GAZA CITY How much worse can it get? After a horrifying week, the Israelis have arrived once again at our doorstep. What now? Already we have experienced so much terror and want. When the Israeli strikes first began, my wife and I were worrying about lentils. She said we could not have lentil soup for lunch because there were no lentils in the shops. Nor any rice or flour. Suddenly…
Ambulances were able to drive to some of the most heavily shelled areas in Gaza for the first time to collect the dead and injured yesterday, as Israel paused its military offensive for three hours to allow in aid, amid growing international pressure to call a ceasefire and ease the humanitarian crisis. A team of medics and volunteers from the Palestinian Red Crescent took advantage of the lull in fighting…
What kind of new worldwide organisation could be established that would truly defend humankind’s common resources and limit the major powers? Here are some suggestions for further debate. By Monique Chemillier-Gendreau THE reform of the United Nations is an old problem (1). UN bureaucracy, grossly inflated over the years, is widely thought inefficient. The Security Council, the main UN peacemaking body, still dominated by the victors of the second world…
Four-year-old Samar Abed Rabbu is a little girl with a captivating smile to melt the heart of the most hardened correspondent. When we first came across her in the hospital in the Egyptian town of El-Arish, just over the border from Gaza, she was playing with an inflated surgical glove beneath the covers. The doctors had puffed air into the glove, trying to distract her from the further pain they…
"Arab NGOs voice their concern over deleting any reference to Palestine in the paper submitted to the United Nations Durban Review Conference which is a follow-up of the 2001 UN anti-racism conference held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, one month before holding Durban summit 2 this April 20-24, in Geneva. This step (of deleting any reference to Palestine) was unfortunately approved by official Arab negotiating delegations in Geneva including…
Friday, April 10th, 2009. To the Custodian of the Two Holly Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud In the past few weeks, several media outlets reported a beginning of secret tribunes for hundreds of alleged-Saudi terrorists (991 defendants); for that purpose, several ad hoc security courts have been established under the auspices of the Saudi justice system. The names of the accused, their indictments, their names of judges, exact dates…
The Gaza probe mission mandated by the International Bureau for Humanitarian NGOs(IBH), the Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) and One Justice as a part of the program of the International Coalition against Israeli War Criminals returned to Paris on April, 9th 2009, evening. The mission - the second in two months - included: Haytham Manna, President of the International Bureau for Humanitarian NGOs, spokesperson of the Arab Commission for…
A group of Norwegian lawyers has submitted a complaint to The National Authority for Prosecution of Organised and Other Serious Crime. The complaint is submitted pursuant to the Norwegian Penal Code Articles 102 to 109 and concerns crimes of war and gross violation of international humanitarian law and is directed against Israel’s attack on Gaza in the period from 27th December 2008 till 25th January 2009. The offences in question…
PEOPLE UNITED AGAINST RACISM Civil Society Forum 2009 for the Durban Review Conference 17-19 April 2009, Geneva, Switzerland Geneva 2009 Declaration Against Racism FROM THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE GENEVA CIVIL SOCIETY FORUM 2009 A Time to Speak Out We participants of the Civil Society Forum for the Durban Review Conference 2009 held in Geneva 17 to 19 April strongly welcome the holding of the Durban Review Conference and reaffirm our…
Egyptian Security Services launched in the early hours of Sunday morning an unprecedented crackdown against four Egyptian-Arab high-ranking Brotherhood figures in Cairo and Al-Gharbia governorates. Dr. Abdel-Moneim Abu el-Fotouh, Member of the Executive Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Secretary-General of the Arab Medical Union was the first detainees and one of the most important public and trade union figures in Egypt and the Arab world. Will-Known for his high…
