Israel receives Hezbollah report on Ron Arad

Israel has received a report from Hezbollah on airman Ron Arad who went missing in Lebanon in 1986, under a deal for a prisoner swap expected to take place next week, Israeli media said on Saturday.

The cabinet has approved the deal under which it is to release five Lebanese prisoners, the remains of Hezbollah fighters and a number of Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

The media reports, which were not immediately confirmed by the government, said the Lebanese group Hezbollah said in its report that Arad had died but it had no specific information.
Officials had made it clear the deal would go ahead only after Israel received intelligence on the air force navigator missing since a mission over south Lebanon during the country's civil war.

According to news reports, Hezbollah told Israel through U.N.

negotiator Gerhard Konrad that Arad is dead.

Israel wanted the Shiite militia to explain how it reached that conclusion and why it could not locate Arad's remains.

The government is to decide on Tuesday whether to go ahead with the exchange without specific new information.

Goldwasser and Regev were captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid in July 2006 that sparked a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet the two soldiers were dead.

Arab League to hold crisis talks on Sudan

The Arab League said Saturday it would hold an extraordinary meeting at Sudan's request after reports prosecutors of the International Criminal Court may seek the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir.

The 22-member body received "an official from the Sudanese government and examined the latest developments in the situation between Sudan and the ICC," Hisham Yussef, Secretary General Amr Mussa's chief of staff, told reporters.Earlier Sudanese ambassador to Egypt Abdel Moneim Mabruk told the official MENA news agency that his country had made a request to the league secretary general to hold crisis talks.
The call followed reports ICC prosecutors will seek Bashir's arrest as they open a case covering crimes committed in Darfur over the last five years.ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced on Thursday that he would unveil a new case on Darfur and name suspects next Monday.

U. S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Friday confirmed newspaper reports that ICC prosecutors would seek an arrest warrant for Bashir.

It would mark the first-ever bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state.

The Sudanese government reacted angrily to the news with the state minister for foreign affairs Al-Samani al-Wasila telling AFP that any decision about the president could "destroy the peace process." Sudan rejects the court's jurisdiction and refuses to surrender two war crimes suspects already named.

There were fears that the move could trigger a military response by Sudanese forces or their proxies against U.N. and African Union peacekeepers.

On Tuesday, seven UN peacekeepers were killed and 22 were wounded in an ambush of a UN convoy in Darfur that some blamed on state-backed militia.

Qatar frees Saudi coup plotter after 12 years

Qatar has freed the longest-serving Saudi prisoner who was sentenced to death for his role in an attempted coup against the Qatari emir in 1996, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Wednesday.
Pardoned by the emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani after spending nearly 12 years in prison, Wabran Al Kulaib was released and returned home on Tuesday.His freedom followed an approach by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, the newspaper added.
Kulaib was the only Saudi among 19 people sentenced to death after an attempted coup the Qatari authorities said was foiled in February 1996. The sentence was later reduced to life in jail.
Kulaib, who worked as a passport officer at the Salwa crossing on the Saudi-Qatari border, was arrested in the Qatari capital Doha in 1997.
He was accused of facilitating the entry of Qatari nationals involved in the coup.He attracted public attention by staging a hunger strike in 2006 to protest his mistreatment in a Doha jail. Since then, the Saudi Human Rights Society has been involved in efforts to secure his release.
The pardon comes as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, whose relations had been frosty for years, rebuild normal diplomatic links with Riyadh's nomination earlier this year of an ambassador to Doha six years after it recalled its envoy.

Saudi king to launch inter-faith forum in Madrid

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, whose country is home to Islam's holiest shrines, will launch an inter-faith conference in Spain later this month, the palace has said in a royal statement on Saturday.
The Saudi monarch "will inaugurate the international dialogue conference which will be held under his auspices in Madrid on July 16-18," a statement carried by the official SPA news agency said.
The agency said the king had left for Morocco on a private visit ahead of the conference due to be attended by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
In March, King Abdullah proposed talks among the three largest monotheistic religions in a first for the kingdom, which hosts Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina.
Last month the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) said the Madrid meeting would bring together representatives from the "followers of God's messages and other cultures."The conference will "discuss cooperation between communities from different religions and cultures over common human values," the MWL's secretary general Abdullah al-Turki said.
Leading Islamic scholars meeting in the holy city of Mecca in early June also proposed creating a center to promote relations between religions.
Last November King Abdullah met Pope Benedict XVI during the first official visit to the Vatican by a monarch from the ultra-conservative Saudi kingdom.

