Middle East

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says Syrian military and security forces have killed at least 2,700 people; but activists and human rights groups put that number as high as 5,300.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas handed over a request to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, asking the United Nations to admit the state of Palestine as a full member. Then he told the General Assembly “I call upon the distinguished members of the Security Council to vote in favour of our full membership.”

In a closed envelope delivered to UN secretary-general with little hope, the Palestinian Authority submitted on September 23rd its demand to the United Nations to recognise Palestine as an independent State, while giving time to the Security Council to consider what it had repeatedly claimed but it will now reject due to the U.S. “veto”:

While very busy covering French president and British prime minister visits to Libya, and talking about the day when Libyan oil will feed again cars and industries, mainstream media has nearly ignored the continuing killings in Yemen and the growing hunger of which more than 7,5 million Yemenis are victims.

The latest available regional information about labour in the Middle East and North of Africa unveil strongly discouraging facts– youth unemployment rates are among the highest ones in the world, and unemployment rates among young women are two to three times higher than among young men, just to mention some striking examples.

The world lives in the era of knowledge and information sharing. With satellite TV, mobile phones and the internet, the word “distance” has lost its meaning as there is hardly a place today that is too’ remote’ for information access. The uprisings in the Arab World are a striking example of the rapid dissemination of information.

Syrian opposition figures and groups claiming that they represent most opposition movements to Bashar Al Assad dictatorial regime, have formed in Turkey a National Transition Council, chaired by Burhan Ghalioun, a Syrian-French academic teaching at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

The extraordinary session of the Jordanian parliament was asked to stay in session in order to debate and vote on the constitutional changes that the royal commission had recommended and the king accepted. Once approved and signed by the king, the changes will be the most comprehensive changes in 90 years.

From the blog “Fuera de Lugar” (Out of Place) of publico.es:
Interview with Ali Abu Awwad, by Amador Fernández-Savater and Juan Gutiérrez. Made in the framework of the meetings “Positive peace: a possible challenge” (8th June 2010, Bilbao).

The People’s Party of Palestine (PPP) organized a march in Nablus yesterday, calling for a boycott Israeli goods to show solidarity with the people of Gaza.