Middle East

The Palestinian Authority has ordered the organisation’s security forces to prevent planned demonstrations in September from turning violent, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. The protests, sponsored by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, will coincide with the PA’s bid for statehood at the UN on September 20.

Now that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is further concentrating its efforts on submitting to the UN, next September, a formal demand for the recognition of Palestine as an independent state, the U.S. and Israel are working to prevent the international community from doing so, and proposing new talks with the condition that the Palestinians abandon their legitimate request.

Over six years ago, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair asked Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf: What can we (the West) do for you (Pakistan) to strengthen you position in the region? Musharraf replied: Solve the Palestinian problem!

An Israeli government official said on Tuesday that his country would be willing to begin new peace talks with the 1967 Green Line as a basis for negotiations on the condition that the Palestinians drop their United Nations membership bid. The assumption is that if this process succeeds, the Palestinians will withdraw their proposal for unilateral action at the UN.

The Palestine Liberation Organization Negotiations Affairs Department released a report, Road for Palestine Statehood – Recognition and Admission, says that Palestine has met all the conditions for forming an independent state according to the 1933 Montevideo Convention, which states the rights and duties of countries.

Israeli soldiers arrested two Palestinians and five Internationals during an anti-wall nonviolent protest on Wednesday morning in Al-Walajeh village near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem. On Tuesday, Israeli army bulldozers started to uproot trees owned by local farmers to make way for the new section of the wall that Israel has been building for three year there.

By Bernhard Schell

As September draws closer and the Palestine Authority prepares to achieve statehood as well as full membership of the United Nations, a new report is calling upon Fatah and Hamas rivals to take necessary steps to implement the Egyptian sponsored reconciliation agreement and install a Palestinian leadership able to reach and carry out peace with Israel.

The Egyptian Armed Forces Supreme Council raised the alert against what it considered an attempt to bring about a breaking-off between the people and the army after clashes with demonstrators on Friday. The military junta asked the population to be prudent, to neutralize such attempts and not to be manipulated by a “suspicious plan” to destroy Egypt’s stability.

The price of the U.S-led invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003 —which is paradoxically called Operation Freedom for Iraq— is usually calculated in dollars. What about its human cost?

The following are just some facts about Iraqi youth and children according to UN reports:

The Water Sanitation and Hygiene Group (EWASH) issued a report saying that even though Israel announced last year that it will ease the blockade; Gaza Strip residents still don’t have clean water running from their taps as up to 95% of water for domestic supply in the Gaza Strip is still below the minimum WHO standard for drinking water and unfit for consumption.