position:chief

Syrian opposition urges rebels to join key battle - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-opposition-urges-rebels-join-key-battle-091542816.html

In Germany, the weekly Der Spiegel reported that the German intelligence chief has revised his assessment of the Syrian civil war.

The chief, Gerhard Schindler, told a small group of politicians dealing with security issues in a secret briefing that Assad’s military is stronger than it has been in a long time, according to Der Spiegel. Additional successful offensives of the regime are possible anytime, he said.

The German intelligence agency BND believes this is a turning point. At the end of 2012, it appeared the regime was in its end phase.

He said the channels for restocking the regime’s weapons supplies are now open, and the supply of gas for tanks and aircraft is also working again. Schindler said Assad most likely won’t be able to defeat the rebels, but he can contain them and even win back some territory.

The BND predicts that in 2013, regime troops will be able to recapture additional territory. If the fighting continues as it has in recent weeks, the regime could recapture the entire south by the end of the year. In this case, the rebels would be left with only the north.

On Wednesday, Germany’s Foreign Ministry said it supports adding Hezbollah to the EU’s list of terrorist groups. The ministry linked the recommendation to a deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year that was tied to Hezbollah.

Sylke Tempel, a Mideast expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, said she believed the German support for sanctions against Hezbollah’s military wing was due in part to its role in Syria fighting.

She said the presence of Hezbollah fighters in Syria has led Western and regional governments to ponder “what if Assad is going to win this thing” and “what if Hezbollah is a factor in making Assad win, or at least not lose.”

The Critical Net Critic - New Left Review n° 77 (Rob Lucas)
http://newleftreview.org/II/77/rob-lucas-the-critical-net-critic

Four decades on from the origin of the Internet, and more than twenty years from the birth of the Web, discussions of these technologies retain a strong mystical odour. Prophecies about a coming ‘information society’, or of new technological ruptures comparable to the Industrial Revolution, have long served to conceal any realistic sense of what they most immediately are; the computer can still be portrayed as a thing of magic, a portal onto some other plane of Being; the Net even more so. Mainstream technology pundits have typically played a propaganda role for American hi-tech industries: ‘we have a moral obligation to increase the amount of technology in the world’, Wired magazine ‘Chief Maverick’ Kevin Kelly once declared, while Stewart Brand—founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue and a pioneer of the libertarian Californian tech culture with which the Net has been associated since the start—has come out as an advocate for biotech and nuclear energy. At the same time such figures have been central in making a literary genre of the Web’s mystification.

#internet #idéologie_californienne #critique_techno

Justice et religion :

Religious politics in Israel: Who’s a Jew? | The Economist
An old religious argument once again rears its angry head
May 18th 2013
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21578098-old-religious-argument-once-again-rears-its-angry-head-whos-jew

WHEN is a Jew not a Jew? When he’s a Karaite. Or so says Israel’s chief rabbinate, which, after 65 years of relative harmony with an ancient Jewish sect, is reopening an old and bitter schism. In recent months, rabbis working for Israel’s ministry of religion have deemed Karaite marriages invalid, fined their butchers for claiming to be kosher, and demanded that Karaites marrying Orthodox Jewish women should convert, sometimes having to undergo tavila, or baptism. “We are already Jews,” protests Moshe Firrouz, a computer engineer who heads the Karaites’ Council of Sages. “The rabbinate is denying us our religious freedom.”
(...)
The chief rabbinate, Israel’s state religious authority, reluctantly began legitimising their marriages again after a recent order by Israel’s Supreme Court , but it continues to argue that since Karaite rites are not Jewish, Karaites have lesser Jewish rights, too. “Israel is a Jewish state and Jews have superior rights,” says the chief rabbinate’s spokesman. “But the Karaites are not Jewish.”

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““

Women of the Wall member is targeted in ’Torah tag’ attack
By Michael Omer-Man|Published May 20, 2013
http://972mag.com/?post_type=nstt_feeditem&p=71809&preview=true

A board member of the Women of the Wall group woke to find hateful graffiti, reminiscent of ‘price tag’ attacks, on her Jerusalem home Monday morning.

