Israel Seeks Jordanian Land, After Palestine

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=1011...ionid=351020202

With a dispute over Israeli occupation of acres of Palestinian land still unsettled, Tel Aviv takes a step to purchase dozens of properties in Jordan to further expand its territory.

The Israel Land Fund, which promotes Jewish construction and has bought land and dozens of houses in occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank, is planning to bring Jews from European countries to purchase dozens of properties once owned by Jews in neighboring Jordan.

"There are thousands of Jewish properties in Jordan which were purchased during the Ottoman era and under the British mandate. We have records of the ownership", chairman of the extreme-right Jewish organization Arieh King told AFP.

"We are trying to bring Jews from European countries to purchase property which we locate in Jordan," King said,

Up until 1995, selling land in Jordan to Israelis or anyone acting on their behalf was illegal and punishable by death. The new ruling which replaced the previous statute still bars Israelis from buying, or leasing, Jordanian land.

"[I]t is impermissible for foreign persons or corporate entities that do not hold an Arab nationality to purchase, lease, or own directly or indirectly any immovable property in the kingdom" according to the Law on Economic Boycott and Banning Dealing with the Enemy (Article 6) without an exception approved by high level political authorization.

King, however, said the organization would coordinate attempts to buy historically "Jewish-owned" land.

The move is expected to cause tensions between Tel Aviv and Amman, which is one of the only two Arab states having diplomatic ties with Israel. Egypt is the other Arab country recognizing Israel.

Earlier in 1967, the Israel Land Fund purchased the occupied territory in the West Bank which had been earlier seized from Jordan.

The disputed territory has been the cause of a long-running conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

While Palestinians have long been fighting to win back their territory for "a future state", far-right Jews are determined to keep the land in hopes of achieving what they describe as a "Greater Israel."

Historically, the concept of a "Greater Israel" also included occupation of Jordanian land.

US/Israel's Job on Attacking Iran, Coming Soon

The U.S. , which has been threatening Iran with attack for years, has passed the job to Israel
By Paul Craig Roberts
24/07/2009

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor , Japan did not spend years preparing her public case and demonstrating her deployment of forces for the attack. Japan did not make a world issue out of her view that the U.S. was denying Japan her role in the Pacific by hindering Japan ’s access to raw materials and energy.

Similarly, when Hitler attacked Russia , he did not preface his invasion with endless threats and a public case that blamed the war on England .

These events happened before the PSYOPS era. Today, America and Israel ’s wars of aggression are preceded by years of propaganda and international meetings, so that by the time the attack comes it is an expected event, not a monstrous surprise attack with its connotation of naked aggression.

The U.S. , which has been threatening Iran with attack for years, has passed the job to Israel . During the third week of July, the American vice president and secretary of state gave Israel the go-ahead. Israel has made great public disclosure of its warships passing through the Suez Canal on their way to Iran . “Muslim” Egypt is complicit, offering no objection to Israel ’s naval forces on their way to a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the U.S. imposed on the world.

By the time the attack occurs, it will be old hat, an expected event, and, moreover, an event justified by years of propaganda asserting Iran ’s perfidy.

Israel intends to dominate the Middle East .. Israel ’s goal is to incorporate all of Palestine and southern Lebanon into “Greater Israel.” The U.S. intends to dominate the entire world, deciding who rules which countries and controlling resource flows.

The U.S. and Israel are likely to succeed, because they have effective PSYOPS. For the most part, the world media follows the U.S. media, which follows the U.S. and Israeli governments’ lines. Indeed, the American media is part of the PSYOPS of both countries.

According to Thierry Meyssan in the Swiss newspaper Zeit-Fragen, the CIA used SMS or text messaging and Twitter to spread disinformation about the Iranian election, including the false report that the Guardian Council had informed Mousavi that he had won the election. When the real results were announced, Ahmadinejad’s reelection appeared to be fraudulent.

Iran ’s fate awaits it. A reasonable hypothesis to be entertained and examined is whether Iran ’s Rafsanjani and Mousavi are in league with Washington to gain power in Iran . Both have lost out in the competition for government power in Iran . Yet, both are egotistical and ambitious. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 probably means nothing to them except an opportunity for personal power. The way the West has always controlled the Middle East is by purchasing the politicians who are out of power and backing them in overthrowing the independent government. We see this today in Sudan as well.

In the case of Iran , there is an additional factor that might align Rafsanjani with Washington . President Ahmadienijad attacked former President Rafsanjani, one of Iran ’s most wealthy persons, as corrupt. If Rafsanjani feels threatened by this attack, he has little choice but to try to overthrow the existing government. This makes him the perfect person for Washington .

