| Al Jazeera, March 19, 2009 |
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Israel has detained at least 10 senior Hamas members in the occupied West Bank, according to officials from the Palestinian group. Nasser al-Shaer, a former Palestinian deputy prime minister, was among the men held on Thursday. The arrests took place in the West Bank cities of Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus. The Israeli army confirmed the arrests, saying the men were wanted by Israeli security and intelligence services and that they “were taken in for questioning”. Hamas says the detainees include four Hamas politicians, three of whom have already served time in Israeli custody. The wife of al-Shaer told Al Jazeera that Israeli occupation forces stormed their home at dawn, placed her husband under arrest and took him to an undisclosed location. ‘Failed’ Shalit deal The Israeli military said in a statement: “These men have been the leaders of the ongoing effort to restore the administrative branch of the Hamas terror organisation in the region, while attempting to strengthen the power and influence of Hamas.”
Thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails. The latest detentions are being seen as an effort to pressure Hamas to release an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas-linked fighters near the Gaza border in June 2006.Egyptian efforts to mediate the release of of the soldier, currently being held in the Gaza Strip, in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinians, collapsed this week. Mahmoud Musleh, a Hamas politician, told the Reuters news agency: “These arrests are an angry reaction by Israel because of the failure of the [Gilad] Shalit deal. “This won’t do Israel any good.”
An Israeli military spokesman denied the detentions were connected.Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, had hoped to secure the release of the soldier before leaving office. Israeli arrests are part of daily incursions and raids in the villages and towns of the West Bank. Hamas has been demanding the release of more than 400 Palestinian prisoners. |
Israel arrests Hamas members
March 19, 2009
Nehru heir under fire for ‘anti-Muslim rant’
March 19, 2009By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
The Independent, UK, Wednesday, 18 March 2009
AP Photo/Manish Swarup
India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party leader Varun Gandhi speaks to media outside his residence in New Delhi
enlargeA great grandson of India’s first prime minister was filmed at an election rally allegedly threatening to cut the throats of Muslims.
Varun Gandhi, a grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru and nephew of Sonia Gandhi, is being investigated by police in the state of Uttar Pradesh after he allegedly said that all Muslims should be sent to Pakistan. He was speaking at a rally for the right-wing, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for which he is a candidate in upcoming elections.
The recording, made on 6 March, apparently shows Mr Gandhi saying: “All the Hindus stay on this side and send the others to Pakistan.” Raising a palm, he said his hand was the “Lotus hand” – a reference to the symbol of the BJP – and said that after the election “it will cut their throats”.
Yesterday, Mr Gandhi, 29, claimed the recording of him speaking – posted on the internet – had been deliberately doctored in order to undermine him. “I’ve been a victim of political conspiracy. This is a vigorous attempt to malign my faith…Those are not my words, this is not my voice,” he told local media. “I am a Gandhi, a Hindu and an Indian in equal measure.”
Mr Gandhi is the son of Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s younger son who was killed in a plane crash. Unlike other members of the family who joined the ruling Congress Party, Varun Gadnhi disowned the dynasty and instead joined the BJP. His cousin, Rahul Gandhi, is a Congress MP and tipped as a future prime minister.
Mr Gandhi’s comments come just weeks before India’s general election, to be spread over a month. Most polls suggest the Congress will emerge as the party with the most seats.
Muslims make up around 13 per cent of India’s vast, 1.1bn population. Communal violence between Hindus and Muslims is not uncommon, especially around elections.
SELECTIVE VISION: IRAN, ISRAEL AND NUCLEAR ARMS
March 18, 2009Media Lens, March 17, 2009
Gullible’s (Endless) Travels
Have journalists learnt nothing from recent history? It truly is a wonder when a reporter can assert in public, on the BBC News no less, that “Tony Blair passionately believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a grave threat.” (BBC1, Six O’Clock News, February 24, 2009). When BBC reporter Reeta Chakrabarti was challenged on this remarkable display of naïveté, she compounded her grievous error by responding:
“I said Mr Blair passionately believed Iraq had wmd because he has consistently said so. When challenged he has stuck to his guns.” (Email posted on the Media Lens Message Board, March 2, 2009)
So when a demonstrably mendacious leader claims he “passionately believed” in a lie, the media has to take him at his word. This is the same brand of journalistic gullibility that has had such tragic consequences for the people of Iraq. This is the endless, uncritical obedience to power that boosted the warmongering agenda of London and Washington, allowing them to fit ‘facts’ to a pre-ordained policy of launching a war of aggression. Such an act, sold by the BBC as Blair’s “passionate belief”, is the supreme international crime, as judged by the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal.
