AFP - Sri Lankan troops advanced Saturday on the military headquarters of the Tamil Tigers and engaged the rebels in fresh gunbattles, a day after capturing their de facto political capital. The defence ministry said ground forces, backed by helicopter gunships and war planes, were moving towards Mullaittivu, the jungle district along the northeastern seaboard, where the Tigers have their main military facilities....In the capital Colombo, a bomb went off at a commercial area of the city on Saturday, wounding three civilians and damaging several vehicles, police said. A suicide bombing in Colombo on Friday killed two people and wounded 36....The pro-rebel Tamilnet website reported that a petrol station and a bus station were bombed by the air force on Friday morning, killing four civilians and wounding another eight.
The defence ministry said ground forces, backed by helicopter gunships and war planes, were moving towards Mullaittivu, the jungle district along the northeastern seaboard, where the Tigers have their main military facilities.
...In the capital Colombo, a bomb went off at a commercial area of the city on Saturday, wounding three civilians and damaging several vehicles, police said. A suicide bombing in Colombo on Friday killed two people and wounded 36.
...The pro-rebel Tamilnet website reported that a petrol station and a bus station were bombed by the air force on Friday morning, killing four civilians and wounding another eight.
Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Wednesday she would share power with the opposition despite winning a massive majority in Bangladesh's parliamentary election this week. Hasina said she was ready to offer a senior parliamentary post to her bitter political rival, Begum Khaleda Zia, who has rejected the results of elections that returned the impoverished country to democracy after two years of emergency rule.
Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Wednesday she would share power with the opposition despite winning a massive majority in Bangladesh's parliamentary election this week.
Hasina said she was ready to offer a senior parliamentary post to her bitter political rival, Begum Khaleda Zia, who has rejected the results of elections that returned the impoverished country to democracy after two years of emergency rule.
The blast struck a checkpoint outside the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad, as Shi'ites prepared for the Ashura holiday this week to mark the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. Many of the casualties were pilgrims from Iran, security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi said, underscoring the deep religious ties between the two majority Shi'ite countries. "A woman wearing an explosive vest managed to reach one of the security checkpoints near the revered Kadhim shrine and exploded herself among a crowd of pilgrims," his statement said. He gave an initial toll of 35 killed and 79 wounded. Iraqi security sources gave slightly higher casualty totals. U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Jan. 1 in step with a bilateral pact that will require the withdrawal of the 140,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2011.
The blast struck a checkpoint outside the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad, as Shi'ites prepared for the Ashura holiday this week to mark the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.
Many of the casualties were pilgrims from Iran, security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi said, underscoring the deep religious ties between the two majority Shi'ite countries.
"A woman wearing an explosive vest managed to reach one of the security checkpoints near the revered Kadhim shrine and exploded herself among a crowd of pilgrims," his statement said.
He gave an initial toll of 35 killed and 79 wounded. Iraqi security sources gave slightly higher casualty totals.
U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Jan. 1 in step with a bilateral pact that will require the withdrawal of the 140,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2011.
It was the second such request and was rejected on Friday night Australian time, [Deputy Prime Minister Julia] Gillard said. "Those resettlement requests have been considered on a case-by-case basis, against our stringent national security and immigration criteria," said Gillard, who temporarily heads the government while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on leave. "Assessing those requests from a case-by-case basis, they had not met our stringent national security and immigration criteria and have been rejected." About 255 men are still held at Guantanamo, including 60 the United States has cleared for release but cannot repatriate for fear they will be tortured or persecuted in their home countries.
It was the second such request and was rejected on Friday night Australian time, [Deputy Prime Minister Julia] Gillard said.
"Those resettlement requests have been considered on a case-by-case basis, against our stringent national security and immigration criteria," said Gillard, who temporarily heads the government while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on leave.
"Assessing those requests from a case-by-case basis, they had not met our stringent national security and immigration criteria and have been rejected."
About 255 men are still held at Guantanamo, including 60 the United States has cleared for release but cannot repatriate for fear they will be tortured or persecuted in their home countries.
Cuban President Raul Castro offered late Friday to enter talks with US President-elect Barack Obama, "without intermediaries." Castro said he hoped Obama could "do a great deal, could take positive steps."
Barack Obama has accepted the withdrawal of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's candidature as secretary of commerce. The Governor dropped his bid due to an investigation into a company that has done business with his state.
President-elect Barack Obama said that he supports the Democratic Party's decision not to seat any candidate named by scandal-tainted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell Obama's vacant senate seat.
It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility. The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending. Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment? Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation. And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.
The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
Of course, you can then argue the extent to which you can conflate the politicians of Israel with all Israelis, just as you can argue that the decision by the Westminster establishment in the UK to go to war with Iraq did not represent the whole will of the British people.
But, in a democratic society, we are, to all intents and purposes, involved in a representative government. We send people to parliament, both here and in Israel, to represent us, not reflect us. They decide in our name with our consent, if not with our agreement. Yes, I dissented from the Iraq war, but it was done in mine and 60 million other citizen's name and no hair-splitting can really deny a certain burden of, if not responsibility, then at least I will admit that our part of the invasion effort was unequivocally British and there is an association there.
So, yes, I will acknowledge that there is a peace movement in Israel, I will agree that not all Israelis agree with what is being done in their name. But it is still being done in their name and it is not unreasonable or unfair to describe the sentiments behind these actions as Israeli. And Eno's use is not a monolithic use, but entirely legitimate. keep to the Fen Causeway
You did not get what I said. As I stated explicitely, the point is not that there would be disagreement about attacking Gaza. The point is that the governing forces chose to escalate the situation into a major invasion to play tough before the elections, to catch the wind from Bibi Netanyahu's sail, who attacked them from the right. It can be this narrow-minded. And it happened before.
Let's remember Operation "The Grapes of Wrath", the 1996 bombing of South Lebanon most infamous for the shelling of the Qana shelter with 106 dead. That operation was ordered by the then interim government of Shimon Peres, who wanted to show himself strong before new elections. He still lost -- incidentally, to Netanyahu... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
It's the same mistake Democrats keep making in the US. You can't be more hawkish than republicans so why get into that game (yes Hillary, we do mean you) ? however democrats can be much more sensible and balanced, which is why Obama got elected.
So if the Israeli centre/liberal (laughable as that sounds) want to beat the far-right, they won't do it by starting a war. keep to the Fen Causeway
Poll: Most Israelis support continuing Gaza military op.
This is down from 81% in favor of "Operation Cast Lead" at its outset, but at 71% it's still a vast majority.
In light of your focus on "partisan reasons (er.g. upcoming elections".
Thems is mighty hollow pretexts, given the broader picture.
Map which hardly needs any additional commentary. Or if it does, let me know.
Livni and Barak's political ambitions, in full accord with their right wing counterparts, are to rid the region of native Palestinians.
Why is there any further question as to what the bestial Gaza offensive is about?
Seriously, any israeli who is not screaming murder at this point is an accomplice.
You can't say "never again" and not go ballistic. A 'centrist' is someone who's neither on the left, nor on the left.
