Palestinian refugees need more service from UNRWA: poll ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua April 8, 2010 - 12:00am Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria expected more services from U.N. Refugees Works Agency ( UNRWA), according to the results of a poll, released here on Thursday. The poll was conducted from October 17 to 25, 2009 by the Beirut-based Organization for the Right of Return (Thabit), Palestinian Return Center (PRC) in London and Damascus-based Palestinian Return Community (Wajeb). It showed that among the 1,460 Palestinian refugees participating the poll, 92 percent of those in Lebanon and Syria support UNRWA's work, though 85 percent said that its work is "not enough". » Read more

Palestinian FM to meet with IBSA leaders in Brasilia on Middle East Peace process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua April 9, 2010 - 12:00am Palestinian Foreign Minister Malik Riak will visit Brasilia next week to meet with leaders and representatives of India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum to seek support for peace negotiations with Israel, a government official said Thursday. The meeting will take place during the IBSA summit, scheduled for next Thursday in the capital city of Brazil, and will take the form of "3+1", Roberto Jaguaribe, secretary general for political affairs of Brazil's Foreign Ministry, told a press conference. » Read more

Hamas in Gaza takes steps to carry out executions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by RIZEK ABDEL JAWAD - April 8, 2010 - 12:00am Human rights activists urged Gaza's Hamas rulers Thursday not to execute Palestinians who spied for Israel, as Hamas officials prepared to resume executions following a decade-long lull. Eleven men are on death row in Gaza, six convicted by Hamas courts of murder and five of spying for Israel, said the Gaza-based Independent Commission for Human Rights. Six others have been sentenced to death in absentia. » Read more

Rival groups clash at Palestinian base in Lebanon ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Zeina Karam - April 8, 2010 - 12:00am Rival groups armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers battled for hours Thursday inside a Palestinian military camp in a remote part of eastern Lebanon, killing one person, security officials said. The Ein al-Bayda camp is one of several bases run by Palestinian militant groups in Lebanon. Most of them are located in the eastern Bekaa Valley near the border with Syria, whose government supports the groups. » Read more

Armchair warriors ATFP World Press Roundup Article from United Press International (UPI) by Arnaud De Borchgrave - (Analysis) April 8, 2010 - 12:00am It is becoming increasingly difficult to sort fact from fiction between legacy media and the new media of libel-proof blogs sans editors. Blogmocracy is a time-consuming exercise in democracy. Media-watchers say to be well informed and up to speed one must scan at least 100 blogs. Also "Wikileaks," a Web-based investigative journalism outfit that recently released a video that showed a U.S. Apache helicopter opening fire on a group of men, killing 12, including two Reuters employees, on July 12, 2007. The Apache carried a gun camera. Wikileaks posted 38 minutes of what the gun was doing. » Read more

Obama waives laws over fund transfers to PA ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency April 9, 2010 - 12:00am US President Barack Obama cited national security concerns when he announced the re-issuance of wavers on Wednesday, easing rules for fund transfers to the Palestine Liberation Organization and its government in the West Bank. A second waiver, similar to the one signed by Obama in April and October 2009, allows the PLO to retain its office in the American capital city of Washington, DC. » Read more

Amid jail strike, Hamas urges more soldier abductions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency April 9, 2010 - 12:00am The solution to the prisoner-swap stalemate is to capture more Israeli soldiers and force the hand of the Israeli government, Hamas leaders said Thursday. Sparked by the start of the second week of a prisoner strike, officials in Gaza are seeking to support Palestinians in Israeli custody as they demand equal treatment by prison officials. » Read more

The solution for Israelis and Palestinians: a parallel state structure ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Mark Levine, Mathias Mossberg - (Opinion) April 8, 2010 - 12:00am Growing US-Israeli tension over continued East Jerusalem settlement construction – which the White House appears unable to stop – underscores a deeper reality: The two-state solution is no longer possible. The occupied territories are politically, economically, and geographically so deeply integrated into Israel that there is no practical way to transfer them to Palestinian sovereignty within the framework of a two-state solution. Israeli scholars have been warning of this to anyone who would listen for over two decades. » Read more

NSA Jones: "No decision" on U.S. peace plan ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico by Laura Rozen - (Blog) April 9, 2010 - 12:00am Obama's National Security Advisor Jim Jones says there's been no decision yet on the U.S. proposing its own Middle East peace plan. "There’s been no decision on that," Jones told reporters aboard Air Force One, regarding recent reports that the Obama administration is being urged to propose its own detailed Middle East peace plan if there is no progress on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations by the fall. » Read more

US Treasury: 'PA making bold bid to curb Hamas funds' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Hilary Leila Krieger - April 9, 2010 - 12:00am WASHINGTON – The Palestinian Authority has made significant moves to cut off the flow of funding to Hamas, according to a top US Treasury official. David Cohen, assistant treasury secretary for terrorist financing, praised the PA for taking “important steps to limit Hamas’s influence” by supervising the Palestinian banking system and charitable contributions in the West Bank and Gaza. “The Palestinian Authority has been quite courageous in its efforts to regulate the financial system,” Cohen told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Wednesday afternoon. » Read more