Palestine – Features

UNITED NATIONS —

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused "a few bullying powers" of trying to thwart the country’s nuclear programs and vowed to defend Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power, in an address Tuesday afternoon before the United Nations.

The controversial Iranian president stressed that his country was prepared for a dialogue with world powers but refused to accept any illegal demands on Iran’s nuclear program.

With major world leaders watching, and just eight hours after President Bush’s final speech before the general assembly, Ahmadinejad used the U.N. platform to decry a "Zionist regime," a thinly veiled reference to Israel, for what he described as persecution of other Middle Eastern peoples.

"The Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters," Ahmadinejad said of Israel.

The Iranian president is feared and reviled in Israel because of his repeated calls to wipe the Jewish state off the map, and his aggressive pursuit of nuclear technology has only fueled Israel’s fears.

And in a direct attack on the U.S., he declared that the "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road," and urged the next presidential administration to "limit their interference to their own borders."

The Iranian president also criticized the American people for having "no respect for the people of Iraq," and said that the war in Iraq was waged under false pretense.

He said that six years after Saddam Hussein’s regime was ousted in Iraq, "the occupiers are still there."

"Millions have been killed or displaced, and the occupiers, without a sense of shame, are still seeking to solidify their position in the … region and to dominate oil resources," Ahmadinejad said.

In Afghanistan, terrorism is spreading quickly and the presence of NATO forces has contributed to a huge increase in the production of narcotics, Ahmadinejad said.

Read More »Irans ahmadinejad addresses united nations declares american empire reaching end of road

By Minette Marrin

(source: The Times Online)

How we laughed when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize. It was like giving a man a gong for helping to put out a fire that he himself had been stoking up.

It was almost as funny as the news in 2007 that Tony Blair had been appointed a special peace envoy to the Middle East — yes, the Middle East — on behalf not just of the United States and Russia but also of the United Nations and the European Union. For those who enjoy gallows humour, the regular appointment of mass murderers and kleptocrats to the UN’s human rights commission is also quite amusing.

Read More »Barack Obama should never have accepted this tainted prize

By Ashraf Patel

(source: The Star – December 17, 2009 Edition 1)

It is disturbing to note that millions of rands were spent by the City of Johannesburg on the Miss World 2009 pageant this past weekend.At a time when the global financial crisis requires modesty and cost savings, the poor and vulnerable look up to the government to support local economic development initiatives and their social welfare. Yet, the City of Joburg went the extra mile to spend on such a frivolous activity.

The R90 million that the Johannesburg Tourism Company invested in the pageant will have very little demonstrable impact on the poor local communities.

As a ratepayer of the Joburg City Council, I would have spent the R90m on the following socio-economic projects:

–  Pothole repairs: repair the hundreds of potholes and replace the hundreds of manhole covers that have been stolen. This would create temporary jobs for hundreds of small construction workers and save motorists on inevitable repair bills;

Read More »More pressing projects to spend on than a mere beauty pageant

(source: Rise For The Truth)

Western security sources believe Saudi Arabia will readily let Israel use the country’s airspace to strike neighboring Iran if a war breaks out between the archenemies.

Prominent German news magazine SPIEGEL claimed in a Tuesday article that there exists a strong unity between Israel and Persian Gulf’s Arab states against Iran.

Read More »Saudis may allow Isaraels use of air space