Picture: (AP Photo)- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe leaves talks in Harare, Zimbabwe, this morning, Aug. 11, 2008. South African President… Read More »Talks on critical zimbabwe unity pact to resume on heroes day
By Reuters
Egyptian police stopped a convoy of buses heading towards Gaza on Wednesday in what the organisers called an attempt to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory, police and eyewitnesses said.
The convoy of four buses, the first of several convoys which planned to travel to Gaza on Wednesday, could not travel beyond a toll station near the Suez Canal town of Ismailia, they said.
"Before Ismailia the security forces closed the road and took away the driving licences of the drivers," said Badr Mohamed, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the opposition groups taking part in the endeavour.
More than 150 people were standing around by the side of the road, chanting slogans in support of the Palestinians, he added.
A second convoy of about the same size will try to leave towards Gaza later in the day, he said.
Police tightened up procedures all along the main road to the border town of Rafah, checking the identity of travellers and asking them the reason for their journey, one activist said.
The Egyptian government contributes to the blockade of Gaza by refusing to open the Rafah crossing point without Israeli approval, as it agreed in a 2005 deal with Israel.
Along with many opposition groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition force in the country, favors ending the blockade and opening the border for goods and people.
In August two boats carrying foreign peace activists reached Gaza from Cyprus
in defiance of the government’s wishes.
(h a a r e t z . c o m)
Read More »Egyptian police stop convoy of buses heading to Gaza
The U.N. refugee agency says 5,680 Congolese have fled fighting in eastern Congo and crossed into Uganda over the past three days.
Spokeswoman Roberta Russo says the Congolese refugees lived in villages and at Nakivale refugee camp near the border. The agency released the information today.
The fighting pits Congo’s army against a rebel group claiming to be protecting the area’s Tutsi minority.
Different groups have fought Congolese soldiers in eastern Congo for several years. Residents in the region normally flee to Uganda and then return home when things calm down.
Sapa-AP
By Firoz Osman
(source: The Star – January 21, 2010 Edition 1)
Self-proclaimed "terror and security experts", among them Hussein Solomon, have warned "of a terror plot targeting US interests in South Africa" (The Star, January 14). Citing faceless and dubious "intelligence" sources, they claim that al-Qaeda operatives are harboured by the Muslim community in South Africa.
The inquiry into Britain’s role in the invasion of Iraq should provide an explicit lesson about the nefarious workings of "intelligence" agencies in pursuing diabolical agendas with heinous motives.
What has emerged reveals that then prime minister Tony Blair used fabricated evidence to support the US in invading Iraq, an unjustified act of war in violation of international law. This "evidence" included: that Saddam Hussein cooperated with al-Qaeda and was responsible for 9/11; that Iraq sought uranium from Niger; that Iraq tried to import aluminium tubes for gas centrifuges; and that Iraq had 10 000 litres of anthrax. Intelligence also produced dodgy dossiers that Iraq was capable of launching weapons of mass destruction; that two trailers were mobile biological laboratories; that it had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons; and that war with Iraq would be a cakewalk!