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Palestinian president is cheered back home over United Nations acceptance

Posted on December 2, 2012

By The Associated Press

RAMALLAH, West Bank The Palestinian president returned triumphantly to the West Bank on Sunday, receiving a boisterous welcome from thousands of cheering supporters at a rally celebrating his people’s new acceptance to the United Nations.

An Israeli decision to cut off a cash transfer to the financially troubled Palestinian Authority, following an earlier decision to build thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements, failed to put a damper on the celebrations.

But Palestinian officials acknowledged they were undecided on what to do with their newfound status, and were waiting for upcoming Israeli elections and new ideas from President Barack Obama before deciding how to proceed.

Outside the headquarters of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, some 5,000 people thronged a square, hoisted Palestinian flags and cheered their leader’s return from New York. Large posters of the Palestinian leader, whose popularity had plummeted in recent months, adorned nearby buildings.

“We now have a state,” Abbas said to wild applause. “The world has said loudly, ‘Yes to the state of Palestine.’”

The United Nations General Assembly last week overwhelmingly endorsed an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war.

The move to upgrade the Palestinians to a nonmember observer state does not change much on the ground, but it carries deep potential significance.

The vote amounted to an international endorsement of the Palestinian position on future border arrangements with Israel and an overwhelming condemnation of Israeli settlements in the areas claimed by the Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a return to Israel’s 1967 lines. Israel remains in control in parts of the West Bank and considers east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital, an integral part of its capital.

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Palestinian president returns triumphantly from UN

Posted on December 2, 2012

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) The Palestinian president returned triumphantly to the West Bank on Sunday, receiving a boisterous welcome from thousands of cheering supporters at a rally celebrating his people’s new acceptance to the United Nations.

An Israeli decision to cut off a cash transfer to the financially troubled Palestinian Authority, following an earlier decision to build thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements, failed to put a damper on the celebrations.

But Palestinian officials acknowledged they were undecided on what to do with their newfound status, and were waiting for upcoming Israeli elections and new ideas from President Barack Obama before deciding how to proceed.

Outside the headquarters of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, some 5,000 people thronged a square, hoisted Palestinian flags and cheered their leader’s return from New York. Large posters of the Palestinian leader, whose popularity had plummeted in recent months, adorned nearby buildings.

“We now have a state,” Abbas said to wild applause. “The world has said loudly, ‘Yes to the state of Palestine.’”

The United Nations General Assembly last week overwhelmingly endorsed an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war.

The move to upgrade the Palestinians to a nonmember observer state does not change much on the ground, but it carries deep potential significance.

The vote amounted to an international endorsement of the Palestinian position on future border arrangements with Israel and an overwhelming condemnation of Israeli settlements in the areas claimed by the Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a return to Israel’s 1967 lines. Israel remains in control in parts of the West Bank and considers east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital, an integral part of its capital.

Israel also continues to restrict access to Gaza. Israel withdrew seven years ago from the coastal strip, and it is now ruled by Hamas Islamic militants who regularly fire rockets at Israel.

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Palestinian president returns triumphantly from UN

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Israel nows strikes at Gaza Strip from air and sea @everydayinfotv @everydayrastatv – Video

Posted on November 26, 2012



Israel nows strikes at Gaza Strip from air and sea @everydayinfotv @everydayrastatv
Israel's bombardment of Gaza has entered a fifth day. Two media office buildings housing Palestinian and international journalists have been hit. The Israeli military has confirmed it is using war ships in addition to air raids. Al Jazeera's Mereana Hond reports. Source, credit to Aljazeera- www.aljazeera.com FAIR USE NOTICE: This video has been posted to further advance our understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, Technological, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues which constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107 for research and educational purposes. As ceasefire efforts continue Israeli military officials say they have inflicted heavy damage to Hamas in a four-day Gaza offensive. Israel has destroyed the headquarters of the Hamas prime minister and blasted a sprawling network of smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip, broadening a blistering four-day-old offensive against the Islamic militant group even as diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire appeared to be gaining steam. In neighbouring Egypt, President Mohamed Morsi hosted leaders from Hamas and two key allies, Qatar and Turkey, to seek a way to end the fighting. “There are discussions about the ways to bring a ceasefire soon, but there are no guarantees until now,” Morsi said at a news conference on Saturday. The Egyptian leader said he was working with …From:TheEveryDaySourceTVViews:0 0ratingsTime:01:34More inNews Politics

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Israel nows strikes at Gaza Strip from air and sea @everydayinfotv @everydayrastatv – Video

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West Bank Palestinians take to streets in protest of Israeli Gaza action

Posted on November 23, 2012

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, demonstrators on Tuesday showed their support for Palestinians living in Gaza. Dozens of security forces joined in. (Photo by Matthew Bell.)