The graffiti, which says “Torah Tag” and “Women of the Wall are wicked,” was spray painted on the apartment building where long-time board member of Women of the Wall Peggy Cider lives.

Earlier this month, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews came out to protest against Women of the Wall at the Western Wall, following a favorable court ruling that affirmed their right to pray as they wish at the Western Wall.

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
Les ultra-orthodoxes juifs disent “non” au service militaire
17/05/2013
http://www.france24.com/fr/20130517-ultra-orthodoxes-juifs-haredim-jerusalem-disent-non-service-milit

« Laissez-nous éduquer nos enfants comme nous le faisons depuis des générations, a insisté le rabbin Moshe Shternboch dans les colonnes du “Jerusalem Post”. Vous pouvez voter des budgets et vos décrets mais nous continuerons, sans en tenir compte . »

Edifiant : l’Union Européenne constate que les banques chypriotes ne cherchent absolument pas à connaitre l’origine des dépôts qu’elles acceptent, mais versent quand même l’argent pour les garantir :

http://euobserver.com/justice/120107

McInerney Defends Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/mcinerneydefendsdpas05072013

Une conférence sur le choix du « deferred prosecution
agreement » * de la justice US quand il s’agit de faire face à la délinquance économique des (grosses) entreprises.

Et l’explication de Denis McInerney, haut procureur de la criminalité des entreprises, est assez extraordinaire,

...comme résultat de son application au cours des dix, vingt dernières années, nous avons assisté à un changement radical complet de la manière dont le monde de l’entreprise se comporte, [un comportement] qui est devenu très positif. C’est une bonne chose.

* http://www.lexisnexis.fr/pdf/2013/Le_deferred_prosecution_agreement_americain.pdf

Il s’agit d’un accord passé avec les autorités américaines par lequel une société objet d’une enquête pour délinquance économique accepte de s’acquitter de sanctions financières, de reconnaître des éléments de fait et de se soumettre à des mesures destinées à prévenir la commission d’infractions futures, en contrepartie de l’extinction des poursuites à son encontre.

Valuable as Art, but Priceless as a Tool to Launder Money
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/arts/design/art-proves-attractive-refuge-for-money-launderers.html

It is hard to imagine a business more custom-made for money laundering, with million-dollar sales conducted in secrecy and with virtually no oversight. What this means in practical terms is that “you can have a transaction where the seller is listed as ‘private collection’ and the buyer is listed as ‘private collection,’ ” said Sharon Cohen Levin, chief of the asset forfeiture unit of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. “In any other business, no one would be able to get away with this.”

#blanchiment #fraude #marché_de_l_art

Les ambiguïtés du discours de Nasrallah et les problèmes de sa traduction vus par la BBC

Hezbollah chief’s ambiguous phrase on Syria arms raises translation headache
Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah’s mention in his 9 May speech of new weaponry has had translators and journalists scratching their heads and scouring their dictionaries for a clear, consistent and meaningful translation.

Differences have emerged in Western news agency reports of the speech, Arabic English-language media and even Iranian news sources; all of them coming up with alternative phrases for a key passage.

In the literal translation of his speech, broadcast live on Al-Manar TV, Nasrallah says Syria would supply his movement with “qualitative weaponry” that would be considered as a “balance-breaker” in the region.

BBC Monitoring translates Nasrallah as saying in his speech: “The first response, you Israelis must know, if you considered Syria as a weapon corridor to the resistance, then Syria will give weaponry to the Resistance. This is a major strategic decision. More than that, if you [Israel] claim that your aggression’s aim is to prevent the expansion of the Resistance’s capability, then Syria will give the Resistance qualitative weaponry that the Resistance has never obtained until now. This is higher than a matter of capability expansion; we went for a balance-breaker.”

The key phrase in Nasrallah’s speech is “silahan naw’iyyan lam tahsal ’alayhi al-muqawama hatta al-an”, which BBC Monitoring translates as “qualitative weaponry that the Resistance has never obtained until now”.

