Shoe thrower 'beaten in custody'
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- Written by BBC News BBC News
- Published: 16 December 2008 16 December 2008
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The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody.
Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.
Mr Zaidi threw his shoes at Mr Bush at a news conference, calling him "a dog".
The head of Iraq's journalists' union told the BBC that officials told him Mr Zaidi was being treated well.
The union head, Mouyyad al-Lami, said he hoped to visit his colleague later.
An Iraqi official said Mr Zaidi had been handed over to the judicial authorities, according to the AFP news agency.
Earlier, Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Baghdad he believed his brother had been taken to a US military hospital in the Iraqi capital.
A second day of rallies in support of Mr Zaidi have been held across Iraq, calling for his release.
Meanwhile, offers to buy the shoes are being made around the Arab world, reports say.
Hero figure
Mr Zaidi told our correspondent that despite offers from many lawyers his brother has not been given access to a legal representative since being arrested by forces under the command of Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser.
Iraqi lawyers have speculated that he could face charges of insulting a foreign leader and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, who was standing next to President Bush during the incident. The offence carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.
Our correspondent says that the previously little-known journalist from the private Cairo-based al-Baghdadia TV has become a hero to many, not just in Iraq but across the Arab world, for what many saw as a fitting send-off for a deeply unpopular US president.
As he flung the shoes, Mr Zaidi shouted: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog."
Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC that his brother deliberately bought Iraqi-made shoes, which were dark brown with laces. They were bought from a shop on al-Khyam street, a well-known shopping street in central Baghdad.
However, not everyone in Iraq has been supportive of the journalist's action.
Speaking earlier in Baghdad, Mouyyad al-Lami described Mr Zaidi's action as "strange and unprofessional", but urged Mr Maliki to show compassion.
"Even if he has made a mistake, the government and the judiciary are broad-minded and we hope they consider his release because he has a family and he is still young," he told the Associated Press news agency.
"We hope this case ends before going to court."
Abducted by insurgents
The shoes themselves are said to have attracted bids from around the Arab world.
According to unconfirmed newspaper reports, the former coach of the Iraqi national football team, Adnan Hamad, has offered $100,000 (£65,000) for the shoes, while a Saudi citizen has apparently offered $10m (£6.5m).
The charity called on the media to support Mr Zaidi and put pressure on the Iraqi government to free him.
Mr Zaidi, who lives in Baghdad, has worked for al-Baghdadia for three years.
Muzhir al-Khafaji, programming director for the channel, described him as a "proud Arab and an open-minded man".
He said that Mr Zaidi was a graduate of communications from Baghdad University.
"He has no ties with the former regime. His family was arrested under Saddam's regime," he said.
Mr Zaidi has previously been abducted by insurgents and held twice for questioning by US forces in Iraq.
In November 2007 he was kidnapped by a gang on his way to work in central Baghdad and released three days later without a ransom.
He said at the time that the kidnappers had beaten him until he lost consciousness, and used his necktie to blindfold him.
Mr Zaidi never learned the identity of his kidnappers, who questioned him about his work before letting him go.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7785338.stm
Published: 2008/12/16 13:34:33 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
* News * World news * Middle East Israel deports American academic
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- Written by Toni O'Loughlin in Jerusalem Toni O'Loughlin in Jerusalem
- Published: 15 December 2008 15 December 2008
- Hits: 3294 3294
Falk flew into Tel Aviv on Sunday night and spent the night at Ben Gurion airport before he was deported this morning.
Earlier this year, when the Princeton University professor of international law was appointed as the UN's special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories, Israel said it would deny him entry because in 2007 he said the Jewish nation's blockade on the Palestinian coastal territory of Gaza was a "Holocaust in the making".
In June this year, Israel allowed Falk to enter in a personal capacity to attend a conference in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Israel defended its decision to deport Falk, saying he had used his personal visit in June to write an official UN report and because of his "shameful comparisons to the Holocaust".