The Israeli action in Gaza continues and the Palestinian protests have reached the West Bank. On Tuesday, Palestinians took to the street, where they were joined by Palestinian Authority security forces a sign the authority is concerned this attack may hurt its standing in the eyes of Palestinians.

Palestinians in the West Bank have been raising their voices in support of their brethren in the Gaza Strip.

The president of the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has encouraged peaceful demonstrations against what he calls Israeli aggression.

But the fighting between Israel and Gaza militants is playing into the hands of the West Banks internal Palestinian rivals, Hamas.

A flat screen television on the wall in a Ramallah office showed images of Palestinian militants-in-training, wearing camouflage fatigues and green headbands. Then, demolished burning buildings, one after another, and gruesome shots of dead bodies, including a badly injured child screaming in agony.

This is Al Quds TV, a satellite channel operated by Hamas in Gaza. And this office is the headquarters of the Change and Reform Party, the party of Hamas in the West Bank.

Palestinian legislator Abduljabar Fuqahaa said the fact that people in cities across the West Bank have taken to the streets in recent days is a vindication for the Palestinian resistance. The term is used by Palesinians to describe all forms of armed struggle against Israel including attacks against unarmed civilians.

The situation in Gaza over the past week, Fuqahaa said, has proved something to Palestinians everywhere.

The resistance acts that are taking place in the Gaza Strip have a positive impact in the West Bank, he said. People have no other mode other than defending themselves against the Israeli occupation.

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West Bank Palestinians take to streets in protest of Israeli Gaza action

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Israel bombards Gaza Strip

Posted on November 19, 2012

Israel has destroyed the headquarters of the Hamas prime minister and blasted a sprawling network of smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip, broadening a blistering four-day-old offensive against the Islamic militant group even as diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire appeared to be gaining steam.

In neighbouring Egypt, President Mohamed Morsi hosted leaders from Hamas and two key allies, Qatar and Turkey, to seek a way to end the fighting.

“There are discussions about the ways to bring a ceasefire soon, but there are no guarantees until now,” Morsi said at a news conference on Saturday.

The Egyptian leader said he was working with representatives from Turkey, the Arab world, the US, Russia and western European countries to halt the fighting.

Israel launched the operation on Wednesday in what it said was an effort to end months of rocket fire out of the Hamas-ruled territory. It began the offensive with an unexpected airstrike that killed Hamas’s powerful military chief, and since then has relentlessly targeted suspected rocket launchers and storage sites.

Fresh Israeli air strikes on Sunday hit a Gaza City media centre and homes in northern Gaza as the death toll mounted, despite suggestions from Morsi about the ceasefire

“At least six journalists were wounded, with minor and moderate injuries, when Israeli warplanes hit the al-Quds TV office in the Showa and Housari building in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City,” Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP.

Witnesses reported extensive damage to the building and said journalists had been evacuated after an initial strike, which was followed by at least two more on the site.

In the northern strip, Israeli war planes carried out two separate raids on houses that killed two and injured 10 others, Qudra said.

In Gaza City, as the Israeli war planes attacked from above its naval forces opened fire, launching more than a dozen shells towards the shore, an AFP correspondent reported.

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Gazans watch with pride as Hamas strikes Israel

Posted on November 19, 2012

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) Israel’s new offensive against the Gaza Strip has turned into a political bonanza for the territory’s Hamas rulers, while sidelining Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, their Western-backed rival in the West Bank.

Gazans feeling unfairly attacked by Israel have been watching with gleeful pride as Hamas militants fire rockets deeper than ever into Israel and Arab leaders flock to previously isolated Gaza to show solidarity. Growing collateral damage from Israel’s massive aerial bombardments of Hamas targets does not appear to have hurt the Islamists’ sudden popularity.

Saed Moaserji, a 19-year-old engineering student from Gaza’s Jebaliya refugee camp, said he felt intense pride after Hamas rocket squads for the first time this week targeted Jerusalem.