Dozens killed in Syrian prison riot: rights group

At least 25 inmates were shot dead by Syrian security forces during a riot in a jail for political prisoners in the mountains outside Damascus on Saturday, according to a human rights group."Islamist prisoners started a riot inside the prison this morning," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received in Nicosia, quoting a political prisoner in the jail contacted by mobile phone."Shooting is continuing against the prisoners," the London-based group said, adding that a number of inmates had climbed the roof of the military prison in Saydnaya, north of Damascus, to escape the violence.
It said the number of dead was now 25.
The group said it had received phone calls from relatives of prisoners asking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to intervene to stop the clashes in Saydnaya, an ancient town with biblical connections.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian authorities.

Israel orders razing of Jerusalem 'terrorist' home

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday ordered the demolition of the houses of two Palestinians behind recent deadly attacks against Jews after the attorney-general said the move was legally viable.

Israel wants to destroy the homes of a Palestinian who killed three Israelis in a bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem on Wednesday and another who shot dead eight pupils at a seminary in the city in March. Both lived in the vicinity of Arab East Jerusalem. "Barak has ordered the army to start a process for obtaining demolition orders for the terrorists' houses," said a defense official, who declined to be named.

Menachem Mazuz, the attorney-general, gave his legal response following a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday that Israel should destroy the homes of "every terrorist from Jerusalem" after a Palestinian killed three Israelis in a bulldozer rampage. "The decision comes following the attorney-general's opinion, which said there was no legal obstacle to destroy the terrorists' houses," the defense official added.

Mazuz said in his opinion: "In light of repeated rulings over the years by the Supreme Court, it cannot be said that there is a legal objection ... to demolish houses in Jerusalem, but the move would create considerable legal difficulties."

Blue Israeli ID cards

Israeli authorities say Wednesday's attack and the fatal shootings of eight seminary students in March were carried out by Palestinians who held blue Israeli identity cards that give them wide freedom of movement.

Mazuz warned that apart from legal challenges in Israeli courts, a resumption of the practice of house demolitions could draw international condemnation. "The detailed inspection of the circumstances surrounding each case should be conducted by the Shin Bet and the army in coordination with the Justice Ministry," Mazuz said.

Olmert told an economic conference in the southern resort city of Eilat on Thursday that Israel should "be tougher in some of the means we use against perpetrators of terror.

If we have to destroy houses, then we must do so." Israel abandoned the demolitions of homes of Palestinians involved in attacks against its citizens after human rights groups challenged the practice in Israel's Supreme Court. Defense and legal officials met on Thursday to discuss the issue.

Some 20 people live in the home of the attacker who killed two women and a man in Wednesday's bulldozer rampage. They said they had no prior knowledge of his intentions.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally, after capturing the area in a 1967 war, and gave Palestinians there and in some adjacent villages the same blue identity cards issued to its citizens. Palestinians want parts of Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Ex-Abu Ghraib prisoners sue US firms for torture

