position:director-general

Khashoggi and the Jewish question - Middle East - Jerusalem Post
▻https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Khashoggi-and-the-Jewish-question-569256

Khashoggi and the Jewish question
“It is certainly not in our interests to see the status of the Saudi government diminished in Washington.”
By Herb Keinon
October 12, 2018 04:24

The disappearance of Saudi government critic and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey – and the very real possibility that the Saudis either kidnapped him, killed him, or both – is no exception.

On the surface, this story seems distant from Jerusalem. Israel was not involved in any way, and even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who never misses an opportunity to blast Israel, is not saying that Jerusalem had anything to do with it.

(...)
As a New York Times headline read on Thursday, “Khashoggi’s disappearance puts Kushner’s bet on Saudi crown prince at risk.”

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has invested much in building a relationship with MBS, and Jerusalem – for its own interests – hopes that this particular bet does not turn sour.

(...) As Dore Gold, the head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former Foreign Ministry director-general, said: “This problem could be used by the Iranians to drive a wedge between the West and Saudi Arabia.”

That is bad for Israel, he added, because “anything that strengthens Iran’s posturing in the Middle East is bad for Israel,” and in the Mideast balance of power, a weakened Saudi Arabia means a strengthened Iran.

It also means a strengthened Turkey, which could explain why Ankara is going the full monty on this issue, releasing surveillance tape and leaking information about the investigation.

“Turkey is part of an axis with Qatar,” Gold said, “and that puts Saudi Arabia at odds with the Turkish government.

MI5 head Andrew Parker summons Jeremy Corbyn for ‘facts of life’ talk on terror | News | The Sunday Times
▻https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mi5-head-andrew-parker-summons-jeremy-corbyn-for-facts-of-life-talk-on-t

Jeremy Corbyn has been summoned for a personal briefing by the head of MI5 on the terrorist threat to Britain amid questions about his approach to national security.

Andrew Parker, the director-general of the Security Service, is expected to give the Labour leader a “full briefing” on the threat from Islamists in Britain and Isis jihadists returning from the Middle East to plot atrocities on home soil.

The MI5 boss also wants to prime Corbyn on the extent of hostile Russian espionage activity and the growing threat from far-right extremists.

Two senior government sources said the meeting was scheduled for Tuesday so that Corbyn could “begin to understand the facts of life” about threats he has a habit of playing down.

OPCW Will Deploy Fact-Finding Mission to Douma, Syria (►https://www....
▻https://diasp.eu/p/6997497

OPCW Will Deploy Fact-Finding Mission to Douma, Syria

#Syria #OPCW #war #Chemical #Weapons #Douma #politics #international

540 Nigerians to be deported from Libya Aug. 10 – NAPTIP DG

Five hundred and forty Nigerians are set for deportation from Libya, beginning from Aug. 10, Julie Okah-Donli, Director-General, National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons(NAPTIP), has said.

Mrs. Okah-Donli disclosed this on Wednesday in Osogbo, at the inauguration of the North-West Zonal Command Office of the agency.

She said the deportees would be brought back to Nigeria in three batches of 180 each.

The NAPTIP boss said more than 2,000 Nigerians were deported from various parts of the world from February till date, over various migration offences, including human trafficking.

Mrs. Okah-Doni disclosed that the agency had rescued and supported more than 12,000 victims of human trafficking, and also secured 325 convictions since its inception in 2003.

She decried the rising trend of deportation of Nigerians from different parts of the world, especially in Africa, and described the situation as “frightening”.

“Such massive deportations are not good for us as a people. Government at all levels must take steps to halt it by initiating measures that will reduce the vulnerability of our people to being trafficked.

“Nigeria is a source, transit and destination country. Women and young girls are recruited for sexual and labour exploitation in parts of Europe, the Middle East and even within the African continent.

https://i1.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2017/06/African-immigrants-waiting-for-deportation-in-Libya.jpg?w=640#.jpg

WHO | WHO validates elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis in #Cuba
▻http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/mtct-hiv-cuba/en

30 JUNE 2015 ¦ GENEVA ¦ WASHINGTON - Cuba today became the first country in the world to receive validation from WHO that it has eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.

“Eliminating transmission of a virus is one of the greatest public health achievements possible,” said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. “This is a major victory in our long fight against HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation” she added.

Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS: “This is a celebration for Cuba and a celebration for children and families everywhere. It shows that ending the AIDS epidemic is possible and we expect Cuba to be the first of many countries coming forward to seek validation that they have ended their epidemics among children.”

#VIH #SIDA #enfant #santé #bonne_nouvelle

Viva Cuba !

Mosul’s Library Without Books - The New Yorker
▻http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mosuls-library-without-books

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Wright-Mosul-Library-1200x630-1497278326.jpg

I could smell the acrid soot a block away. The library at the University of Mosul, among the finest in the Middle East, once had a million books, historic maps, and old manuscripts. Some dated back centuries, even a millennium, Mohammed Jasim, the library’s director, told me. Among its prize acquisitions was a Quran from the ninth century, although the library also housed thousands of twenty-first-century volumes on science, philosophy, law, world history, literature, and the arts. Six hundred thousand books were in Arabic; many of the rest were in English. During the thirty-two months that the Islamic State ruled the city, the university campus, on tree-lined grounds near the Tigris River, was gradually closed down and then torched. Quite intentionally, the library was hardest hit. ISIS sought to kill the ideas within its walls—or at least the access to them.

Despite enduring dictators, an extremist rampage that reconfigured Iraq’s borders, and three long wars over the course of four decades, Iraqis are known for their intellectual curiosity and literacy. There’s a famous saying in the Middle East: “Books are written in Egypt, printed in Lebanon, and read in Iraq.” For centuries, private home libraries were considered a sign of class. After the University of Mosul was founded, in 1967, sixty of the city’s largest private libraries donated their historic collections to the new campus library, Jasim told me. Those volumes are all gone now, too.

ISIS had already destroyed Mosul’s central library, the other major resource center in Iraq’s second-largest city, which was once a cosmopolitan melting pot of disparate religions and ethnicities. Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, called it “the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people. Burning books is an attack on the culture, knowledge and memory.”

#Bibliothèques #Irak #Mossoul #Guerre #Obscurantisme

Poivre du Cambodge
▻https://www.gebana.com/projects/ch/project/information/7?lang=fr

https://www.gebana.com/projects/ch/images/71-0-HEKS_Pfeffer_Foto_Key_Visual.png?w=1440&h=560&fit=crop

#cambodge #poivre @cdb_77

Technology : He wrote the future : Nature : Nature Research
▻http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v541/n7637/full/541286a.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v541/n7637/images/541286a-i1.jpg

In 1945, Clarke inadvertently launched a career as a futurologist with his outline for a geostationary communications satellite. In a letter (’V2 for ionosphere research?’) published in February’s issue of Wireless World and inspired by the German V2 rockets then landing on London, he made a revolutionary proposal:

An ’artificial satellite’ at the correct distance from the earth would make one revolution every 24 hours; i.e., it would remain stationary above the same spot and would be within optical range of nearly half the earth’s surface. Three repeater stations, 120 degrees apart in the correct orbit, could give television and microwave coverage to the entire planet.

Clarke realistically concluded: “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be of the slightest use to our postwar planners, but I think it is the ultimate solution to the problem.” He followed up with a more detailed piece in Wireless World that October, envisioning “space-stations” that relied on thermionic valves serviced by an onboard crew supplied by atomic-powered rockets.
Space Godfather

The first commercial communications satellite, Telstar I, was built by Bell Telephone Laboratories and launched in 1962. The first to be geostationary, the Hughes Aircraft Company’s Intelsat I (’Early Bird’), went up in 1965. Both launched on conventional rockets, and operated with transistors and without human maintenance. The two US engineers chiefly responsible — John Pierce for Telstar and Harold Rosen for Intelsat — saw Clarke as the father of satellite communications. Richard Colino, director-general of Intelsat (the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization) agreed in his foreword to a collection of Clarke’s technical writings, Ascent to Orbit (1984). Clarke preferred “godfather”, noting with uncharacteristic modesty in the book that he had received “rather more of the credit, I suspect, than I really deserve”. In old age, however, he told me that his comsat article was “the most important thing I ever wrote”.

Conclusion : publiez vos idées afin qu’elles fassent des enfants.

▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

#technologie #science-fiction #littérature #2001 #centenaire #1917

Former Saudi general visits Israel, meets with Foreign Ministry director-general

▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.732776

During the highly unusual trip, retired Saudi General Anwar Eshki also met with a group of Knesset members to encourage dialogue in Israel on the Arab Peace Initiative.