And a similar tragic fate may yet befall the people of Iran, if the corporate media portrayal of Iran as a rogue state lorded over by “ruling mullahs”, desperate to get their hands on nuclear weapons, goes unchallenged.
A Nuclear Programme Under Close Surveillance
At the end of 2007, a thorough assessment by the United States concluded that Iran’s nuclear weapons programme had already halted in 2003. The National Intelligence Estimate was the consensus view of all 16 US spy agencies. (Mark Mazzeti, ‘U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work,’ New York Times, December 3, 2007)
In its latest report on Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) strengthened this assessment when it stated it had “been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material [for possible military purposes] in Iran.” (IAEA, ‘Introductory Statement to the Board of Governors by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei,’ March 2, 2009; http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/ Statements/2009/ebsp2009n002.html)
What is Media Lens?
Media Lens is our response to the unwillingness, or inability, of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the real causes and extent of many of the problems facing us, such as human rights abuses, poverty, pollution and climate change.
CONTINUE 
Jerusalem Patriarch: “Gaza destruction greater than portrayed in the media”
March 18, 2009
Tuesday March 17, 2009 08:59
by IMEMC & Agencies 
Patriarch Theofilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Holy Land and Jordan, stated on Monday that the destruction in the Gaza Strip from the latest Israeli offensive is far greater than the media has portrayed.
File, Image by Ghassan Bannoura
Theofilos added that the human suffering in the Gaza Strip exceeds by thousands of times the structural damage which is also unimaginable.
The statements of the Patriarch came after he concluded a visit to the Gaza Strip. He was accompanied by a number of priests and bishops.
The visiting religious delegates were briefed on the conditions of Greek Orthodox Palestinians in Gaza, and the situation all Gazan’s face due to the offensive and the ongoing blockade led by Israel and the United States.
During his visit, he held prayers at the Greek Orthodox Church, in Gaza City, and called on all residents to remain united and to help each other without any discrimination.
Spokesperson of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, Father Issa Musleh from Beit Sahour, stated that the Patriarchate denounces the offensive in Gaza, and observes it as a catastrophe and a great destruction innocent civilians had to face.
Father Issa added that the Patriarchate will continue delivering aid, collected by Greek Orthodox Churches to relieve the residents of Gaza.
“They are all our people”, Father Issa said, “we will not abandon them, we will continue to deliver aid.”
Cheney’s Mission Accomplished
March 18, 2009Dick Cheney: “I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we’ve accomplished nearly everything we set out to do….”What has Dick Cheney really accomplished in Iraq?
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.
Rage on the streets in Calgary as Bush visit begins
March 18, 2009by Bill Graveland and Shannon Montgomery | Daily Herald-Tribune, Alberta, March 17, 2009
CALGARY – The rage on the man’s face was evident as he berated police officers preventing him from entering the building where former U.S. president George W. Bush was making a speech Tuesday.
![[A woman holds a protest sign outside the Calgary convention centre where former U.S. President George Bush was making a speech to the business community in Calgary, Alberta March 17, 2009. (REUTERS/Todd Korol)]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/bush_calgary_protest.jpg "bush_calgary_protest.jpg")
A woman holds a protest sign outside the Calgary convention centre where former U.S. President George Bush was making a speech to the business community in Calgary, Alberta March 17, 2009. (REUTERS/Todd Korol)‘‘There is a war criminal upstairs that has committed murder,” screamed the man, who identified himself only as Splits the Sky. ‘‘If I try to get in there you will arrest me. What is wrong with you?‘‘I am going in there and make a citizen’s arrest,” he said as he attempt to push past police. ‘‘Arrest George Bush. Arrest George Bush.”