Israel also objects to the UN's special rapporteur mandate which aims to document only the Jewish state's abuses of Palestinian human rights. It does not include Palestinian abuses of Israeli human rights.
It's the third time this year that Israel has barred a high-profile critic from entering.
In May, it deported Norman Finkelstein, a controversial Jewish American academic who has accused Israel of using the Holocaust to justify its actions against the Palestinians. Israel also refused Nobel peace laureate the Archbishop Desmond Tutu entry while on a UN fact-finding mission in Gaza the same month.
Palestinian PM Fayyad says West Bank settlement must end for peace
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- Written by Ian Black, Middle East editor Ian Black, Middle East editor
- Published: 15 December 2008 15 December 2008
- Hits: 3421 3421
Settlement activity in the occupied West Bank must stop at once if there is to be any prospect of reaching a two-state peace agreement with Israel, the Palestinian prime minister has warned in a Guardian interview.
Salam Fayyad said he found it "devastating" that Israelis were not even debating the settlement issue in their election campaign. He warned that Palestinian support for his policy of reform and negotiation would collapse if prospects for a workable deal faded away.
Speaking before talks with Gordon Brown this morning, Fayyad dismissed as "naive" calls by Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel's rightwing Likud party, for an "economic solution" to the conflict with the Palestinians. Polls show Netanyahu beating Kadima's Tzipi Livni ahead of February's election.
Policy towards Israeli settlements will be a "litmus test of seriousness" for the US president-elect, Barack Obama, he predicted. George Bush controversially gave Israel the go-ahead to keep settlements beyond the 1967 borders.
Fayyad criticised the EU for missing an opportunity to encourage Israeli voters to debate illegal settlements by failing last week to make a key agreement with Brussels conditional on a change of policy.
"It is of critical importance that settlement activity stop and stop promptly," he insisted. "The one issue that really has the greatest bearing on a two-state solution, settlement activity, is not a matter of public debate in Israel.
"There is a worrying disconnect between what's going on in the run up to the Israeli election and what the next government will have to contend with. None of the major party candidates are having to address this. This is going to be a serious complication – whoever wins."
Fayyad, 56, has served as interim prime minister under the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The former World Bank economist is highly regarded in the west for having launched economic and security sector reforms – though these are confined to the West Bank. Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, remains under siege.
Fayyad refused to endorse Livni over Netanyahu but said in an unmistakeable reference to the views of the Likud leader: "Ours is a political conflict, not an economic one. Given my background there is no way I would say economic development is unimportant. But to think it is a substitute for the heavy lifting that has to occur on the political track is naive. Economic peace won't cut it."
Fayyad, in London for an investment conference, called on the international community to demand greater "accountability" having invested record sums in Palestinian development since the 1993 Oslo agreement but seeing no progress since the Annapolis summit a year ago.
"Settlement activity that was supposed to stop completely after Annapolis has accelerated by every indicator," he said. "Rather than preoccupying myself with who is going to win [the Israeli election] what I lament is that this is not an issue of debate. It is alarming, worrying, devastating. I feel very strongly about this."
Land confiscations and the "separation wall"– billed by Israel as a defence against suicide bombers but perceived by Palestinians as another land grab – were casting doubts over the very viability of a Palestinian state, he said.
"Where exactly is this state going to emerge if Israel continues with its settlement enterprise? That's why this issue is of paramount importance. It's basic. The territory keeps on being eaten up and broken up into cantons and enclaves," he said.
"I do not know when this conflict is going to be resolved. I care more about whether sufficient effort is being made to ensure that the requirements of success are being taken care of. The bigger question is:, when we get to that station will there still be a train to take?
"The message to our people is that we need to do everything we can to help ourselves. Our programme is to end the occupation and have our state. But, first things first, we need to build strong institutions and a functioning economy – even under occupation. We cannot wait until it all ends. With each passing day that settlement activity continues, more and more people will question this doctrine. And the hole in this argument keeps growing bigger.
