Trevor Wilhelm, The Windsor Star, Monday, August 13, 2007

Photo: Hezbollah Rally, Bint Jbeil 2005

WINDSOR – A billboard that appears to promote Hezbollah — an organization the Canadian government has ruled to be terrorist — has raised the hackles of a number of Windsor community groups. However, one of the people responsible for the sign said it was put up to honour their freedom-fighter families in Lebanon — and it’s their Canadian right to do so.

“In Canada, we want peace,” said Hussein Dabaja, a Lebanese-born Hezbollah supporter. “We’re not trying to offend anybody. We have freedom of speech. It’s a free country. Every Lebanese in Canada has somebody that died in Lebanon. Who is Hezbollah? Our brothers, our family, our parents, our friends. We came to Canada and they stayed there to fight.”

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By Hesham Shawish, The Daily Star. Thursday, August 09, 2007

Photo: Joe Hastings, Cluster bomb shells dropped on Vietnam by the U.S. military.

BEIRUT: A US expert on cluster bombs said Tuesday that out of the four million cluster bomblets dropped in Lebanon by Israel during last year’s war, 1.2 million bomblets are still unexploded. Franklin Lamb of the Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace Association said Tuesday during a ceremony held to support the Lebanese victims of cluster bombs, that of the four million cluster bombs dropped in southern Lebanon, Beirut’s Southern Suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, 1.2 million still constitute a serious threat to civilians.

(…اكثر)

Steven Erlanger, International Herald Tribune. Friday, August 10, 2007

Photo: Apartheid Roads outside of Qalqilyah, Palestine.

JERUSALEM: Israel is constructing a road through the West Bank, east of Jerusalem, that will allow both Israelis and Palestinians to travel along it – separately.

There are two pairs of lanes, one for each tribe, separated by a tall wall of concrete patterned to look like Jerusalem stone, an effort at beautification, indicating that the road is meant to be permanent. The Israeli side has various exits. The Palestinian side has few.

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New York Times. By Jason DeParle, August 6, 2007

About 1.2 million migrant workers, many of them South Asian,
build the towers that dot Dubai’s skyline.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — They still wake before dawn in desert dormitories that pack a dozen men or more to a room. They still pour concrete and tie steel rods in temperatures that top 110 degrees. They still spend years away from families in India and Pakistan to earn about $1 an hour. They remain bonded to employers under terms that critics liken to indentured servitude.

But construction workers, a million strong here and famously mistreated, have won some humble victories.

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Édition du mardi 24 juillet 2007. Hoda Asmar, Historienne.
Membre de Tadamon! Montreal.

Photo: U.S. military unit near Safwan Hill, Iraq
during the U.S. military invasion of 2003.

Réponse à la libre opinion du consul général d’Israël,
«La tentative iranienne d’exercer une hégémonie régionale au Moyen-Orient».

Le 20 juillet, dans les colonnes du Devoir, M. Attali, consul général d’Israël à Montréal, pose la question suivante: «Quel est le point commun entre les nombreuses turbulences que traverse le Moyen-Orient actuellement, qu’il s’agisse de la prise de contrôle de la bande de Gaza par le Hamas, de la lutte pour le pouvoir du Hezbollah au Liban, de l’agitation qui secoue l’Irak ou de l’acquisition prochaine de l’arme nucléaire par une dictature radicale? La réponse est l’Iran.» En réalité, cette réponse serait plutôt: les États-Unis. Lorsqu’on connaît les projets américains de «nouveau Moyen-Orient», agiter la «menace iranienne» constitue une stratégie de diversion qui ne résiste pas à l’examen des faits.

(…اكثر)

International Trade Daily. Thursday, March 2007

Graphic by Eric Drooker.

The National-U.S. Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) released a report March 15 saying that U.S. merchandise exports to the Arab world are expected to increase sharply this year, “shattering” the record set in 2006.

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Associated Press: Friday, March 9th, 2007

Washington D.C. – Lebanon’s Minister of Defense Elias Murr met with the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense on Thursday at the Pentagon.

Murr’s U.S. trip has echoed the support of the United Nations, State Department and Pentagon.

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Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

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Globe and Mail coverage of Lebanon suffers from ideological interventions

by Stefan Christoff and Dru Oja Jay
the Dominion

When newspapers send correspondents afield to report on world events, the position is fraught with opportunity and responsibility. Opportunity to share meaningful insight into current events, and responsibility to accurately report on them.

In many cases, unfortunately, other motivations prevail. For the owners and editors of the few papers that shell out for foreign correspondents, the opportunity to shape public opinion seems too tempting to pass up, even if it comes at the expense of insight and accuracy.

The Globe and Mail’s Middle East correspondent Mark MacKinnon has been publishing dispatches on the ongoing political crisis in Lebanon regularly from Beirut. It should be noted that Mackinnon’s reports are often superior to the generic newswire reports carried by many newspapers. Regrettably, this speaks more to the skewed quality of wire reports and less to the Globe’s correspondent’s capacity to promote accurate understanding of events in Lebanon.
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يبدو أن هناك معيار مزدوج في الطريقة التي تصور بها أجهزة الإعلام الأمريكية الشمالية أحداث مختلفة وممثلين سياسيين في لبنان

منظمات عدة مقرها مونتريال تتحدث دفاعا عن الاحتجاجات الشعبية التي اجتاحت عاصمة لبنان لأكثر من أسبوع. المجموعات مهتمة بالتحيز السائد في التغطية الإعلامية الكندية للأحداث في لبنان. هذا التحيز يسيئ تمثيل أهداف الاحتجاجات والديناميكا التي تندرج تحتها. يثير أيضا طائفية خطرة تهدد لبنان

هل يجب أن يصبح لبنان دولة تابعة للولايات المتحدة أو أنه يريد حكومة تمثل مواطنيها ومتجاوبة مع مصالح الناس الآخرين في المنطقة؟ هل يجب أن تخدم حكومة لبنان كل قطاعات سكانها، بغض النظر عن الطائفة والمنزلة الاقتصادية؟ ” سأل ماري فوستر من تضامن! مونتريال

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