REUTERS/Nanjla Tanjung- Apart from the seismic activity in the region this picture shows motorists choking on smoke from forest fires… Read More »60 magnitude earthquake strikes Indonesias west Sumatra
The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza was reportedly preparing to dispatch a new boat to Gaza Strip in order to break the repressive Israeli economic blockade on Gaza that entered its third year.
In a statement he issued, and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, Dr. Arafat Madi, the head of the campaign, asserted that the sea voyage was expected to start on the last week of this month in coordination with the Free Gaza Movement with the aim to keep the marine route to Gaza Strip open.
However, Madi explained that the date of trip would depend on weather conditions, and that the voyage was meant to alleviate the suffering of the 1.5 million Palestinian individuals living in the tiny Strip.
He added that Palestinian and European doctors in addition to Scottish and Greek legislators and human rights activists would join the voyage carrying medicine to Gaza, confirming that the boat would transport the nine foreign activist who joined the first sea trip last month and were stranded in Gaza Strip after Egypt and Israel denied them exit permits.
"Our goal of sending those boats was political and for media purposes in order to keep the issue of the siege on Gaza alive in the hearts of the European and Arab peoples", Madi underlined.
Moreover, Madi disclosed more activities in the European arena on the political, parliamentary, popular, and human rights levels to activate the issue of the siege, urging human rights and political parties in the Arab world to carry out similar steps.
"You have no excuse of not sending boats to Gaza after the first attempt ended successfully, and proved that the road to Gaza was passable", Madi underscored.
The European campaign succeeded in breaking the Israeli siege on Gaza last month after its two boats anchored at Gaza shores against the Israeli occupation will, sending a message to the entire world that the Palestinian territorial waters were open for those willing to help the besieged Palestinian people.
"What we really need [to break the siege] are willingness and determination", he emphasized.
(PIC)
Apartheid is alive and well in a street in the Israeli-controlled West Bank
February 25, 2010 Edition 1
By Zenande Booi and Quinton Combrink
Apartheid South Africa demanded surplus quantities of moral blindness and monomaniacal creativity from those tasked with ensuring the separation between black and white. And then the systems of influx control, separate identity cards, and Bantustan development folded like a spectacular house of cards.
Off somewhere, in old age, sit those men who played God, either reconciled to their folly or nursing an injured pride while doggedly insisting on the unappreciated genius of their grand policy of separation.
It would surely add insult to injury for them to find out about the current arrangements in Shuhada Street in the Israeli-controlled West Bank. Not only is the separate-roads policy, of which Shuhada Street is a prime example, an absurdity that surpasses South Africa’s separate beaches, but it is also part of a planned "policy of separation" – because that is the official terminology – alive and well in the 21st century.
(source: Kashmir Online)
The Executive Director of Kashmir Centre London, Professor Nazir Ahmad Shawl has expressed serious concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in occupied Kashmir.
Professor Shawl in a statement issued in London said that imposition of strict restrictions in Srinagar on Monday to prevent peaceful protests amounted to strangulation of the freedom of expression and denial of political space.
Read More »Shawl concerned over deteriorating hr situation in ihk