Media Review Network – Page 1323 – Providing Context and Substance

Palestinians boycott quds vote under Isarael occupation

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinians in Jerusalem say they will again boycott the Israeli poll next week for mayor of the holy city.

"I voted in the past but it brought me nothing. I don’t believe in their (Israeli) democracy," said Fawziyeh al-Kurd, a Muslim Arab born in Jerusalem 56 years ago.

Some 260,000 Arabs, most of them Muslim, live in Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967, in a move that international community has not recognized.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem can vote in the mayoral contest — in which only Jewish candidates are running — but few have in the past and most will probably heed renewed calls by the Palestinian Authority to boycott this year’s Nov. 11 election.

Hatem Abdel Khader, an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, said that by refusing to vote, Palestinians would demonstrate their opposition to Israeli occupation of the city.

"We cannot pay a long-term political price in return for short-term municipal services," said Khader, responding to some local Palestinian leaders who say participation in the election is the only way to secure equal rights in Jerusalem, which Israel’s 1948 occupation left divided.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hostile Jewish settlers

For Kurd, the political battle hits close to home.

She and her husband are fighting in an Israeli court against a ruling that says they do not own the patch of land where they built their house 50 years ago. They face possible eviction.

Nestled on a hill in East Jerusalem, Kurd’s one-storey dwelling is surrounded by hostile Jewish settlers who moved into homes whose owners are Palestinians.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a leading civil liberties group that also deals with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, said Israeli authorities have expropriated some 6,000 acres (2,430 hectares) from Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Since 1967, the group said, Israel has built some 50,000 buildings for Jews in the Palestinian areas while denying many Palestinians building permits in East Jerusalem.

"The municipality has no housing plan for East Jerusalem, which means it is practically impossible to build there," said Orly Noy of the Israeli Ir Amim, or City of Nations, rights group, founded in 2004 to advocate equality in Jerusalem.

The problems facing Palestinians in the city have been compounded by a wall Israel is building in and around the West Bank.

Sections of the barrier have cut off several Palestinian neighbourhoods from Jerusalem, making it impossible for some Palestinians to work or visit relatives in Israeli-occupied sections of the city.

Palestinians say the wall, as well as Israel’s policies in Jerusalem, are designed to drive them out and cement its hold on the city.

While Jews from around the world can do whatever they want, Palestinians can find themselves stripped of their right even to return to visit families in Jerusalem if, for example, they go abroad to work or study for a time.

Palestinian candidate

Zohair Hamdan, a local leader from the village of Sur Baher, had planned to become the first Palestinian to run for Jerusalem mayor under Israeli occupation. He withdrew his candidacy last month, citing what he called technical reasons.

"I regret the decision by the Palestinian leadership to boycott the municipal election. There are 260,000 Arab residents in Jerusalem and they have rights which they can get through active participation in the election," said Hamdan.

"The Palestinian Authority, with all due respect, should let Jerusalem’s Arabs run their own affairs," he said of President Mahmoud Abbas’s administration a few miles away in Ramallah.

Reuters

Iranian official urges Obama to endUSsanctions

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Iranian officials have said his election victory on Tuesday showed the American people’s desire for fundamental change in domestic and foreign policy from the policies of Bush.

A senior Iranian official called on U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday to show goodwill and remove sanctions against the Islamic Republic, an Iranian news agency reported.

Obama has said he would harden sanctions but has also held out the possibility of direct talks with the United States to solve issues.

"Through the lifting of the past government’s cruel sanctions against Iran, Barack Obama can demonstrate his goodwill to the Iranian people," Prosecutor-General Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi said.

"Calling for forgiveness and remorse for the past U.S. government’s deeds by the new government can bring about the great Iranian nation’s forgiveness," the Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying in the northwestern city of Tabriz.

The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran after its Islamic Revolution in 1979 and is spearheading a drive to isolate the country over its nuclear activities.

Tehran says its nuclear enrichment programme aims at produce civilian energy. The West claims Iran’s study is intended to build atomic weapons.

Iranian officials have rejected world powers’ demand that it halt uranium enrichment, a process that can have civilian and military uses, in exchange for trade and other benefits.

Obama, like current U.S. President George W. Bush, has not ruled out military action although he has criticised the outgoing administration for not pushing diplomacy and engagement with Iran.

Iranian officials have said his election victory on Tuesday showed the American people’s desire for fundamental change in domestic and foreign policy from the policies of Bush, who labelled Iran part of an "axis of evil".

