LIEBERMAN FOR EUROPE TO CALM EU LEADERS
Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister is leaving Israel for Europe after the EU linked ties with Israel to commitment to a two-state solution.
The European Union threatened to suspend upgrading relations with Tel Aviv if it refused to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. It also called on the Israeli government to stop expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The trip comes days after Israel took a swipe at the EU over the issue.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said T that Tel Aviv does not tolerate the 27-nation bloc to dictate its policy to Tel Aviv, according to Haaretz.
Lieberman's five-day tour will take him to Rome, Paris, Prague and Berlin.
"He will ask that the Europeans wait a bit until the government presents its new policy," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.
Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who refuses to accept international community's call for creating a Palestinian state has repeatedly vowed to expand illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied territory.
Israel's settlement activities are described as one of the main obstacles in the way of peace process.
"If Israelis can't build homes in the West Bank then Palestinians shouldn't be allowed to either," he said.
International bodies including the UN Security Council, the European Union, and the International Court of Justice consider Israel's settlement activities illegal.
Courtesy: Press TV
The European Union threatened to suspend upgrading relations with Tel Aviv if it refused to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. It also called on the Israeli government to stop expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.The trip comes days after Israel took a swipe at the EU over the issue.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said T that Tel Aviv does not tolerate the 27-nation bloc to dictate its policy to Tel Aviv, according to Haaretz.Lieberman's five-day tour will take him to Rome, Paris, Prague and Berlin.
"He will ask that the Europeans wait a bit until the government presents its new policy," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.
Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who refuses to accept international community's call for creating a Palestinian state has repeatedly vowed to expand illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied territory.Israel's settlement activities are described as one of the main obstacles in the way of peace process.
"If Israelis can't build homes in the West Bank then Palestinians shouldn't be allowed to either," he said.
International bodies including the UN Security Council, the European Union, and the International Court of Justice consider Israel's settlement activities illegal.
Courtesy: Press TV
M'SIA USED AS A TRANSIT POINT FOR ILLIGAL MIGRANTS
Illegal immigrants tend to use Malaysia as a transit point to move to a third country
KUALA LUMPUR:Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said Malaysia was not considered a destination for the illegal immigrants but they tend to use the country or Indonesia as a prime route to go to other countries.
Citing an example, Najib said the authorities recently detained a group of people from Afghanistan who had entered the country illegally.
“Their actual destination was Australia. The Australian prime minister called me two weeks ago on this, expressing his appreciation for our cooperation in preventing these people from entering Australia as illegals,” he told reporters after launching the Workers Day celebration here yesterday.
In Johor Baru, an Australian refugee advocate has offered to help a Pakistani teenager move to Australia where his remaining sibling lives.
Muhamad Aqeel Karkeen Quadir Hussein, 14, is the sole survivor in a boat tragedy in the waters off Pulau Lima in Pengerang which killed his mother Zainab Quadir, his two younger siblings, Sabika, 12, and Zulqarnain, 10, and three uncles on April 27.
His father Quadir Hussein Khan Mohamad was a university professor in Pakistan who died four years ago from cancer.
Muhamad Aqeel said his only surviving family member is his 22-year-old sister Misbah Quadir who is married and living in Australia for the past 18 months.
Australian refugee advocate Kaye Bernard, who contacted The Star, said she was lobbying the Australian Government to allow the boy to live in Australia on humanitarian grounds.
“Malaysia has been identified by Australian authorities as a transit point for immigrants to get to Australia, making the crossing by boat via Indonesia,” Bernard said.
Last month, Australia sent its senior national security adviser Duncan Lewis to Malaysia and Sri Lanka for talks to combat a surge in people smuggling.
Australian Immigration Department statistics showed that its detention centres were holding 258 people who entered the country by sea and and 65 others by air.
Courtesy: The Star Online
KUALA LUMPUR:Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said Malaysia was not considered a destination for the illegal immigrants but they tend to use the country or Indonesia as a prime route to go to other countries.Citing an example, Najib said the authorities recently detained a group of people from Afghanistan who had entered the country illegally.
“Their actual destination was Australia. The Australian prime minister called me two weeks ago on this, expressing his appreciation for our cooperation in preventing these people from entering Australia as illegals,” he told reporters after launching the Workers Day celebration here yesterday.
