desire to be American. “I’m almost in tears trying to tell you how angry I feel,” says Johnson-Castro via cell phone as he drives home to Del Rio, Texas on Tuesday evening following three weeks of border protests. 

"No politics please -- we're Lebanese," say traders

20 February 2007


BEIRUT, 20 February 2007 (IRIN) - “Please, no discussion of politics,” reads a sign that has appeared in shop windows in the Mazraa district of western Beirut. On a work-day afternoon, it is the only hint that the area’s bustling main streets — lined with snack-bars and grocers, clothes shops and jewellery markets — has witnessed a sharp rise in Sunni-Shia Muslim tensions over the past few months. “People would strike up conversations in here about politics and they’d turn into arguments. Now I can just point at the sign and say ‘come on, that’s enough’,” said the owner of a cubby-hole bookshop, who preferred not to give his name.