Four Iraqis announced Monday in Istanbul they are suing two U.S. firms and their employees for allegedly torturing them at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad five years ago.
Their lawsuit is against private security contractor CACI International and two of its interrogators, Daniel Johnson and Tim Dugan, and the translation agency L-3 (formerly Titan Corp) and its interpreter, Abel Nakhla, lawyer William Gould told AFP.Their complaint was to be lodged Monday at courts in Maryland, Ohio and Washington
-- the U.S. states where the alleged torturers live
-- as well as Michigan, where L-3 recruited most of its interpreters, said Gould in Istanbul, where he met with his clients from Iraq.
He said the court cases would show that the accused were in Abu Ghraib and involved in a conspiracy that included the torture of the plaintiffs.
Abu Ghraib prison became infamous after the publication in 2004 of photographs showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated and abused by their U.S. guards.
The scandal led to the sentencing of 11 soldiers to up to 10 years in prison. This the second set of lawsuits against CACI and L-3. Another group of former Abu Ghraib prisoners filed complaints against the two firms last year in the states of Washington and California.
One of the current plaintiffs, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al-Shimari, 49, was taken from his Baghdad home in November 2003 and spent more than a year at Abu Ghraib, where he claims to have been subjected to electroshock and night-long cold showers in the winter.
Sa'adon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, 39, said he was repeatedly beaten at Abu Ghraib and tied to door handles.
Taxi driver Mohammed Abdwihed Towfek Al-Taee, 39, was taken to Abu Ghraib in 2003.
He has scars on his leg and head that he said came from beatings with an iron rod. "I wish I would be the last person to be detained and to be tortured," he said.
Abu Ghraib was closed in 2006.

Jordan charges Dutch MP over “Fitna”

A Jordanian prosecutor charged far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders on Tuesday with blasphemy and violation of publishing laws over his film judged anti-Islamic.

Jordan's publishing laws ban insults against Islam and religions.

The charges also include defamation and violation of online publishing laws, according to Tarek Hawamdeh, a lawyer for some 30 Jordanian media outlets which filed an official complaint earlier this month seeking court action against Wilders.
Wilders's 17-minute film "Fitna" ("discord" in Arabic), which links the Muslim holy book, the Quran, with terror attacks, has sparked uproar in Muslim countries. "Punishment could be up to three years in jail. Wilders has been summoned to appear before the court.

He will be given 15 days to comply, otherwise, an arrest warrant might be issued through the Interpol," Hawamdeh told AFP.

Dutch prosecutors said Monday that the Wilders's documentary, though offensive to Muslims, did not give rise to a punishable offence. "Several of the utterances are indeed offensive about Muslims but were made in the context of public debate," they said in a statement. "In public debate, statements can be shocking, sharp or offensive, but that does not make it punishable."The kingdom has condemned the film and some Jordanian MPs called for Amman to break diplomatic relations with The Hague

Don't take sides in Israeli-Palestinian conflict: poll

The first global public opinion poll about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released Tuesday found that majorities in 14 out of 18 countries polled believe their government should not take sides in the decades-old Middle East conflict.
It also revealed that most people support a greater role for the United Nations, from guaranteeing security of the countries involved to sending peacekeepers to enforce an eventual peace agreement.According to the poll – which was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org and covered 18,792 people in 18 countries and the Palestinian Territories – 58 percent of respondents said they did not believe their country should take a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Twenty percent said their country should support the Palestinians, while only seven percent supported the Israelis. Egypt, Iran and Turkey were the only countries favoring the Palestinians.

American view

Even Americans overwhelmingly said their government should not take sides.
In a finding that goes against the common assumption that Americans overwhelmingly support Israel, seven out of ten Americans said they thought their country should not take sides in the conflict. Of the rest, 21 percent said it should take Israel's side compared to only 3 percent who supported taking the Palestinians side. “Israel is liked a lot more and if you force them (Americans) to choose, Israel gets more sympathy,” Steven Kull, director of WorldOpinion.org, told AlArabiya.net in an interview. “You ask them which side they blame more, and more blame Israel than the Palestinians, but if you look more closely there are huge numbers that refuse to answer or say they don’t know.” Americans, said Mr. Kull, are unequivocal that U.S. policy needs to be even handed in dealing with the situation. “There is a discrepancy in this sense between the public and government foreign policy,” he added.At 86 percent, Egypt was the only country to overwhelmingly support taking the Palestinian side and to say that Palestinians are doing their part to resolve the conflict.
A similarly large percentage said neither Israel (88%) nor the U.S. (86%) is doing their part well.