“I never liked Hamas, but I wished I could kiss the forehead of the one who fired the rocket on Jerusalem,” Moaserji said Saturday, standing outside a local Hamas commander’s two-story home that had just been flattened in an airstrike.

The support was in sharp contrast to recent months, when the Islamist group seemed to be flailing, riven by internal divisions over the direction of the movement and the refusal of Egypt’s new government to lift a Gaza blockade imposed by Israel and the previous regime in Cairo after Hamas seized the territory in 2007.

Meanwhile, a mention of Abbas formally the leader of all Palestinians elicited shrugs or even scorn in Gaza.

Many Palestinians have lost faith in Abbas’ attempt to set up a state through negotiations with Israel, but he appeared particularly marginalized as he tried to exert influence over the latest events in Gaza by calling foreign leaders from his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Abbas, who has not visited Gaza since the Hamas takeover, acknowledged that he also tried to call Gaza’s Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, and the top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, but did not get an immediate response. Mashaal eventually returned Abbas’ call.

Ahmed Hatoum, a Gaza City resident, said Abbas’ approach has been futile, pointing to two decades of intermittent negotiations without results. Hatoum and others in Gaza argued that Israel started the current round of fighting with the assassination of the Hamas military chief Wednesday and that Palestinians have the right to shoot back.

“There is no political solution with the Israelis,” said Hatoum, 60, whose house windows were shattered Saturday by an air attack on Haniyeh’s office. “They only understand the language of force.”

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Occupy London 'celebrate' year on

Posted on October 13, 2012

13 October 2012 Last updated at 13:55 ET Protesters from the group Occupy have gathered outside St Paul’s Cathedral and City Hall to mark one year since they first set up camp in London’s financial district.

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Crisis deepens as mass protests hit West Bank

Posted on September 9, 2012

Burning issue … a young demonstrator prepares to throw a tyre during a protest against the high cost of living near Ramallah. Photo: AFP

BETHLEHEM: Cities across the West Bank are in the grip of mass protests as taxi drivers, teachers, shopkeepers and other Palestinian workers joined a strike to protest against fuel price rises and the ongoing financial crisis that is crippling the Palestinian Authority.

Threats of cuts to the electricity supply to large areas of the West Bank over at least $US125 million ($120 million) in unpaid bills are contributing to rising tensions, with protesters from Nablus to Ramallah and Bethlehem to Hebron calling on the Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, to resign over the government’s economic failings.

The Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, backed his embattled Prime Minister on Saturday and blamed Israel for restrictions that he said hampered an effective response.

Mr Abbas said that he bore ultimate responsibility for government policies and that he had asked Mr Fayyad and the cabinet to meet with representatives of the public to examine ways to lower the cost of living.

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Speaking at a news conference called at his headquarters, Mr Abbas said the Palestinian Authority was facing a cash crisis because of a shortfall in donor contributions, particularly from Arab states, and he warned that civil-service employees would not receive full salaries this month.

After growing at an average of 7 per cent a year in 2009, 2010 and last year, the economy has hit the wall, with some economists saying growth could be as low as 3 per cent to 4 per cent this year.

Unemployment is at an unmanageable 57 per cent, with a new report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development released this week estimating one in two Palestinians were living in poverty.

The poverty rates were worst in East Jerusalem, which is under Israeli administration, sitting at an estimated 78 per cent, the report found.

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Crisis deepens as mass protests hit West Bank

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Analysis – Election promises no end to Greece's agony

Posted on June 6, 2012

Riot police walk in front of the headquarters of Alpha bank in central Athens May 30, 2012. Credit: Reuters/John Kolesidis By Dina Kyriakidou ATHENS | Wed Jun 6, 2012 1:27pm BST ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s mainstream parties may defeat a radical leftist leader whose policies could force the country out of the euro, but victory in the election on June 17 is unlikely to be conclusive and another vote may be on the horizon.

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Analysis – Election promises no end to Greece's agony

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Africa: Kagame Rallies Support for Smallholder Farmers

Posted on February 23, 2012

President Paul Kagame has urged world leaders to support smallholder farmers if the world is to achieve sustainable agriculture productivity and environment protection. The Head of State made the call on Wednesday during the 35th session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) held under the theme, “Sustainable smallholder agriculture: feeding the world, protecting the planet”. He was among the key speakers at the inaugural ceremony of the two-day meeting held at the headquarters of IFAD in Rome, Italy.

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Africa: Kagame Rallies Support for Smallholder Farmers

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