The head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission said any change in Iran’s strategy towards Washington would depend on a change in the U.S. approach, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"As long as the U.S. policy toward Iran stays the way it currently is, negotiations with that country will have no meaning," Alaeddin Boroujerdi said in the city of Mashad.

Reuters

Muslims sufferd byUSviolence sceptical of Obamas change

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

The policies of Bush’s outgoing administration have had a direct and often violent impact on Muslim territories, therefore opposition toward Washington is widespread.

Muslims resonated on Wednesday to the yearning for change which drove Barack Obama’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, but many predicted he would dash their hopes for a fresh start in Middle East policy.

"The region has many expectations. We hope (Obama) will help efforts to bring about permanent and just peace," said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki.

Abdel Galil Mustafa, the coordinator of the Egyptian protest movement Kefaya, added: "Obama is a good choice, because he is after change in American policies, from which we have suffered much over the last several decades."

Leading Syrian journalist Thabet Salem said the Arab world rejoiced at Obama’s victory. "Not because he won but because it meant that President George W. Bush, who is regarded as a bloodsucker, and his clique, were gone," he said.

The policies of Bush’s outgoing administration have had a direct and often violent impact on the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, therefore opposition toward Washington is widespread.

Bush occupied Iraq in 2003 in the face of overwhelming Arab opposition.

He included Iran is his "axis of evil" and encouraged Israel’s failed attempt in 2006 to attack Muslim resistance movement Hezbollah in Lebanon. Muslims saw his "war" as a covert crusade against Islam.

Obama now faces the challenge of repairing relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds while convincing Americans that he can also prevent a repetition of the 2001 attacks on U.S. soil.

Gholamali Haddadadel, a senior adviser to Iran’s most powerful figure Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: "Obama’s election displays the failure of America’s policies around the globe. Americans have to change their policies to rescue themselves from the quagmire created by Bush."

Ali Aghamohammadi, another close aide to Khamenei, said: "We are not fully optimistic but with a real change in American policy there will be a capacity to improve ties between the two countries. Of course the Zionist lobby in America will do its utmost to prevent the improvement of ties."

Repair the damage

A mixture of hope and scepticism was the hallmark of Arab and Iranian popular reaction to the election of Obama, the first African-American president in U.S. history.

Hossam Bahgat, an Egyptian rights activist, said: "The campaign itself did a lot to repair the damage done to the image of the United States over the past eight years.

"So there is a strange sense of accomplishment, but also of course the nervousness of expecting big disappointments when it comes to our region," he told Reuters. "I’m worried he might need to prove that he is a strong president or … that he puts America’s interests first."

Many commentators mentioned the influence of Israel’s supporters in Washington and the possibility that they will restrict Obama’s freedom of movement in Middle East policy.

During the election campaign Obama and his running mate, Senator Joe Biden, both pledged support for the Jewish state.

Mohammed Faiad, a 72-year-old Palestinian living in Gaza, said he wanted Obama to treat the Palestinian people justly.

He added: "We do not know him. Things are not clear now. We do not know whether he will follow the policy of his predecessor and bow to the Jewish lobby."

Rabie Abdel Halim Ahmed, a Cairo construction worker who was reading about Obama in the newspaper, said: "It’s a good change for America but what good can this achieve for us? He is still with the Zionists. It’s not going to do us any good."

The scepticism was especially strong among Arab liberals who once hoped that Bush would follow through on his promises to push conservative Arab rulers towards democracy.

"I am asking Mr Obama that … at least the American policy should abstain from supporting dictatorships that obstruct the way of change," said Mustafa of the Egyptian protest movement.

"We hope that … he adopts a just policy that restores to America its natural position of respect for humankind and democracy," said Mohamed Mahdi Akef, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest oppositon group and the main victim of Egyptian police repression for the past two years.

Only Israeli politicians predict continuity between the policies of the Bush administration and those of Obama.

"We have no doubt that the special relationship between Israel and the United States will continue and will be strengthened during the Obama administration," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a statement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist Kadima party, and Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, made similar comments.

Reuters

Sa searching in vain for 22000 accountants

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

South Africa’s financial management and auditing sector is searching
in vain for over 20,000 qualified accountants, the South African
Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) said today.

The institute said a total of 22,000 accountants were needed
immediately.

It also warned that the situation could worsen in the years ahead.
"The future looks bleak, given especially that economic growth is so
reliant on people in the financial occupations. We are actively seeking
solutions," said SAICA executive president Ignatius Sehoole.

According to the institute, research indicated that South Africa was
in an especially difficult situation and business growth expectations
among the organisations canvassed could be stifled by lack of suitable
qualified candidates, especially black candidates.

Sapa