Retired Saudi General Anwar Eshki visited Israel this week and met with Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai.

Eshki, who headed a delegation of Saudi academics and business people, also met with a group of Knesset members to encourage dialogue in Israel on the Arab Peace Initiative.

#highly_unusual

Le Washington Post nous avait déjà rapporté, en janvier 2016, cette parole de Moshe Yaalon (ministre de la Défense israélien) selon laquelle s’il avait à choisir entre Da’ich et Assad, il choisirait Da’ich : ►https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/19/israeli-defense-minister-if-i-had-to-choose-between-iran-and-isis-id-choose-isis/?tid=sm_tw

Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies’ (INSS) conference in Tel Aviv on Jan. 19, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon made a bold statement: If he had to choose between Iran and the Islamic State, he told the audience, he’d “choose ISIS.”

Pour confirmer, Michael Oren, ex-ambassadeur aux USA et associé à l’actuelle coalition au pouvoir en Israel nous a fait un remake, rapporté dans le Wall Street Journal ce 17 mars :
▻http://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-main-concern-in-syria-iran-not-isis-1458207000

“If we have to choose between ISIS and Assad, we’ll take ISIS. ISIS has flatbed trucks and machine guns. Assad represents the strategic arch from Tehran to Beirut, 130,000 rockets in the hands of Hezbollah, and the Iranian nuclear program,” said Michael Oren, a prominent lawmaker from Israel’s governing coalition and a former ambassador to Washington.

Parce que comme l’explique Dore Gold, du ministère des affaires étrangères :

Asked in an interview to state Israel’s main objective in Syria, Dore Gold, the director-general of the foreign ministry, said: “At the end of the day, when some kind of modus vivendi is reached inside of Syria, it is critical from the Israeli standpoint that Syria does not emerge as an Iranian satellite incorporated fully into the Iranian strategic system.”

As‘ad Abukhalil à propos du Huffington Post Arabic :
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-politics-of-huffington-post-arabic.html

So the American liberal Huffington Post is a steadily liberal American news site which is to the left of most American liberal media. They try to be consistent but with great difficulty on Palestine. Yet, they assign the former director-general of Aljazeera media to found the Arabic Huffington Post. So what is the result? Yet another Arabic news site dedicated to the interests of Arab regimes of the Gulf. Unbelievable.

Briefing: #Ebola–myths, realities, and structural #violence

Ten months after the first infection, Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, described the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as the ‘most severe acute public health emergency in modern times’. The disaster, she said, represents a ‘crisis for international peace and security’ and threatens the ‘very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries’.1 As of October 2014, the disease had killed 4,951 and infected 13,567.2 It has crippled families, health systems, livelihoods, food supplies and economies in its wake. These numbers are likely to be vastly underestimated. How did it get to this? Why has this outbreak been so much larger than previous ones? The scale of the disaster has been attributed to the weak health systems of affected countries, their lack of resources, the mobility of communities and their inexperience in dealing with Ebola.3 This answer, however, is woefully de-contextualized and de-politicized. This briefing examines responses to the outbreak and offers a different set of explanations, rooted in the history of the region and the political economy of global health and development.

▻http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/114/454/136.extract?etoc

France to Israel: We backed Palestinians in Security Council to prevent ICC bid
Israeli diplomat meets French ambassador, conveys Israel’s deep disappointment with France’s vote in Security Council; French envoy says Paris wanted to encourage sides to return to negotiating table.
By Barak Ravid | Jan. 2, 2015 | 1:45 PM Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.635054

French ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave reported to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Friday after being summoned over his country’s vote in favor of the Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN Security Council earlier this week. French officials told Haaretz that Maisonnave clarified in the meeting that France voted for the resolution in order to try and prevent the Palestinians from pursuing other unilateral steps such as joining the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said that the ministry’s deputy director-general for Western Europe, Aviv Shir-On, told the French ambassador that Israel was deeply disappointed by France’s stance and its vote in the UNSC. “The only way to reach progress with the Palestinians is through direct negotiations, not through unilateral announcements or a unilateral policy,” Shir-On said at the meeting.

During the meeting, the French ambassador said that the international community is of one mind over the need to break the diplomatic stalemate and the dangerous status quo. According to him, France voted as it did in order to encourage the sides back to the negotiating table.

Maisonnave also said that France disagreed with several parts in the Palestinian resolution and therefore tried to formulate its own draft.

