/news

Syria opposition leaders set upon in Cairo - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/11/2011119105350409107.html

The four-man delegation of the Syrian National Co-ordination Committee (SNCC), which was made up of members of the Syrian opposition from within Syria, had arrived at the offices earlier on Wednesday, but were greeted by demonstrators who threw eggs at them.

[...]

Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Jane Arraf, said Wednesday’s incident was an indication of how divided the Syrian opposition is.

She said: "The protesters, many of which are Syrian exiles, are saying that these people meeting at the Arab League are agents of the Syrian government, calling them traitors.

Arraf added that the protesters are “the ones who want action, military action, targeted sanctions, a no-fly zone, the removal of Bashar al-Assad [the Syrian president], and this is not what these opposition members are asking for.”

Syria says deal reached with Arab League - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/11/2011111175657214856.html

Syria says it has reached a deal with an Arab League committee entrusted with finding a way to end seven months of unrest and starting a dialogue between President Bashar al-Assad and his opponents.

State media reported the deal without giving details, saying an official announcement of the agreement would be made at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Wednesday.

But a senior Arab League official said the organisation was still awaiting a response from Damascus to proposals for halting the bloodshed, which activists said continued on Tuesday with two civilians shot dead by Assad’s forces in Homs and two soldiers killed by army deserters in an ambush.

One activist said gunmen dragged nine people, all of them from Assad’s minority Alawite sect, from a bus on a road between the cities of Homs and Hama, and killed them.

UNESCO approves Palestinian membership bid - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/10/2011103172551498181.html

UN cultural body admits Palestine as full member despite US threat to cut off tens of millions of dollars in funding.

Israeli ex-soldier faces prison over leaks - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/20111030113048320412.html

An Israeli court has sentenced a former soldier to four and a half years in prison for leaking classified military documents to a newspaper, which later reported allegations of a policy to assassinate Palestinian fighters.

A three-judge panel handed Anat Kamm a 54-month sentence and an additional 18-month suspended term on Sunday, with judges writing in the court document that they had found “the motive behind taking the documents was mainly ideological”.

Kamm, 24, copied more than 2,000 military documents from army computers between 2005 and 2007, when she served as a junior clerk in the office of the Israeli commander responsible for the illegally occupied West Bank. About 700 were classified.

Avigdor Feldman, one of Kamm’s lawyers, said at the time she was convicted that she had “believed she stumbled onto [evidence of] war crimes.”

Israeli airstrike kills five Gaza fighters - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/201110291390845324.html

Israeli forces have launched an airstrike on an Islamic Jihad camp in southern Gaza Strip, killing a commander of the group and at least four other fighters, officials from both sides have said.

The raid on Saturday in Rafah, a town on Gaza’s border with Egypt, followed a Palestinian rocket attack on Thursday which landed deep in Israel but caused no casualties.

US launches #drones from Ethiopia - Africa - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/africa/2011/10/20111028223554442295.html

The White House has confirmed that the US military has unmanned drone aircraft in Ethiopia but says no strike missions are being launched from the east African country.

“The US has unarmed and unmanned aircraft at a facility there to be used only for surveillance as part of a broad, sustained, integrated campaign to counter terrorism,” said Captain John Kirby, a US defence department spokesman, on Friday. “These unmanned aircraft are being used only for surveillance and not conducting strike missions.”

Fierce fighting erupts in Yemen’s capital - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/20111022101744709230.html

Fierce clashes have erupted between forces loyal to Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents in two areas in the capital Sanaa, a day after the UN urged the embattled leader to hand over power.

In the area around Change Square, where thousands of protesters have been camped out calling for Saleh to quit, fighting erupted on Saturday between government troops and defected soldiers loyal to dissident General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.

Five soldiers belonging to the rebel first division were reportedly killed by gunshots from forces loyal to Saleh, in what appears to be a continuation of fighting that began a day earlier.

Witnesses and AFP correspondents in Sanaa said explosions were heard throughout the capital from the early hours on Saturday.

Le prince héritier séoudien 83 ans, ministre de la défense depuis 48 ans, est mort. Je ne serais qu’à moitié surpris si son frère, le roi Abdallah, avait l’idée saugrenue, lui aussi, de décéder prochainement.

Heir to Saudi throne Crown Prince Sultan dies - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/10/2011102235021833.html

Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the 83-year-old defence minister and first in line of succession to become king of Saudi Arabia, has died.

“With deep sorrow and sadness ... King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz mourns the death of his brother and his Crown Prince Sultan who died at dawn this morning Saturday outside the kingdom following an illness,” the Saudi state press agency said.

Prince Sultan’s funeral will be held on Tuesday, the statement said.

He was an “important and influential senior prince” who played a key role in relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council, particularly Yemen, said Hussein Shobokshi, a columnist for the Asharq Alawsat newspaper.

Guatemala leader apologises for 1954 coup - Americas - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/10/20111021443836184.html

The Guatemalan president, Alvaro Colom, has issued an official apology to the family of the former president Jacobo Arbenz, 57 years after a US-backed coup violently removed him from power.

Colom, who apologised under a settlement worked out with Arbenz’s family by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said on Thursday the coup was a “crime [against] the Guatemalan society committed by the CIA and Guatemalans with bad intentions”.

[...]

Arbenz was only the second freely elected president in Guatemala. Dubbed "the Soldier of the People”, he had promised to redistribute land to impoverished indigenous communities much to the ire of massive US agricultural investors in the country.

