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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
Netanyahu to skip Obama summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico by Josh Gerstein, Laura Rozen - April 9, 2010 - 12:00am Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has abruptly canceled his plans to attend President Barack Obama’s nuclear security summit next week, creating an embarrassing distraction on the eve of a high-profile meeting the White House has sought to carefully choreograph. An Israeli official confirmed Netanyahu’s decision not to attend, which was revealed by Israeli media outlets Thursday afternoon Washington time. |
Asharq Al-Awsat Talks to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Ali El-saleh - April 9, 2010 - 12:00am Fayyad stressed in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that the Palestinian State exists and that the Israeli occupation is bound to end. Fayyad still believed that the establishment of a State is possible within two years, in the second half of 2011 to be specific, as stated in the State blueprint he announced last August. |