Full Coverage: Middle East

31.08.2004

© Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe

Psychologists for Social Responsibility, a U.S.-based organization that encourages peace, re-conciliation, solidarity, and non-violence has awarded its 2004 recognition for distinguished contribution to a culture of peace to the Gaza Community Mental Health Program in Palestine.

31.08.2004

scontri a Fallujah - da iraqwar.ru

Residents, municipal workers and volunteers started clean-up and reconstruction operations in the Iraqi city of Najaf this week. Describing the scale of destruction from three weeks of fighting as “horrible,” a government official said re-construction effort will be geared toward hospitals and other public utilities first before compensating people for their personal losses.

30.08.2004 Thousands of men, women and children are still being held without charge or trial in detention centres in Iraq. Amnesty International urges you to write to the Iraqi government to demand better treatment for these people.

27.08.2004 Parents of an Iraqi man who died trying to enter Britain in 2001 are appealing to the British public to raise £3,100 to send home his body.

27.08.2004 12 MPs are reviving an ancient law to impeach UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for misleading Parliament about the reasons he gave for invading Iraq. Ironically, the legal firm taking on the case is Matrix, his wife’s chambers.

26.08.2004 With the return of Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani to Iraq this week, there is the strong possibility of a negotiated withdrawal for Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia from the holy city of Najaf.

25.08.2004 Ewa Jasiewicz, correspondent for Red Pepper magazine, remains in detention in Israel after the Israeli state appealed against a court decision to release her on bail. Jasiewicz, 26, was detained at Tel Aviv airport on 11 August. The Israeli authorities claim that she is a political activist who "had been in contact with members of terrorist organizations".

25.08.2004 Submitting its findings this week, an independent commission enquiring into the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib described the prison guards as “criminal and sadistic” and concludes that people higher up in the chain of command bear indirect responsibility for the abuse.

24.08.2004 According to data gathered from families camping at nearby religious sites, at least 10,000 families have been displaced by the fighting in the city of Najaf. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been delivering food and water to the refugees, said the number could be as high as 50,000.

20.08.2004

Delegazione Iraq in Onu dei Popoli

All 81 names on a list of possible candidates for the Iraqi National Assembly were approved without a single vote being cast. Two lists of candidates were presented to the 1,300 delegates at the Baghdad conference convened for the purpose of selecting the 100-member Iraqi National Assembly, the delegates approved one of the lists after the other was withdrawn.

19.08.2004 ATHENS – There is only one way that Afghanistan could hope to win a medal at this year's Olympics, and that is if buzkashi were one of the events. But the galloping tribesmen's game of polo, played with a goat carcass instead of a ball, is not recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

19.08.2004 Scientists from 22 institutions around the world are gathered in the Arabian Desert to study tiny airborne particles called aerosols and their effect on weather and climate.

19.08.2004

© Amnesty International

A freelance Iraqi newsman workeding for the German television network Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) was killed on the way from Fallujah to Baghdad this week. According to sources in ZDF’s Baghdad office, the journalist called twice just before he was killed, the first time to report that he had just filmed a house destroyed by U.S warplanes, the second time to inform his colleagues that he was being attacked.

17.08.2004 Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are taking part in a series of hunger strikes during August to draw international attention and support to a campaign against the violations of their rights and the conditions under which they are detained. The Committee for the Families of Political Prisoners and Detainees has planned a month of solidarity activities to coincide with the hunger strikes.

17.08.2004 At a series of meetings facilitated by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights last month, families of the six Bahraini citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay urged their government to initiate action for the immediate release of the detainees. They want their government to send Bahraini lawyers to visit the detainees and consult with a New York Law firm that has agreed to represent them.

17.08.2004 As 1,300 handpicked delegates deliberate at the UN-backed national conference to select 81 nominees for the proposed national assembly, Iraqis in Baghdad are more concerned that insurgents will plant explosive devices in parts of the city where movement has been restricted due to the conference, rather than about the outcomes of the conference itself.

13.08.2004 With tanks sealing off all entrances to Najaf’s old city, 2,000 U.S. marines and 1,800 Iraqi forces engaged insurgents in street combat this week, flushing Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi militia out of the city’s holy sites in an assault that is being described as “a crucial test of strength” for Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s government.

11.08.2004 Very few people outside Lebanon are aware that the country is home to centuries old trees whose ages range from 190 to 750 years. To boost their potential as tourist attraction, Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based organization, has produced a book titled ‘Historic Trees of Lebanon’ which provides insight into the identity and mythology of the trees.

09.08.2004

09.08.2004 Political parties and politicians in Iraq, from Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army through the Islamic Party to the Muslim Association of Scholars have indicated that they will participate in the national conference to elect 100-member parliament from 1,000 delegates. The politicians complained that the conference, which was postponed till mid-August from the earlier scheduled end of July date, will not guarantee equality and fairness for all parties.