In Johor Baru, an Australian refugee advocate has offered to help a Pakistani teenager move to Australia where his remaining sibling lives.
Muhamad Aqeel Karkeen Quadir Hussein, 14, is the sole survivor in a boat tragedy in the waters off Pulau Lima in Pengerang which killed his mother Zainab Quadir, his two younger siblings, Sabika, 12, and Zulqarnain, 10, and three uncles on April 27.
His father Quadir Hussein Khan Mohamad was a university professor in Pakistan who died four years ago from cancer.
Muhamad Aqeel said his only surviving family member is his 22-year-old sister Misbah Quadir who is married and living in Australia for the past 18 months.
Australian refugee advocate Kaye Bernard, who contacted The Star, said she was lobbying the Australian Government to allow the boy to live in Australia on humanitarian grounds.
“Malaysia has been identified by Australian authorities as a transit point for immigrants to get to Australia, making the crossing by boat via Indonesia,” Bernard said.Last month, Australia sent its senior national security adviser Duncan Lewis to Malaysia and Sri Lanka for talks to combat a surge in people smuggling.
Australian Immigration Department statistics showed that its detention centres were holding 258 people who entered the country by sea and and 65 others by air.
Courtesy: The Star Online
US MUSLIMS OFFER HIGHEST APPROVAL FOR OBAMA
Washington: US Muslims showed the most support for US President Barack Obama during his first 100 days in office, according to a new Gallup Poll.The Gallups daily tracking poll showed 85 per cent of American-Muslims approved of Obama’s performance.
Obama also enjoyed 73 per cent approval from Americans with no religious affiliation.
Obama earned "solid majority support" from Roman Catholics and Protestants, 67 per cent and 58 per cent respectively, according to the poll. Overall, more than six in 10 Americans say Obama has "met or exceeded their expectations" as president.The Gallup poll, released on Friday, also found Mormons were the only religious group with the highest disapproval of Obama's job as president.
The survey is based on a large sample of 99,494 national adults, aged 18 and older, from January 21-April 29.
Courtesy: Golf News. Com
IRAN HANGS FEMALE JUVENILE OFFENDER
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has hanged Delara Darabi, a young woman who was convicted of murder when she was a minor, her lawyer said Saturday, drawing condemnation from international human rights groups who have sought to end capital punishment for juvenile offenders.Authorities executed the 23-year-old woman Friday in northern Iran without informing her lawyer or allowing the family to be present, said the lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei. She was 17 at the time the crime was committed, in 2003.
Iran executes more juvenile offenders than any other nation eight last year and 42 since 1990, according to Amnesty International. Friday's was the second such execution this year in Iran, Mostafaei said.
While a few other countries are known to have executed juvenile offenders in recent years, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Pakistan. Iran has accounted for more than two-thirds of such executions in the past four years, according to rights groups.
The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran has signed, bans capital punishment for offenders who committed crimes before their 18th birthday."Iran continues to deny that it executes juvenile offenders, but the secret nature of this execution demonstrates that the government knows that these killings are illegal and shameful in the eyes of the world," said Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch.
The prisoner executed Friday, Delara Darabi, initially pleaded guilty to killing her father's cousin, but later retracted her confession and said her boyfriend carried out the killing. She told a judge that she had initially confessed because her boyfriend told her that, as a minor, she would not be executed and she could save him from being put to death, her lawyer said.
Courtesy: Associated Press
US PROFESSOR GRILLED OVER ISRAELI-NAZI COMPARISON
William I. Robinson is a sociology professor in the University of California, Santa Barbara
A Jewish sociology professor undergoes investigation over drawing an analogy between Nazi atrocities and the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.
The probe by the University of California, Santa Barbara, will look into allegations of improper conduct and anti-Semitism against William I. Robinson, who compared Israel's three-week-long onslaught against Gazans to the Holocaust.
Robinson in January sent an e-mail to 80 of his students, in which he juxtaposed photos of Jews killed by the Nazis and similar photos of Palestinians killed in Israeli incursions.
"Gaza is Israel's Warsaw - a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians," Israeli Ynet news quoted the e-mail entitled "Parallel images of Nazis and Israelis."