"The question I have to answer is exactly where the state is going to emerge. That is why it is critically important that settlement activity stop and stop promptly.
"We need to be assured that when we are done there is going to be room for the independent sovereign viable Palestinian state. Otherwise the charge is going to be that we are not engaging in an effort to end the occupation but make it work better or to beautify it."Fayyad said he was open to dialogue with Hamas but regretted that it failed to attend recent reconciliation talks in Cairo. "The siege has never been tighter. The misery index has never been higher. This is not a sustainable situation"
Palestinians needed a "non-factional" government of national consensus and transitional Arab guarantees to manage security in Gaza until Palestinian forces could take over again, Fayyad said. "We need to put the country back together. But it is only going to happen politically."
Angry Iraqi throws shoes at Bush in Baghdad
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- Written by CNN CNN
- Published: 14 December 2008 14 December 2008
- Hits: 3670 3670
- Shoe-thrower dragged away; Bush makes light of incident
- Bush makes unannounced visit to Iraq, will address troops
- Visit meant to mark the conclusion of the security pact with Iraq
- Among Muslims, throwing shoes at someone is an insult
(CNN) -- President Bush made a farewell visit Sunday to Baghdad, Iraq, where he met with Iraqi leaders and was targeted by an angry Iraqi man, who jumped up and threw shoes at Bush during a news conference.
Among Muslims, throwing shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult.
The man was dragged out screaming after throwing the shoes. Bush ducked, and the shoes, thrown one at a time, sailed past his head during the news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in his palace in the heavily fortified Green Zone.
As the man continued to scream from another room, Bush said: "That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know."
Bush had been lauding the conclusion of the security pact with Iraq as journalists looked on.
Bush landed at Baghdad International Airport on Sunday and traveled by helicopter to meet with President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents at Talabani's palace outside the Green Zone.
It marked the first time he has been outside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad without being on a military base.
The visit was Bush's fourth since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Afterward,
Talabani praised his U.S. counterpart as a "great friend for the Iraqi
people" and the man "who helped us to liberate our country and to reach
this day, which we have democracy, human rights, and prosperity
gradually in our country." 
Watch President Bush and Iraq's president walk the red carpet »
Talabani said he and Bush, who is slated to leave office next month, had spoken "very frankly and friendly" and expressed the hope that the two would remain friends even "back in Texas."
For his part, Bush said he had come to admire Talabani and his vice presidents "for their courage and for their determination to succeed."
As the U.S. and Iraqi national anthems played and Iraqi troops looked on, he and the Iraqi president walked along a red carpet.
Bush's trip was to celebrate the conclusion of the security pact with Iraq, called the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement, the White House said.
Bush called the passage of the pact "a way forward to help the Iraqi people realize the blessings of a free society."
Bush said the work "hasn't been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope, and world peace."
In remarks to reporters, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, who traveled with Bush, described the situation in Iraq as "in a transition."
"For the first time in Iraq's history and really the first time in the region, you have Sunni, Shia and Kurds working together in a democratic framework to chart a way forward for their country," he said.
Israel's "Crime Against Humanity"
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- Written by david mizner, The Daily KOS david mizner, The Daily KOS
- Published: 11 December 2008 11 December 2008
- Hits: 3503 3503
To my mind, this is the most under-covered story in the United. Given the magnitude of suffering and its impact of the US foreign policy, it should be a major story, and a major focus of activism. It's hard to pass a synagogue without seeing a sign about Darfur. I wish my Jewish brothers and sisters were similarly concerned about the atrocities committed in Gaza by Israel and, by extension, the entire western world.
On December 9th, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, issued a statement that includes this:
Protective action must be taken immediately to offset the persisting and wide-ranging violations of the fundamental human right to life, and in view of the emergency situation that is producing a humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding day by day. However difficult politically, it is time to act. At the very least, an urgent effort should be made at the United Nations to implement the agreed norm of a 'responsibility to protect' a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime Against Humanity.