He noted that the vote was not aimed against Israel, but an effort to prevent further unilateral steps that would strengthen extremists on both sides. “That’s exactly what happened after the Security Council rejected the proposal, and the Palestinians went to The Hague,” the French ambassador said.

He added that France would keep trying to promote its own version of the resolution in the Security Council, presenting principles for the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on all the core issues of the conflict.

“The latest escalation is all the more reason to keep acting,” he emphasized.

The Palestinian proposal calling for peace with Israel within a year and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017 failed to pass the UNSC vote on Tuesday, after only eight member states voted in its favor, one vote short of the requirement.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has been closely following the deteriorating relations with France, and even held a special meeting on the matter about two weeks ago. A source who took part in the meeting said participants conveyed a sense that France is less attuned to Israel’s positions on the Palestinian matter.

Moreover, over the past three months the Foreign Ministry has identified several incidents in which events, delegations, and planned collaborations with French bodies were canceled in the last minute. Among these were a Paris conference of Israeli and French high-tech companies and a visit by a delegation of French lawyers in Israel.

A senior official said that in each of these cases a different reason was given, and that on the face of it they were unconnected. It is also unclear if the French government was behind the cancellations. However, the overall impression is that of deteriorating relations. “There is a sense that the French are trying to link the progress in the peace process to the promotion of bilateral ties with Israel,” the official said.

In addition to these incidents, there is also the recent vote in the French parliament calling on the government to recognize the Palestinian state.

WHO, CDC heads warn of Ebola epidemic’s dangers - World Socialist Web Site

▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/14/whow-o14.html

WHO, CDC heads warn of Ebola epidemic’s dangers
By Niles Williamson
14 October 2014

In a notable address delivered Monday, the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan defined the ongoing Ebola epidemic as “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times.”

Noting the potentially devastating outcomes if the crisis is not stopped soon, she stated that the Ebola crisis threatened “the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries.”

#ebola

Israel Foreign Ministry proposes international force in Gaza, favors EU troops Document formulated in the context of ideas received by Germany, Britain, France and other European countries during the war in Gaza.
By Barak Ravid | Sep. 7, 2014 Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.614455

The Foreign Ministry submitted a classified document to the security cabinet two weeks ago with a proposal for stationing an international force in the Gaza Strip to monitor rehabilitation and prevent the rearming of Hamas and other terror groups. The Foreign Ministry believes that such a force could serve Israel’s interest if it carries out effective security work in Gaza.

The two-page document, entitled “Principles and Parameters for Deployment of an International Force in Gaza,” was given to the ministers of the security cabinet on August 21, by Foreign Minister director-general Nissim Ben-Sheetrit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior advisers read the document and discussed it with Foreign Ministry officials. The ministers also read the document, but have not met to discuss it.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said the document was formulated in the context of ideas received by Germany, Britain, France and other European countries during the war in Gaza, to establish an international monitoring force in Gaza that would be based on an upgrading of the European monitoring force stationed at the Rafah crossing between 2005 and 2007.

A few weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry established a 10-person team to formulate the principles for possible deployment of such a force. The team was headed by the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director general for diplomacy, Alon Ushpiz. A senior Foreign Ministry official said the document, which was formulated after a series of discussions, stated that an international force in Gaza could serve the Israeli interest if it effectively implemented security activities in the realm of demilitarization and preventing Hamas from gaining strength.

According to the document, Israel should aspire for the international force to act according to the following principles:

1. Makeup of the force: The document presents four alternatives – a European Union force; a Western force with membership of European countries as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; a United Nations force; and a NATO force. The Foreign Ministry recommended the EU option to the cabinet, because that was the most available force and because the Europeans have already shown willingness in principle for such a force.

2. Powers: The Foreign Ministry believes the force’s powers should derive from the tasks of rehabilitation and disarmament. According to the document, the force should be armed and given enforcement powers that will “allow it to deal with threats from Hamas and other terror organizations.” The Foreign Ministry believes the force should carry out enforcement, monitoring and reporting at border crossings. It should have the power to prevent arms from entering the Gaza Strip, and to confiscate arms and other prohibited materials. It should also have powers in the realm of humanitarian aid and rehabilitation, and should be able to inspect UN facilities and schools in the Gaza Strip to ensure they are not concealing weapons.

3. Deployment: The Foreign Ministry recommended that the force be deployed on the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing and along the border between the Gaza Strip and Sinai – known as the Philadelphi strip – as well as certain areas inside the Gaza Strip, such as UN installations, in keeping with the force’s mandate.