Elsewhere, Nasrallah’s choice of the Arabic word for “qualitative” - “naw’i” - has also been interpreted as “game-changing”, “sophisticated” and “strategic”. Reuters, for example, quotes Nasrallah as saying: “then Syria will give the resistance sophisticated weapons the like of which it hasn’t seen before” Meanwhile AFP quotes the same passage from the Hezbollah leader as “Syria will provide (Hezbollah) with game-changing weapons it has not had before”

BBC Monitoring notes that Nasrallah uses the Arabic word “silah” - the singular form denoting weapon or weaponry - instead of the plural form “asliha” for weapons. It is used throughout in conjunction with the ambiguous term “qualitative”.

In the passage, Nasrallah uses the phrase “kasir lil-tawazun” (balance shifting, literally balance breaking), which may account for the “game-changing” translation elsewhere.

Iranian, pan-Arab coverage
Iran’s conservative student news agency ISNA quotes the key passage from Nasrallah in this way: “Syria will provide the Resistance with strategic weapons which the Resistance has never had before We are ready to receive any type of weapon; even if it upsets the current balance in the region.” (Farsi: amma [Syria] selahhay-e stratezhiqki be moghavemat khahad daad ke ta konoon moghavemat aan ra dar ekhtiyar nadashte ast.)

Iran’s conservative news website Tabnak uses the following phrase as a direct quote: “They will be unique weapons which the Resistance has never possessed before.” (Farsi: [Syria] selahhay-e monhaserbefardi khahad daad ke ta konoon moghavemat aan ra dar ekhtiyar nadashte ast.)

Iran’s English-language Press TV also chooses the term “unique” on its website: “Nasrallah said Hezbollah has the capability to obtain what he described as unique weapons that could be used to defend Lebanon against the enemies.”

The English-language Arabic source Al Jazeera TV website borrows both the Reuters and the AFP wording: “The head of Hezbollah has said he is ready to receive ’game-changing’ weapons from Syria, which has long been a conduit for Iranian weapons bound for the Lebanese armed group The resistance [against Israel] is prepared to accept any sophisticated weaponry even if it was to break the equilibrium [in the region],” Al Jazeera quotes Nasrallah directly saying in his speech.

Source: Media observation by BBC Monitoring in English 10 May 13

Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria - West of Eden Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/former-bush-administration-official-israel-may-be-behind-use-of-chemical-ar

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli “false flag” operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad’s regime.

Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV, the network once owned by former Vice President Al Gore and recently purchased by Al-Jazeera.

Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad’s regime that had used the chemical weapons was “flaky” and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: “I think we’ve got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now.”

Haaretz.Com
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/netanyahu-iran-hasn-t-crossed-nuclear-red-line-but-is-approaching-it-system,

L’échéance s’approchant, Netanyahu révise sa « ligne rouge »

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Iran had not crossed the “red line” he set for its nuclear program at the United Nations in September.

During the UN General Assembly , Netanyahu drew a red line across a cartoon bomb to illustrate the point at which he said Iran will have amassed enough uranium at 20 percent fissile purity to fuel one nuclear bomb if enriched further. He said then that Iran could reach that threshold by mid-2013.

...

....but it is approaching it systematically," [Netanyahu] said....."

Nicolas Maduro Did Not Steal the Venezuelan Election
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/nicolas-maduro-did-not-steal-the-venezuelan-election

The guy in the cheap brown windbreaker walking up the dirty tenement steps to my New York office looked like a bus driver. Nicolas Maduro, elected President of Venezuela last Sunday, did indeed drive a bus, then led the drivers’ union, then drove Chávez’s laws through the National Assembly as Venezuela’s National Assembly chief. And this week, the US State Department is refusing to accept the result, suggesting Maduro hijacked the vote count. But did he? Maduro came to me that day in 2004 on (...)

With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan

Tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Monde/Depeches/Les-sacs-d-argent-de-la-CIA-en-Afghanistan-481019 (extrait, en français)

#corruption #Afghanistan #USA

Effondrement de l’usine textile au bangladesh : 300 morts et 1 000 disparus

Traduction et résumé d’un article de la NRK sur l’effondrement de l’usine textile au Bangladesh

Une quarantaine de personnes ont été retrouvées vivantes dans ce qui était le cinquième étage de l’Usine. Le premier ministre, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, a indiqué qu’environ 2 000 personnes ont été secourues, le nombre de morts s’élève à 300, et il manque encore à l’appel environ 1 000 personnes.