Perhaps there is a better explanation why Rafsanjani and Mousavi, two highly placed members of the Iranian elite, chose to persist in allegations of election fraud that have played into Washington’s hands by calling into question the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It cannot be that the office of president is worth such costs as the Iranian presidency is not endowed with decisive powers.

Without Rafsanjani and Mousavi, the U.S. media could not have orchestrated the Iranian elections as “stolen,” an orchestration that the U.S. government used to further isolate and discredit the Iranian government, making it easier for Iran to be attacked. Normally, well placed members of an elite do not help foreign enemies set their country up for attack.

An Israeli attack on Iran is likely to produce retaliation, which Washington will use to enter the conflict. Have the personal ambitions of Rafsanjani and Mousavi, and the naive youthful upper class Iranian protesters, set Iran up for destruction?

Consult a map and you will see that Iran is surrounded by a dozen countries that host U.S. military bases. Why does anyone in Iran doubt that Iran is on her way to becoming another Iraq , Afghanistan , and Pakistan , in the end to be ruled by oil companies and an American puppet?

The Russians and Chinese are off balance because of successful American interventions in their spheres of influence, uncertain of the threat and the response. Russia could have prevented the coming attack on Iran , but, pressured by Washington , Russia has not delivered the missile systems that Iran purchased. China suffers from her own hubris as a rising economic power, and is about to lose her energy investments in Iran to U.S./Israeli aggression. China is funding America ’s wars of aggression with loans, and Russia is even helping the U.S. to set up a puppet state in Afghanistan , thus opening up former Soviet central Asia to U.S. hegemony.

The world is so impotent that even the bankrupt U.S. can launch a new war of aggression and have it accepted as a glorious act of liberation in behalf of women’s rights, peace, and democracy.

-- Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Israel's Judaization Policy Hits Church Buildings

Israeli authorities have threatened to demolish 500 buildings owned by the churches in the Old City of Jerusalem (al-Quds), church officials say.

The Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches in Jerusalem (al-Quds) released a joint statement on Saturday complaining that Israeli forces have recently stepped up demolitions in accordance with the Municipality's E1 plan for the city.

It further said that with this articulate detailed plan, the Israeli authorities are pushing out the Palestinian Christian and Muslim populations, while simultaneously increasing the construction of 'Jewish-only' homes.

The church buildings are mainly homes owned by the church and leased to Palestinian Christian priests, nuns and their families.

Israeli authorities claim that the affected buildings were renovated without permits, but failed to acknowledge the lack of an authorization process for the Church to obtain the necessary permits.

Church officials said that the demolition orders were questionable. In one case, a demolition order states a 50-square meter apartment as an 'addition' to the home, while the entire home is a 50-square meter apartment.

They said that although they have asked the Israeli officials to investigate the violation, they have thus far refused.

In another case, they were seeking a permit for minor renovations for a home, but the Israeli officials said that "it is a waste of your time. Do not dream of receiving any permit."

Dozens, if not hundreds, of church-owned buildings were seized by Israeli forces during the 1948 occupation of Palestine and during the 1967 Six-Day War for the creation of Israel.

These buildings were taken over by the Jewish National Fund, which owns more than 90 percent of the land inside the occupied territories, and has rented them to Jews who immigrated to Israel.

The demolition plan falls under Israel's policy of changing the demographic feature of Jerusalem (al-Quds), seeking to turn the third-holiest Islamic city into a "Jew only" region.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=99295...ionid=351020202

Iran Hardliners Hit Back at Rafsanjani in Election

"At the same time he(rafsanjhani ) used every opportunity available to challenge the outcome of the election," wrote Shariatmadari, who earlier this month called for Mousavi and another leading reformist to be put on trial for "terrible crimes."

Noting Rafsanjani had urged everybody to abide by the law, his editorial added in a reference to those who defied a protest ban: "Mr Rafsanjani ... not only disregarded what he had said but openly supported the law-breakers."

An editor seen as close to Iran's top authority said Rafsanjani was backing "law-breakers," a reference to opposition protesters, and a senior cleric accused him of creating rifts in the Islamic Republic and hinted he should face legal action.

Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, an Ahmadinejad ally and a member of Iran's top legislative body, rejected Rafsanjani's remarks.

"Who planted the seeds of doubt in the election in the minds of people? ... Isn't this sowing discord?" Yazdi told a news conference, according to the official IRNA news agency.

He added, according to Fars News Agency: "Those who planted doubt in society and those who irrigated it to make it sprout out of the soil and pour into the streets to violate people's lives and property ... should be dealt with legally."

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/i...G52375320090718

Three Years on Victory, Israel Still Wants to Silence Al-Manar!