4. The force’s mandate and legal framework: The Foreign Office recommended to the cabinet that the force operate in the Gaza Strip by virtue of a UN Security Council resolution, or by virtue of an agreement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the United States and the EU that would be backed by a UN Security Council resolution. The Foreign Ministry recommended that the force operate for at least a year, with an option to extend for another year. The Foreign Ministry also recommended that the force operate according to Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, as does UNIFIL in southern Lebanon. This means that all parties involved – Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt – would have to agree to its deployment. The Foreign Ministry does not recommend that the force operate according to Chapter 7 of the Charter – that is, a force that is imposed on the parties.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said that deployment of an international force could become a very relevant possibility when talks on a long-term cease-fire are renewed in Cairo between Israel and Hamas and the other Palestinian factions. One of the issues that will be raised, mainly between Egypt and the Palestinians, is the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing.

The Egyptians are demanding that the Rafah crossing be opened only with the presence of the Palestinian Presidential Guard, without Hamas forces. According to the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority from 2005, the Rafah crossing can be opened only with the involvement of EU monitors.

The senior Foreign Ministry official said that Egypt will have to be a key partner to all discussion of an international force in Gaza, and that coordination with Egypt is critical in this matter. According to the official, some European countries had broached the issue with Egypt even during the war in Gaza, but so far the Egyptians have not been enthusiastic.

The senior official said that, in talks with some European countries, Israel presented a number of questions regarding the willingness of the EU to send a significant force that would carry out effective security work and could protect itself, in case it was attacked. “We brought up a number of questions, but so far the Europeans have not gotten back to us with a solid proposal regarding what they think such an international force should do in Gaza,” the senior Foreign Ministry official said.

Pass it on, by Betto van Waarden | A Brussels diary : Part 6
▻http://mondediplo.com/blogs/pass-it-on

Officials improvise. Once the policy officer finishes the draft, it must be edited and approved by her deputy head of unit, her head of unit, her director, the official of the coordination unit (me), the deputy head of unit of the coordination unit, the head of unit of the coordination unit, the assistant of the deputy director-general, the deputy director-general, the assistant of the director-general, the director-general, the Commissioner’s staff member responsible for inter-institutional relations, the Commissioner’s staff member responsible for a particular topic, and the Commissioner’s chief of staff. Between all these layers are the secretaries, who compile the edited versions and send them on to the next layer.

(...)

Finally, the report is written, checked by multiple hierarchical layers, and ready to be sent to the Directorate-General, the Commissioner’s staff, and the Secretariat-General of the Commission. But then you are confronted with “cc stress”: to whom do you send a copy (cc) of the report? You must not forget even the smallest cog. But by then the next meeting may have already taken place.

#Commission #UE #technocratie (OpenCalais très inspiré)

Cf. ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/258407 pour les premiers épisodes.

Cf. « The European Union Integrity System » ▻http://www.transparency-france.org/e_upload/pdf/transparency_int_euis_embargo_copy.pdf (PDF)

Association vicieuse, j’en conviens, que ce rapport de Transparency sur le #lobbying la #corruption le #pantouflage et la #transparence des institutions européennes dont France Info s’est fait l’écho : ▻http://www.franceinfo.fr/actu/europe/article/corruption-les-institutions-europeennes-pointees-du-doigt-456561

Construction work at two new prisons in Riyadh and Jeddah is over 95% complete.
▻http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-25766-new-prisons-in-saudi-arabia-are-95-complete

Director-General of Saudi Arabia’s Prisons Department Major General Ibrahim bin Mohammed al-Hamzi made the announcement adding that Riyadh has spent over 2bn Riyals ($533m) building the two jails.

He said the high number of prisoners jam-packed in the cells was the main reason behind the decision to build the new jails.

More than 40,000 political prisoners, mostly prisoners of conscience, are in jails across Saudi Arabia.

#dissidents #prison #Saoud

Incoherent P5+1 Hinder Iran Nuclear Talks Progress - Iran’s View | Iran’s View
▻http://www.iransview.com/incoherent-p51-hinder-iran-nuclear-talks-progress/1430

French negotiators are said to take the strictest position in the talks against Iran, witnesses of the talks have said, and their bald statements have repeatedly derailed the progress of the talks.