He was overthrown on June 27, 1954, in a coup led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas that was engineered by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The coup helped trigger a 36-year civil war, according to Colom.

Libya’s NTC accused of detainee abuse - Africa - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/2011101220717966780.html

Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) is holding about 2,500 detainees in the capital Tripoli alone, many of whom have been beaten and subjected to other ill-treatment and not given access to lawyers or judicial proceedings, Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights watchdog, says.

Egyptian army accuses Christians of incitment - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/20111012175214639819.html

Egypt’s ruling military council has accused public figures and what it described as hardline Christian preachers for inciting deadly protests outside state television on Sunday.

The gathering ended violently with at least 26 people killed and hundreds injured in Egypt’s worst violence since the fall of the former president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year.

General Adel Emara, a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, said on Wednesday that a minority of the protesters were peaceful, but that a more violent, armed crowd joined the protest outside the TV building and began attacking a unit of about 300 soldiers, armed only with anti-riot gear.

Emara denied that the troops opened fire with live ammunition on the protesters or intentionally ran over them with armoured vehicles.

[...]

Emara did not show other videos aired on TV stations, or posted on YouTube, one of which seemed to show soldiers storming protesters who were peacefully holding speeches outside the building and another that appeared to show a soldier firing with an unidentifiable weapon at protesters at close range from the back of a speeding amroured vehicle weaving through the crowds.

US releases Cuban man jailed for spying - Americas - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2011/10/201110845959945857.html

The US has freed a Cuban agent it jailed for spying on Cuban exiles but will keep him in the country on probation for three years, his lawyer said.

Rene Gonzalez, 55, the first to be freed of the so-called “Cuban Five” espionage agents arrested in 1998, left the Marianna prison in Florida’s northwest Panhandle at around 4am EDT (0900 GMT) on Friday.

Tunisia denies visas for Palestinian bloggers - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/201110512433882676.html

As influential bloggers from across the Middle East and North Africa gather in the country where the Arab Spring began to share ideas and tactics, the absence of 11 Palestinians has served as a reminder that even if borders have faded in the online world, they remain a reality in the physical one.

Over 100 delegates from at least 15 different countries are meeting in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, for the Third Arab Bloggers meeting.

Unlike the bloggers and journalists from every other country, 11 out of the 12 Palestinians invited to the meeting had their visas rejected by the Tunisian authorities.

Tuvalu faces drinking water emergency - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia-pacific/2011/10/201110364857797250.html

The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency due to a severe shortage of freshwater,
with officials saying that some parts of the country may only have a two-day supply.

US defence chief says Israel ’isolated’ - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/201110341753393563.html

Leon Panetta, the new US defence secretary, says Washington is committed to ensuring Israel maintains a “qualitative military edge” in the Middle East, but warned that the country is becoming increasingly isolated.

Panetta, who is due to arrive in Israel on Monday on his first visit to the region since taking charge at the Pentagon, said he planned to use the trip to reaffirm US security commitments to Israel and try to improve its deteriorating relations with Turkey and Egypt.

“It’s pretty clear, at this dramatic time in the Middle East when there have been so many changes, that it is not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated. And that is what has happened,” Panetta told reporters on his plane.

“The important thing there is to again reaffirm our strong security relationship with Israel, to make clear that we will protect their qualitative military edge,” Panetta said.

“As they take risks for peace, we will be able to provide the security that they will need in order to ensure that they can have the room hopefully to negotiate.”

Cette dernière phrase est très drôle.

Wall Street protesters promise to continue - Americas - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2011/10/20111014553864593.html

Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement have vowed to stay through winter in a park near New York’s iconic financial district where they are protesting issues including the 2008 bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment in the United States.

Similar protests inspired by New York’s have emerged in other US cities in recent days, including Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The group has gained support by five New York labour unions as well as celebrities and academics like Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, rapper Lupe Fiasco and the musical group Radiohead.

Barred Palestinian leader wins compensation - Europe - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/09/2011930164437872909.html

Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, has been granted compensation by Britain’s high court for “wrongful detention”.

Justice Nicol, the presiding judge, ruled on Thursday that the Palestinian activist is “entitled to damages for wrongful detention” on June 28, when he was arrested outside his hotel in London.

Israel orders release of Al Jazeera reporter - Al Jazeera
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/09/2011926124650861345.html

Israel’s military court has ordered the release of Al Jazeera’s Kabul bureau chief.

Samer Allawi was arrested on August 10 while trying to cross the border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, from which he hails.

Israeli authorities charged him with being a member of Hamas.

[...]

Salim Waqim, Allawi’s lawyer, told Al Jazeera that his client was interrogated about his work and management of Al Jazeera’s Kabul bureau, his personal financial information and his relationships with colleagues, friends, family and relatives.

Protesters arrested in anti-Wall Street rally - Americas - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2011/09/201192543845281801.html

The New York police say at least 80 protesters have been arrested in a march as several hundred demonstators marched through the streets of lower Manhattan.

Saturday’s protests were part of a series of demonstrations in the past week against against bank bailouts, the mortgage crisis and the US state of Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis.

The marchers carried signs spelling out their goals: “Tax the rich,” one placard said, “We want money for healthcare not corporate welfare,” read another.

NASA says satellite collision ’imminent’ - Americas - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2011/09/20119244626984967.html

The US space agency, NASA, says the fall to Earth of its six-tonne UARS satellite could occur at any moment, showering debris over a still unknown part of the planet.

The defunct satellite about the size of a bus was expected to hit the US or Canada between 03:45 and 04:45 GMT on Saturday.

#it_has_begun