Les autorités affirment qu’il y avait 3 122 personnes à l’intérieur de l’usine textile au moment où elle s’est effondrée. Ce sont essentiellement des femmes et des jeunes filles.

Le bâtiment avait été évacué un peu plus tôt dans la journée parce que des fissures avait été découvertes dans un mur, mais les employées qui ont survécu à la catastrophe ont dit qu’elles avaient reçu l’ordre de leur chef de retourner dans le bâtiment et de reprendre le travail.

Il y avait quatre entreprises qui produisaient vêtements à l’intérieur du bâtiment, principalement destinés aux marchés européens et américain.

http://gfx.nrk.no/qUaljHWIPQgX5SQsSg5-_A6hMgtwdlW-cYxTrvx6Oxgw.jpg

Le propriétaire de l’immeuble, Savar, Mohammad Sohel Rana, est recherché par la police. C’est est un politicien local très actif et très puissant.

Le Bangladesh est le deuxième plus grand exportateur mondial de vêtements. Environ 60 pour cent de la production est destinée au marché européen

Source : NRK

41 funne i live i natt - 1000 framleis sakna i ruinane i Bangladesh
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/verden/1.11001564

#bangladesh #sweatshop #travail #emploi

The Return of a Public Pretender

It was revealed yesterday that a former commissioner of the California Public Utility Commission (“CPUC”) is allegedly dating the CPUC president’s Chief of Staff.

Specifically, according to information disseminated by CPUC corruption buster extraordinaire Mike Knell, former commissioner Geoffrey Brown is involved in a relationship with the chief of staff to president Michel Peevey.

Please continue @:

http://lesliebrodie.blog.co.uk/2013/04/24/the-return-of-a-public-pretender-15785636

U.N. chief scolds envoy for implying U.S. policy sparked Boston attack | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/us-usa-explosions-un-idUSBRE93N16D20130424

Richard Falk, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote on his blog on Sunday that “the American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.”

IDF Rabbinate shows non-Jews the door in mezuzah book ruling
Les non juifs n’ont pas les mêmes droits que les juifs en Israël

By Chaim Levinson
Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/idf-rabbinate-shows-non-jews-the-door-in-mezuzah-book-ruling.premium-1.5166

One ruling on Jewish law in the book, “Laws of the Mezuzah,” states: “The idea that views non-Jews as having equal rights in the state goes against the opinion of the Torah, and no representative of the state is authorized to act against the will of the Torah.”

The book deals with questions about mezuzahs, which are fixed to doorposts by Jews as a sign of faith, on army bases, and was endorsed by the IDF’s chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rabbi Rafi Peretz.

Hier suite au seen de @hubertguillaud sur #Reddit lieu d’émergence de cyber#milice dans la foulée des bombes de Boston (« FindBostonbombers ») :
►http://seenthis.net/messages/131651

[ Tiens d’ailleurs, ça y est la traque est terminée apparemment :
http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/visuel_interactif/2013/04/19/la-chasse-a-l-homme-a-boston-heure-par-heure_3163005_3222.html
(pour une critique du brouhaha médiatique autour de cette affaire : http://www.arretsurimages.net/contenu.php?id=5772 et BOSTON / EMBALLEMENT / ARRESTATION : FBI CONTRE MÉDIAS - http://www.arretsurimages.net/vite.php?id=15438 ) ]

San Francisco, the city where Reddit grew up, has an ugly history of vigilantes deciding to track down and convict suspects. Racial, usually anti-Chinese, violence ran through the 19th-century movement, as it has in many vigilante causes.
►http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/13/04/hey-reddit-enough-boston-bombing-vigilantism/275062
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante#19th_century
http://www.maritimeheritage.org/vips/vigilance.html

Du coup, j’ai fait ma petite recherche sur les "human flesh search" chinoises :

Le terme date de 2001, il est né sur le forum MOP :
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/human-flesh-search-engine
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renrou_sousuo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_vigilantism

Translated directly from the Chinese renrou sousou yinqing (人肉搜搜引擎) and popularized by Chinese bulletin board services like Mop, Tianya and KDnet, flesh searches are grassroots, collaborative efforts to share information online.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/what-is-a-human-flesh-search-and-how-is-it-changing-china/263258