A member of the Iranian negotiating team told IransView that during Almaty I and II talks which took place in February and April 2013 in Kazakhstan, French Foreign Ministry Director-General for Political and Security Affairs Jacques Audibert, who served as the French top negotiator then, prompted Saeed Jalili to warn of leaving the talk session.

“While Jalili was elaborating on a PowerPoint slideshow provided by the Iranian team, Audibert undiplomatically reactioned to a slide titled as ‘Common grounds of Iran – P5+1 cooperation’ and said they had not come to cooperate with Iran to reach a deal, but to stop Iran’s nuclear program,” the diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “In response, Jalili said he would leave the room if the group is seeking to fight in the talks.”

The diplomat further added that Ashton and other members of the P5+1 group tried to stop Audibert from making such statements during the next rounds of talks.

Observers in Tehran say that France take a stark position towards Iran while the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei has invited French officials to cooperate with Iran several times.

“I would like […] to point out that officials of the French government have been openly hostile towards the Iranian nation over the past few years and this is not a clever move by French government officials,” said Ayatollah Khamenei during a speech on March 21, 2013.

“A wise politician should never have the motivation to turn a neutral country into an enemy. We have never had problems with France and the French government, neither in the past nor in the present era. However, since the time of Sarkozy, the French government has adopted a policy of opposing the Iranian nation and unfortunately the current French government is pursuing the same policy. In our opinion, this is a wrong move. It is ill-advised and unwise.”

Il semble que Mr Fabius soit seul à vouloir faire capoter les négociations avec l’Iran.

Dépêche Ma’an News Agency : des extrémistes juifs se sont rendus, en ce premier jour de Ramadhan, sur l’esplanade des mosquées, escortés par la police israélienne, et ont essayé de pénétrer de manière illégale dans la mosquée al-Aqsa avant de partir en chantant des slogans anti-arabes :
▻http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=612797

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – Dozens of extremist Israelis on Wednesday entered the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, escorted by Israeli police, a Palestinian official said.
Around 100 Israelis entered the compound through the Moroccan Gate, said Azzam al-Khatib, director-general of the PA Ministry of Endowment.
Al-Khatib said Israeli police had rejected a request to stop the visits during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Wednesday.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Ma’an he was not aware of the request. Rosenfeld said Jewish and Christian visitors regularly enter the compound in coordinated visits.
Witnesses told Ma’an that the Israeli visitors tried to enter the Dome of the Rock, which is not an agreed part of their tour.
Muslim worshipers and Islamic students chanted Allahu Akbar to express their rejection to the visitors, witnesses said.
The group, accompanied by rabbis, left the compound through the Chain Gate chanting anti-Arab slogans, they added.

Apologists for Israel take top posts at BBC | The Electronic Intifada
▻http://electronicintifada.net/content/apologists-israel-take-top-posts-bbc/12395

... a new director-general took up his post at the BBC and, within two weeks, had installed a line-up of hardline Zionists at the top of the world’s largest publicly-funded news organization.

World trade: The other conclave | The Economist

▻http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21573549-can-wto-save-itself-irrelevance-other-conclave?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/pe/theotherconclave

The other conclave

Can the WTO save itself from irrelevance?
Mar 16th 2013 | Washington, DC |From the print edition

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20130316_FNC258.png

THE World Trade Organisation’s general council will skip the plume of smoke when it chooses its new director-general in May. But what it would give for just a fraction of the attention bestowed this week on the cardinals gathered in the Vatican to choose a new pope. Since the Doha round of multilateral trade talks collapsed in 2008, the WTO has struggled to rebuild interest in broad liberalisation. The nine nominees to succeed Pascal Lamy in the WTO’s top job are busily campaigning for support in its Geneva headquarters and in member countries. The wider world isn’t much interested.

#commerce #mondialisation #intégration

Israel to probe birth control for Ethiopian immigrants | Maan News Agency
▻http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=570216

JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Israel’s Health Ministry has ordered an investigation into whether government employees or health workers prescribed a birth control drug to Ethiopian immigrant women as a way to control the population.

Haaretz reported on Thursday that a senior official had decided to name a team to look into charges that Ethiopian women were given Depo-Provera shots in an effort to limit the growth of their community in Israel.

Confirming the report, a ministry spokeswoman replied in a written statement that the ministry would “re-investigate the issue which was examined in the past, to ensure that there was no such directive from any governmental or other Israeli public organization.”