A few minutes later he was handcuffed and hustled past a long line of Calgary’s business elite waiting to get inside the Telus Convention Centre.
Protest organizers say at least four demonstrators were arrested at Tuesday’s event.
About 60 Calgary police officers were on duty outside to control between 200 and 300 people carrying signs that read ‘‘No to U.S. Crimes Against Humanity,” ‘‘Indict Bush For War Crimes” and ‘‘Canada Is Not Bush Country.”
Another sign read ‘‘Shoe Him The Door” – a reference to the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in December.
Two Calgary men showed up at the demonstration to support the former U.S. president. Their signs read ‘‘The World Is Safer Because of George W. Bush.”
‘‘Thank you, George Bush. Thank you, George Bush,” they chanted.
‘‘He doesn’t sit down and negotiate with terrorists,” shouted one of the men, who identified himself as Merle.
‘‘Try doing this in Cuba,” he said as he pointed to the jeering protesters.
There were shoes everywhere during the protest. A young woman wearing a hood, orange jumpsuit and a name tag that said ‘‘Club Gitmo” was pulling a shoe cannon along with a target festooned with pictures of Bush.
An obviously amused police officer told her to leave.
Some of those opposed to Bush’s visit have said he should be arrested as a war criminal because of alleged torture at military prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
Tuesday’s speech was one of the first public appearances Bush has made since leaving the presidency in January with a dismal approval rating and much of the blame for his country’s collapsing economy. The speech was closed to the media.
‘‘It’s not too late to turn back. Walk away,” the demonstrators yelled to some of the 1,500 guests invited to hear Bush speak to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
A couple of hundred people lined up early to go through a special security screening room before entering the hall where Bush was speaking.
A few said the former president has to take some of the responsibility for what has happened in the United States, but also has the right to talk about his administration.
RIGHTS-MOROCCO: Renewed Efforts to End Violence Against Women
March 18, 2009By Amina Barakat | Inter Press Service
RABAT, Mar 17 (IPS) – The campaign against violence towards women has been the focus of media attention in Morocco recently, in order to press for an end to gross abuses committed by men against women and make victims aware of the need to break the silence which allows it to continue.
The government, together with civil society, has stepped up efforts to end the plight of women in this North African country. In February, the Union for Women’s Action (Union de l’action féminine – an organisation working against all forms of discrimination against women) in collaboration with the Anaruz Network of listening centres, launched a campaign to raise awareness for victims of violence.
In the 16 municipal districts of Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, public forums were organised to sensitise local communities and encourage them to adopt a strategy to curb the scourge of violence against women.
This campaign encourages women in distress to speak about their traumatic experiences. Halima Idrissi, a married mother of two, opened up about the abuse she endured for seven months before breaking free. She calmly told IPS, “I lived a nightmare with a violent man who only knew how to communicate with beatings and obscene insults.”
Numerous listening centres were created to help abused women, and a telephone hotline is now available. The options are either to file a complaint with the crown prosecutor – followed by a court process – or to get a lawyer to handle the case, if the victim can afford one.
“By God’s grace I managed to walk away from it once and for all and this only after hearing of the Annadja Listening Centre (annadja means ‘to help’ in Arabic),” said Idrissi. “It has been a great help to me. The centre’s social worker gave me guidance and advice on what steps to take.”
Since 2006, when a new Family Code came into force, women have had greater support and protection under the law. The new code gives women the right to demand a divorce in cases of violence. Before the revision of the Family Code, a divorce application could take up to three or four years, but now the handling of a case does not exceed six months.
“The coming into force of the new Family Code has helped victims to step up and demand justice,” says Fatima Maghnaoui, president of the Annajda Listening Centre in Rabat. “Today, ending a marriage is no longer left only to the husband, but must be subject to prior authorisation from the court before it can be effectively implemented. It also requires the judge to rule within a period of six months.”
Fawzia Badri, a secretary at the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, told IPS: “The revision of the Family Code allowed me to escape my tyrant of a husband, who’d spend his time taking his issues out on me. I was so badly beaten my body became a boxing ring. If not for the Code, I would still be hanging about in the grim corridors of the court.”