Cf. aussi ces deux articles du NYT :
Civic-Minded Chinese Find a Voice Online http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/asia/17china.html?hp&_r=0
China’s Cyberposse
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html?pagewanted=all

Et quelques parallèles sur l’articulation #police et #réseaux_sociaux comme par exemple lors des #émeutes de Vancouver et de Londres à l’été 2011 :
►http://seenthis.net/messages/25510
http://seenthis.net/messages/31386
http://seenthis.net/messages/31523

Plus récemment la police espagnole sur #twitter :
http://seenthis.net/messages/129797

Archives #Chine #cyberactivisme #surveillance etc. :
►http://owni.fr/2012/05/14/pekin-en-guerre-contre-ses-hacktivistes http://seenthis.net/messages/103902 (#VPN désormais interdits)
http://seenthis.net/messages/126552 (étudiants payés pour surveiller leurs camarades en ligne)
http://seenthis.net/messages/115513 (#cybersécurité)

Ben oui,

Russia Bans 18 Americans After Similar US Move - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/04/13/world/europe/ap-eu-russia-us-sanctions.html?smid=tw-nytimesglobal

The list released by the Foreign Ministry includes John Yoo, a former U.S. Justice Department official who wrote legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques; David Addington, the chief of staff for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney; and two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention center: retired Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller and Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson.

Secret US documents show Brennan’s ‘no civilian drone deaths’ claim was false: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/04/11/secret-us-documents-show-brennans-no-civilian-drone-deaths-cl

US intelligence officials were aware that at least one civilian had died in drone strikes in Pakistan during 2011, despite claims to the contrary made by the man now running the Central Intelligence Agency.

In June 2011, John Brennan, at the time President Obama’s chief counter terrorism adviser, stated publicly that for ‘almost a year’ no civilian had died in US drone strikes in Pakistan.

But leaked US intelligence documents obtained by news agency McClatchy show this was not true.

Une arme au laser va être testée sur l’USS Ponce
http://lignesdedefense.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2013/04/09/une-arme-au-laser-va-etre-testee-sur-l-uss-ponce.

La marine américaine a annoncé lundi qu’elle allait embarquer pour la première fois sur l’un de ses navires une arme au laser (LAWS, Laser Weapon System) capable d’abattre des drones et d’endommager des vaisseaux.

Cette arme est présentée par l’US Navy comme un pas en avant dans les techniques de guerre notamment en raison du coût très faible de l’utilisation de l’engin fonctionnant à l’électricité : moins d’un dollar par tir, selon les concepteurs US. Le système a été testé l’été dernier sur le destroyer USS Dewey, lors d’une campagne d’essais au large de San Diego. Trois drones BQM-174A Dragon ont été détruits avec succès lors des trois essais menés en août.

http://www.portlandmercury.com/binary/2b65/1292346840-dr-evil-laser1-1.jpg

Grillé vif pour moins d’un dollar, tu vas pas me dire que c’est pas une très très bonne affaire.

U.N. rights chief calls for closure of Guantanamo prison: “We must be clear about this: the United States is in clear breach not just of its own commitments but also of international laws and standards that it is obliged to uphold” - http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/05/us-usa-guantanamo-un-idUSBRE9340IU20130405

Leaks reveal secrets of the rich who hide cash offshore | UK news | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/03/offshore-secrets-offshore-tax-haven

Millions of internal records have leaked from Britain’s offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world, from presidents to plutocrats, the daughter of a notorious dictator and a British millionaire accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife.

The leak of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (£21tn) stashed in overseas havens.

#leak #paradis_fiscaux #évasion_fiscale #technocratie #ploutocratie - à suivre
http://seenthis.net/messages/127470

The names have been unearthed in a novel project by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [ICIJ], in collaboration with the Guardian and other international media, who are jointly publishing their research results this week.

Egyptian Salafist Considers Sinai The ’Next Frontier’

By Mohamed Fadel Fahmy for Al-Monitor. (Fadel Fahmy is an Egyptian/Canadian freelance journalist and author of Baghdad Bound and Egyptian Freedom Story).