Suspicions that Ethiopian women had been coerced into receiving Depo-Provera arose in Israeli media a few years ago and again in a recent TV documentary linking the group’s falling birthrate to over-prescription of the injectable contraceptive.

Israel’s government already said in January it would review the case after a civil rights group accused the health ministry of racism.

The ministry has already ordered doctors not to renew Depo-Provera prescriptions unless they were convinced patients understood the ramifications, according to a letter from the ministry posted on the group’s website in January.

Ministry Director-General Roni Gamzu said at the time that the decision did not imply he accepted the allegations by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel.

In a letter to Gamzu in January, ACRI said "the sweeping use of Depo-Provera among Ethiopian women raises heavy suspicions that we are talking about a deliberate policy to control and monitor fertility among this community.

“The data ... point to a paternalistic, haughty and racist attitude that limits considerably the freedom of Ethiopian immigrants to choose the birth control that is medically suitable for them.”

ACRI said statistics from a major Israeli health provider showed it had administered Depo-Provera injections to 5,000 women in 2008, 57 percent of whom were Ethiopian.

Complaints of discrimination

Israel has denied any policy to curb the birthrate among the 100,000 Ethiopian Jews who have moved to Israel since chief rabbis determined in 1973 that the community had biblical roots.

Some Ethiopian Jews have made it into Israel’s parliament and officer ranks in the military, but complaints of discrimination in schooling and housing are common.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which approved Depo-Provera in 1992, its prolonged use may reduce bone density and it should only be used for longer than two years if other birth control methods prove inadequate.

The documentary, broadcast on Israeli Educational Television, shows a nurse filmed by a hidden camera saying Ethiopian women were given Depo-Provera because they “don’t understand anything” and would forget to take birth control pills.

Rick Hodes, medical director in Ethiopia for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a non-governmental group that aids immigration to Israel, denied the accusation that women are coerced into receiving the injections before leaving their country for the Jewish state.

“Injectable drugs have always been the most popular form of birth control in Ethiopia, as well as among women in our program,” Hodes wrote on Twitter.

’Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state | The Times of Israel
▻http://www.timesofisrael.com/joint-israel-west-bank-reality-is-an-apartheid-state

Commentaires de Alon Liel, ancien officiel israélien (former Foreign Ministry director-general and ex-ambassador to South Africa), sur la prochaine visite de Obama en Israël.

“If you, President Obama, intend to come here for a courtesy visit — don’t come. Don’t come! We don’t need you here for a courtesy visit,” Liel said. “You cannot come to an area that exhibits signs of apartheid and ignore them. That would simply be an unethical visit. You yourself know full well that Israel is standing at the apartheid cliff. If you don’t deal with this topic during your visit, the responsibility will at the end of the process also lie with you.”

Lebanese Internet : Rotting on the Vine
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-internet-rotting-vine

Ogero’s Director-General Abdel-Moneim Youssef is at it again, doing all that he can to undermine the current government – this time, by withholding bandwidth capacity from Lebanon’s two mobile phone companies.

Is it a political decision? A pattern of behavior? Or simply a form of bullying?

Perhaps it’s all three. For at the management of Ogero – the main operational arm of the ministry of telecommunications – every imaginable form of obstruction of public services in this sector is being practiced.

Now, the latest exploits of Ogero’s management involve withholding international bandwidth capacities required for Internet access from the two mobile phone service providers in order to force them into purchasing additional bandwidth from the market, resulting in lost revenues for the public treasury.

Si tu veux faire de l’internet pendant tes vacances au Liban, tu ferais bien d’acheter des pigeons voyageurs.

Mobile technology ’can play role in healthcare’ - Business LIVE
►http://www.businesslive.co.za/incoming/2011/06/06/mobile-technology-can-play-role-in-healthcare

SA’s most urgent health problems could be more efficiently tackled by up-scaling the usage of mobile technologies by those working in the health system, according to Yogan Pillay, deputy director-general for the Department of Health’s strategic health programmes, but, he said, the country did not need more pilot projects.
(...)
“We know by now what works and what doesn’t. It is time we build on that,”
(...)
“The Themba Lethu clinic in Johannesburg, for instance, sends out text messages to remind HIV patients, including moms and pregnant women, about appointments and medication,” he explained.
“The number of missed appointments between 2007 and 2011 has dropped from 15% to 7%. The same counts for TB patients.”

#sida #tb #santé #téléphonie