Idrissi and Maghnaoui are only two of many women in the same situation. According to a study conducted in 2007 by the Moroccan Secretariat for the Family, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund, battered women face an alarming situation. The report found nearly 28,000 acts of violence were called into a free hotline set up to give legal help and counselling to women; just over 75 percent of reported assaults were committed by husbands.
Saadia Lachgar, a lawyer based in Rabat, explains that there are still legal loopholes in the law. “In instances of domestic violence, we must introduce repressive articles to the Penal Code and annul others, such as those requiring the woman to provide evidence of an act of violence, even though these acts usually take place in the absence of witnesses. The woman’s word must stand as evidence.”
Also mentioned in government’s 2007 study is a subject that is becoming less and less of a taboo: economic violence.
“The economic problem is a culmination of this scourge. A man who finds himself in need, is often restless; a restlessness which translates into uncontrollable violence. Unfortunately, it is the woman who suffers the consequences,” Saïd Amor, a bank employee in Rabat told IPS.
Maghnaoui believes that the question of violence against women must be taken very seriously. “Violence against women is a problem that must be handled at all levels; we need to institute a culture of gender equality, human rights and citizenship.”
The media awareness campaign has led to victims logging an increasing number of distress calls, while creating a certain solidarity between all stakeholders working for the condemnation of violence against women: listening centres, associations for the protection of women’s rights, civil society.
Abdou Mortada, a lawyer made this suggestion: “It will be important to establish a pilot rehabilitation centre, designed to help men to control certain violent behavioral patterns linked to psychological problems.”
For her part, Sawssan Boufous, an economics student at the University of Rabat, tells IPS: “I condemn all acts of violence against women and hope that this awareness campaign will bear fruit and encourage victims to speak out. I also hope that the laws are not only deterrent but also punitive in nature.”
Fadela Anwar, chief TV news editor at Morocco’s second television channel (2M) in Casablanca, tells IPS: “We cannot trivialise violence against women … To play our part, we are joining forces with others fighting this scourge to call for an end to this social phenomenon. We broadcast many reports and advertisements also invite guests to come on air and discuss this problem.”
Russia attacks US military build-up
March 18, 2009Morning Star Online, March 17, 2009
MOSCOW accused the United States and NATO of beefing up their military presence near Russia’s borders on Tuesday in a bid for resources that could ignite new conflicts.
At a meeting of the Russian military’s top brass, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said: “US aspirations have been aimed at getting access to raw materials, energy and other resources” of ex-Soviet nations.
“Active support was given to the processes aimed at pushing Russia out of the sphere of its traditional interests,” Mr Serdyukov observed.
Mr Serdyukov said that Russia and six other ex-Soviet nations which are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation will hold the first exercise of a newly created joint rapid reaction force in Kazakhstan in September.
The Kremlin has fiercely opposed NATO plans to put Ukraine and Georgia on a fast track to membership.
It has budgeted 1.5 trillion rubles (£31bn) for weapons purchases this year, about 25 per cent of which is to be spent on modernising the country’s Soviet-era nuclear force.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told military leaders that Russia had to upgrade its nuclear arsenal in response to NATO expansion.
“The main priority is a qualitative increase in the troops’ readiness, primarily of strategic nuclear forces,” Mr Medvedev declared, adding: “They must guarantee the fulfilment of all tasks of ensuring Russia’s security.”
The military plans to complete tests of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile and put it into service by the end of the year.
Russian leaders have boasted of the submarine-launched missile’s ability to penetrate missile defences and they have described it as the core of the military’s future nuclear arsenal.
Pope’s wrong message on condoms
March 18, 2009The pope is trying to take away one of the few things ordinary Africans can do to help themselves
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- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 March 2009 18.00 GMT
Pope Benedict XVI has reiterated the Vatican’s policy that condoms do not solve the HIV/AIDS problem currently debilitating much of the African continent. The pope is visiting Cameroon and Angola on his week-long trip.