The email said Israel is subjecting Palestinians "to the slow death of malnutrition, disease and despair, nearly two years before their subjection to the quick death of Israeli bombs."
"We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide...," Robinson wrote in his e-mail. The move drew sharp criticism from Jewish groups and two students who quit the class and filed complaints, leading to formation of an ad hoc committee by the university's Academic senate.
The committee is to investigate if Robinson has violated university policy that bans professors from intimidating students and using campus resources for personal, political reasons unrelated to their classes.
Robinson, however, has rejected the allegations, arguing that it was within his rights of academic freedom to challenge students with controversial topics.
He called the investigation a "violation of academic freedom," saying that the students have formed a support committee and outside academics, including noted sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky, have publicly sided with Robinson.
A Jewish sociology professor undergoes investigation over drawing an analogy between Nazi atrocities and the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.The probe by the University of California, Santa Barbara, will look into allegations of improper conduct and anti-Semitism against William I. Robinson, who compared Israel's three-week-long onslaught against Gazans to the Holocaust.
Robinson in January sent an e-mail to 80 of his students, in which he juxtaposed photos of Jews killed by the Nazis and similar photos of Palestinians killed in Israeli incursions."Gaza is Israel's Warsaw - a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians," Israeli Ynet news quoted the e-mail entitled "Parallel images of Nazis and Israelis."
The email said Israel is subjecting Palestinians "to the slow death of malnutrition, disease and despair, nearly two years before their subjection to the quick death of Israeli bombs."
"We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide...," Robinson wrote in his e-mail. The move drew sharp criticism from Jewish groups and two students who quit the class and filed complaints, leading to formation of an ad hoc committee by the university's Academic senate.The committee is to investigate if Robinson has violated university policy that bans professors from intimidating students and using campus resources for personal, political reasons unrelated to their classes.
Robinson, however, has rejected the allegations, arguing that it was within his rights of academic freedom to challenge students with controversial topics.
He called the investigation a "violation of academic freedom," saying that the students have formed a support committee and outside academics, including noted sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky, have publicly sided with Robinson.
Courtesy: Press TV
UAE ROYAL PRINCE TOTURING MINGRANT WORKERS
In a sign of closing ranks, the UAE ruling family has blocked internet access to all sites showing the horrific footage of a royal prince torturing a migrant worker.The New York Times reported on Friday that all "websites with links to the torture tape have been blocked in the Emirates, in violation of the Emirates' own policies."
No local UAE media reported on the scandal until Wednesday following a short statement by the UAE government, which is dominated by the extended Al Nahyan family.
According to ABC News, which first released the disturbing videotape, the UAE government claimed that Sheikh Issa only occasionally indulged in such activities and what was recorded on the tape was 'not part of a pattern of behavior'.
Nevertheless, the New York Times reported that Bassam Nabulsi, a US citizen from Houston, Texas, and a former business associate of Sheikh Issa, who smuggled the torture tape out of UAE, has claimed that he has two other videotapes showing the prince torturing other men, including a Sudanese immigrant, with the assistance of 15 to 20 police officers.Nabulsi, who is now back in the US, also claims to have been wrongly imprisoned and tortured in the UAE, in order to force him to hand over the torture tapes.
The human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, has called on the UAE to investigate and prosecute all those responsible for the violent attacks recorded on the videotape. In a statement released on April 29, HRW said, "The government's failure to prosecute those involved in this undisputed incident of torture and abuse at the hands of a royal family member and the police are an appalling miscarriage of justice."
The scandal has also caused a number of US politicians to question the wisdom of supplying nuclear technology by the US to the UAE.
James McGovern, a Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts and co-chair of the House Human Rights Commission said of the planned US nuclear deal with the UAE, "How can we move forward with such a delicate agreement in the face of such an atrocious human rights violation? ... If it were brought to Congress now I would certainly ask that it be rejected." Courtesy: Press TV
MALAYSIAN CABINET DEFERS LEVY HIKE
KUALA LUMPUR,Malaysia: The Cabinet has decided to defer temporarily the implementation of the foreign worker levy hike, Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr. S.Subramaniam said.He said the Cabinet made the decision at its last weekly meeting after considering requests by the employers, especially restaurant owners who felt the hike would be and added burden.