Country assessments
Israel received the worst ratings about whether it is playing a positive role in the conflict, with majorities in thirteen out of fifteen countries asked this question saying that the Israelis are “not doing very well” or “not doing well at all.” Arab countries and the United States did not fare much better.
Fifty-nine percent of those polled view America’s role in the conflict negatively, as do 46 percent of Americans themselves.
A majority, 54 percent, of those polled also said that Israel is not playing a positive role while 47 percent say the same for the Palestinians. The United Nations Security Council, however, fared far better in terms of people’s perceptions about the role it should and could play. Respondents said they believed the United Nations should play a greater role in the conflict, especially if an agreement is eventually reached. All but one of the 17 countries asked had majorities or pluralities that supported sending U.N. peacekeepers were an agreement reached, with an average of 67 percent favoring and 20 percent opposing such an idea.
The predominantly Muslim countries of Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia and the Palestinian territories in particular supported U.N. involvement, from protecting Arab countries in case of an Israeli attack to sending peacekeepers.

UK adds Hezbollah's military wing to terrorist list

Britain on Wednesday moved to ban the entire military wing of Hezbollah, adding it to its list of designated terrorist groups.

Toughening its stance on the Shiite Lebanese movement, the Home Office (interior ministry) move makes it a criminal offence to belong to, raise funds and encourage support for the group's military wing.

The ministry said it took the action because Hezbollah's military branch was supporting militants in Iraq and Palestinian terror groups.

London has already banned Hezbollah's External Security Organization (ESO), which it considers the organization's "terrorist wing".Home Secretary Jacqui Smith laid the order in parliament, which, if approved, would substitute the existing proscription against the ESO."Hezbollah's military wing is providing active support to militants in Iraq who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside bombs," junior Home Office minister Tony McNulty said."Hezbollah's military wing also provides support to Palestinian terrorist groups in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad."It is because of this support for terrorism in Iraq and Occupied Palestinian Territories that the government has taken this action."Proscription of Hezbollah's military wing will not affect the legitimate political, social and humanitarian role Hezbollah plays in Lebanon, but it sends out a clear message that we condemn Hezbollah's violence and support for terrorism," he said.The home secretary can proscribe any organisation she believes is "concerned in terrorism", which means committing, participating, preparing for, promoting, encouraging or otherwise being concerned in terrorism in Britain or abroad.Groups can also be banned for glorifying terrorism.Proscription also makes it a criminal offence to wear clothing or carry articles in public "which arouse reasonable suspicion that a person is a member or supporter".More than 40 groups are classed as international terrorist organisations

-- including the ESO

-- and proscribed under Britain's Terrorism Act 2000.Two are proscribed for glorifying terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2006.

Fourteen organisations in Northern Ireland, among them the Irish Republican Army (IRA), are proscribed under previous legislation.Hezbollah is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organisations and as such Washington has no dealings with the group.

The movement is taking part in Lebanon's new government of national unity.Hezbollah, which claimed to have forced Israel's pullout from south Lebanon in May 2000 after two decades of occupation, sees itself as the legitimate "resistance" to the Jewish state

Jerusalem bulldozer attack injures dozens

A bulldozer slammed into a commuter bus, other vehicles and pedestrians in Jerusalem on Wednesday, causing dozens of injuries in an apparent deliberate attack, police said.

Israel's Channel Two television said at least one person was killed and some 30 were wounded.

"A suspect driving a tractor ran over a number of vehicles and Israelis in the street, on Jaffa Road. Israeli police arrived at the scene. Many people were injured," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Emergency vehicles rushed to the scene, where a single-decker commuter bus, its side slashed by the tractor, stood on its side in one of Jewish West Jerusalem's main streets.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said there were dozens of casualties.

At least three other vehicles appeared to sustain damage, including a van whose entire front section was crushed.

A radio reporter at the scene said after the tractor hit the vehicles, a man climbed onto its cab and shot at its driver several times. "I saw the tractor's shovel turn to the bus and deliberately hit it.

It hit other vehicles as well," another Israel Radio reporter said. The driver's condition was not immediately known