Angola is one of the few African countries in which AIDS has not yet become a massive “problem”. This is because visiting the country and gaining access to its interior has been severely restricted as it recovers from its 27-year-long civil war. The war has meant that there is a serious lack of infrastructure in the country. Coupled with the fact that no major trade routes have yet been established with Angola, the situation is one of mixed blessings. Although the consequence has been economic and social under-development, making it yet another unremarkable African country, it has also meant that AIDS rates are very low. This is not a blessing that will last forever.
The country’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, is on the path to ensuring that the country takes up the mantle as one of Africa’s fastest-developing nations. Should he achieve his goals, trade routes will open fast and more and more people will be allowed into the country. If Angola is not equipped with a solid AIDS prevention policy that includes the use of condoms at its core, it will quickly follow in the footsteps of countries like Swaziland and South Africa where AIDS/HIV rates are the highest on the continent.
The Vatican policy on the prevention of HIV/AIDS is that abstinence is the best cure. There is little to no documentation on countries that have been successful in preventing the virus using abstinence as a primary policy tool. Uganda, which has probably tackled HIV more effectively than other African countries, has made condom use its main policy on the issue.
The problem with the Vatican and Pope Benedict’s policy on AIDS prevention goes beyond policy recommendations and mechanisms. Were these statements coming from a politician, as they did in the US under the Bush administration, the situation would not be so severe. The policies of foreign countries can be taken or left or they can be got around by policy manoeuvrings. When the pope expresses such views, they has an impact that goes beyond the theatre of politics.
According to the Vatican, in 2006, 17% of the African population were Catholics. More than this, Africa is a continent that is heavily religious and, south of the Sahara, largely Christian. Some belong to the Catholic church, many are Anglicans, but all take their belief in God very seriously. What the pope says will reach and matter to more than a mere 17% of Africans.
The Vatican’s stance is not simply irresponsible; it is immoral. African countries, as some of the most under-developed in the world, will arguably suffer the worst consequences of the “new” global challenges – climate change and the global economic downturn. The “old” ones also have not gone anywhere – severe poverty, malaria, the brain-drain, poor health, education and infrastructure, bad and corrupt leadership, civil war and genocide.
The last thing Africans need is to be told that religion, the last vessel of hope for many, demands that they ignore one of the very few things they are able to do to help themselves.
Peace and Justice Post 
Activists slam Pope after condom slur
March 19, 2009Morning Star Online, Wednesday 18 March 2009
AIDS activists accused the Pope of spreading “blatant falsehoods” on Wednesday after he claimed that condoms are worsening Africa’s devastating HIV epidemic.
Kicking off a seven-day tour of the continent on Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI declared: “You can’t resolve Aids with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
He claimed that the solution lay in a “spiritual and human awakening” and “friendship for those who suffer.”
The World Health Organisation position is that “consistent and correct” condom usage reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90 per cent.
An estimated 22 million people in Africa have HIV, the virus that leads to Aids, and three-quarters of all Aids deaths in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa.
Drawing on her 10-year experience of preventing and treating HIV in South Africa, Cape Town Treatment Action Campaign head of policy Rebecca Hodes stressed that condoms are “one of the only evidence-based means of preventing HIV available to us in Africa.
“There is very little evidence to support abstinence-only education campaigns as a means of preventing HIV,” Ms Hodes pointed out, declaring emphatically: “Condoms work in preventing HIV.”
She warned that the pope’s statement “is likely ultimately to lead to new infections because people will not stop having sex. Instead, they will stop having protected sex.”
Italian gay-rights group Archigay activist Aurelio Mancuso agreed, warning that the pope’s comments “contribute to the spread of the disease and especially in Africa, where there are not enough medical resources to treat patients.”
In Washington, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organisation the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) accused the pope of “hurting people in the name of Jesus.”
HRC religion and faith director Harry Knox described it as “morally reprehensible to spread such blatant falsehoods on a continent where millions of people are infected with HIV.
“The Pope’s rejection of scientifically proven prevention methods is forcing Catholics in Africa to choose between their faith and the health of their entire community,” Mr Knox warned.
“Jesus was about helping the marginalised and downtrodden, not harming them further,” he said.
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Tags: Africa, AIDS activists, blatant falsehoods, HIV epidemic, Pope Benedict XVI, World Health Organisation
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