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/egyptsalafistsanaiusconsulatebenghazi.html#ixzz2PCWofWIl

“The Egyptian revolution came as a “gift from god,” as one of the hundreds of jihadists released from prison after the uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 called it. Stockpiles of weapons have made their way into Egypt through the neighboring porous Libyan and Sudanese borders since the region has fallen into a state of lawlessness, which came with the shake-up of the security apparatuses in scarred nations searching for their new identities. Al Qaeda inspired groups in the Sinai Peninsula have puzzled the international community with their bold statements and videos posted on the net, but the various Egyptian security branches have not been able to pinpoint their direct involvement in any of the many military operations and kidnappings, or the weapons smuggling to Gaza through an intricate web of tunnels located in North Sinai, close to the Israeli border. The audacity of such militant groups has left Egypt and its neighboring countries with a national security threat that is brewing by the day, as the wave of violence and killing is broadcast on a daily basis on Egypt’s dozens of television channels and talk-shows.
Obtaining transparent information, specifically in national security cases, in Egypt has become a challenge, and the terrorism case known in the press as the “Nasr City Cell” is no exception.”

#Egypt #Jihadism #Sinai #al_Qaeda #Nasr_city_cell

Mashaal: Obama retreated on settlements | Maan News Agency
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=579633

DOHA (Ma’an) — US President Barack Obama is a charismatic leader with talents that distinguish him from other American presidents but his policies are biased toward Israel, says Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal.

In an interview Wednesday in Doha, Mashaal said Obama offered nothing for the Palestinians despite starting out strong with a landmark speech in Cairo calling for a freeze on Israeli settlements.

“Unfortunately he retreated from this position in practical terms,” Mashaal said.

“During his second term visit to Jerusalem a few days ago, he seemed biased toward the Israeli side. He wanted to strengthen his relations with (Israeli premier Benjamin) Netanyahu at the expense of the Palestinian side.”

Mashaal added: “He has no plan (to resolve) the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

The Hamas leader said that “despite his talk about a Palestinian state,” he also “talked about the establishment of Israel like it’s a promise from God and the promised land.”

“In Hamas, in general, we don’t put our hope in anyone in the White House.”

He said the Islamist movement “believes in achieving its goals and needs through armed resistance,” but nevertheless we are flexible and we will seize all the chances to benefit from any available opportunity."

On reconciliation with Fatah, Mashaal said he welcomed Qatar’s offer to hold an initiative to bring the two factions together in Cairo.

“God willing, I and Abu Mazan will succeed in achieving national unity. I can see how close it is,” he said.

He also said the Arab summit in Qatar was unlikely to accomplish much despite Hamas’ appreciation for Arab leaders’ “encouragement to Palestine. But this is not enough to stop settlements and Judaization.”

He called for a new strategy to protect the holy city and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Asked if he would consider a run for the Palestinian presidency, Mashaal responded that Hamas “hasn’t made its final decision regarding the presidency. If Hamas nominated me to head the PLO, this is Hamas’ natural right. But we’re not going to fight for the presidency.”

Mashaal also said the Arab spring was a positive development. He said every nation has a right to demand freedom, reform, development and in fighting corruption. The Arab spring benefits Palestine, he said.

Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at StrategicAero Research on Bahrain Air’s liquidation:

“Bahrain won’t necessarily suffer without a low cost airline but the likes of Gulf Air will be unable to compete at the low end with fierce rivals like Flydubai who continue to blow them (and others) out of the water. This reality will bite Bahrain in the future if it’s not addressed.

“Gulf Air is by no means out of the woods itself. Its turnaround plan has many positives, but there is little to suggest the airline has managed to reach or will even attain the targets the Government has set.

“Politics sadly will not help airlines in Bahrain. Gulf Air has been struggling because government, not airline executives run it and without a free hand, Bahrain and its carriers will never be able to rise to compete with the likes of Emirates.”

Gulf Business News

Pour ceux qui en doutaient encore, Blackberry est semble-t-il cette fois bien mort

Chief executive Thorsten Heins was quick to declare the introduction of the Z10 a success, but his claims that stocks of the new phones were running low were met with scepticism as shops insisted they had “plenty” left.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-blackberrys-launch-has-been-a-disaster-2013-3