"The Cabinet felt that it was not the right time to implement the levy hike on foreign workers due to the uncertain economic situation," he told reporters at Angkasapuri here Friday.
Dr Subramaniam said he raised the matter at last Wednesday's Cabinet meeting after gathering feedback from the employers and industry stakeholders recently."With this decision, the implementation of the doubling of levy payment for foreign workers will be deferred temporarily until the economy improves," he said.
The Minister said once the country's economy had improved, the Cabinet would announce the mechanism for the implementation of the hike.
It was reported that more than 375,000 foreign and local workers in 25,000 Indian, Muslim and Chinese food outlets risked losing their jobs if the foreign worker levy payment was doubled as proposed in the mini-budget.
The mini budget tabled in Parliament recently, provided for the doubling of the foreign workers levy, except for those in the construction, plantation and domestic maid sectors.
Courtesy: BERNAMA
The Minister said once the country's economy had improved, the Cabinet would announce the mechanism for the implementation of the hike.
It was reported that more than 375,000 foreign and local workers in 25,000 Indian, Muslim and Chinese food outlets risked losing their jobs if the foreign worker levy payment was doubled as proposed in the mini-budget.The mini budget tabled in Parliament recently, provided for the doubling of the foreign workers levy, except for those in the construction, plantation and domestic maid sectors.
Courtesy: BERNAMA
CAR ATTACK ON DUTCH ROYAL FAMILY LEAVES 5 DEAD
A car drives into the crowd waiting to see the royal family in Apeldoorn
Five people were killed in Holland after a speeding car crashed through barriers and ploughed into spectators attending a royal parade, in a terrifying attack believed to be targeted at the Dutch royal family.A black Suzuki Swift, driven by a 38-year-old man, charged at high speed through police barriers and crowds of spectators, missed the royal open-top bus by just metres and crashed into the foot of a memorial column in Apeldoorn, a small town 90km south-east of Amsterdam.
Television footage showed the car, with its roof and bonnet already crumpled from smashing through the crowd, racing past the royal bus in bright sunshine and slamming into the column.
Other film showed bodies being hurled into the air and members of the royal family hiding their faces in shock and dismay."I think that it has become clear that this happened with premeditation," said the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.
The driver, a shaven-haired Dutch man with no police record or known political affiliations was badly hurt in the final crash but he survived. Pictures showed him apparently unconscious in the driver's seat with his face covered in blood.
"The man said that his action was aimed at the royal family," said prosecutor Ludo Goossens. "So far we have no indication that there is any link to terror (activities)."
The Dutch media quoted neighbours as saying the man had been recently fired from his job and evicted from his home. Witnesses said that his car had been stopped and turned back earlier in the day by police. It remained unclear last night how the driver was able to breach security and charge through barriers, police lines and the crowds and almost reach the royal parade itself.
Courtesy: The Independent
EGYPT ORDERS IMMEDIATE CULL OF COUNTRY'S PIG
A health worker sprays chemicals to disinfect a local pig farm in Cairo. Egypt has ordered the immediate cull of all pigs in the country to avoid any outbreak of the deadly swine flu
CAIRO - Egypt on Wednesday ordered the immediate cull of all pigs in the country to avoid any outbreak of the deadly swine flu, Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali said. "It has been ordered to immediately begin the slaughter of all herds of pigs in Egypt," Gabali told reporters after a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.He said slaughter houses were to begin the culling process on Wednesday at the fastest rate possible.
Further precautionary measures such as the launch of a widespread awareness campaign and an increase in the production of protective masks and anti-viral Tamiflu medicine would also be introduced, he said.Egypt's agriculture ministry says there are 250,000 pigs in the country, belonging to and eaten by the members of the Coptic Christian minority.
On Tuesday, Egypt's lower house of parliament called for the slaughter of the country's pigs amid fears over the spread of the swine flu.
At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, scores of angry farmers blocked the street to prevent Health Ministry workers in trucks and bulldozers from coming in to slaughter the animals. Some pelted the vehicles with rocks and shattered their windshields and the workers left without killing any pigs.Courtesy:Channelnewsasia.Com
VISITORS GEOFLAGS SINCE AUGUST 26, 2009