Three years after the building of Al-Manar Television was destroyed, the Resistance's voice seems to be always one of the main targets for the Israeli enemy…

On that day in 2006, Israel leveled the Manar TV building in an attempt to silence the station during the war.

Al-Manar's broadcast stopped for less than five minutes and then resumed as usual from undisclosed locations, what perplexed the enemy who failed throughout the aggression to silence the "Station of the Resistance".

It was necessary for the Israeli enemy to silence Al-Manar for many reasons on top of which is Israel's endeavor to spare itself a media war that could eventually expose its crimes, save its already cracking community from another psychological war and inspire the Lebanese people with its steadfastness.

However Israel failed in its strategy against Al-Manar and this is why Israeli analysts are nowadays renewing recommendations of sparing all possible efforts to silence Al-Manar during any future war against Lebanon.

According to Israeli experts and observers, Al-Manar has always constituted one of the main arms in the psychological war against the Israeli society during the Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands and following the Palestinian Intifada, what increased the level of calls to achieve withdrawal from Lebanon.

Moreover, Israeli website Omedia broadcasted a study in which it described Al-Manar TV as one of the war's "excellent" arms. "Al-Manar used to have detailed plans on how to deal with all developments," the study said, noting that "the non-necessary employees left the building since the war's first moment while others moved to under floor locations." The study also recalled that Al-Manar's broadcast stopped for less than five minutes after being destroyed and then resumed as usual from locations that remained undisclosed until now.

The Israeli study said that the Israeli forces faced many obstacles in destroying the terrestrial channel's infrastructure because of the difficulty of differentiating Al-Manar's broadcasting stations from the other Lebanese stations. The study added that Al-Manar's steadfastness was a major achievement despite all shelling and bombardment that made the victory of Hezbollah a concrete reality.

As a conclusion, the Israeli study recommended that Israeli officials spare all possible efforts to silence Al-Manar during the next war and consider the Lebanese channel "a major weapon in the hands of the enemy." According to the study, "it's not enough to bombard the channel to shut it down," calling on all concerned people in the Israeli enemy to work to prevent the Lebanese channel from broadcasting through frequency receivers whatever the price was.

Furthermore, the study also called for cooperating with the Lebanese government to suspend the terrestrial diffusion of Al-Manar!


http://www.almanar.com.lb/newssite/NewsDet...amp;language=en

Iran Religious Leaders Condemn Chinese Violence

Two of the leading religious clerics in Iran have spoken out against the recent violence in China where numbers of Muslims in Xinjiang province have been killed.

Grand Ayatollahs Nasser Makarem-Shirazi and Lotfollah Saafi-Golpayegani, who each have huge a number of followers, condemned the attacks on China's Muslim minorities and called on people and governments to speak against the violence in Xinjiang.

Opining through a statement issued today, Makarem Shirazi said: “Horrific news from China's Xinjiang province about the widespread murder and suppression of the Muslims of this region are cause for grief to every Muslim and each freethinking human being.”

Noting that Xinjiang constitutes one-sixth of China's landmass, and that its native population is overwhelmingly Muslim, the cleric said that “only a small number of Communist Han ethnics group lives there.”

Describing the conflict as one between the “Muslims and the racist Hans,” the Grand Ayatollah rejected its portrayal by Chinese government as an “ethnic conflict,” because “the support of the [Chinese] government of the anti-[Muslim] group, and the harsh suppression of Muslims and the closure of the mosques, all point to a conspiracy against the Muslims of that region.”

In a separate pronouncement on the violence in China, Grand Ayatollah Saafi-Golpayegani condemned the “sad events in China, resulting in the deaths of a group of oppressed and defenseless Muslims… and the violation of their basic human rights in that country.”

He too called on Muslim states to “react to these violations of Muslims' rights around the world, without any discrimination.”

Makarem-Shirazi, meanwhile, said that the government and people of china have close and friendly “economic and political relations with Iran and other Muslim countries, but this does not justify us to remain silent while they savagely suppress our Muslim brothers and sisters in that region.”

He further asked the Iranian government to break its silence and to “adopt a firm and suitable stance” against the violence.

According to Chinese government figures, at least 184 people have been killed and 1,100 injured since the violence erupted in the oil-rich Xinjiang region.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=10048...ionid=351020101

600 Rockets Per Day For 60 day, Hezbollah Can Hit Tel Aviv

Calm on the Lebanese Palestinian border does not necessarily involve good news for Israel, a report published by the Israeli daily Maariv said on Friday.

The report addresses the growing capacity of Hezbollah in Lebanon, three years after the 2006 war.

The journal emphasized that Hezbollah is tremendously magnifying its military capacities and compiling new combative techniques in addition to a remarkable increase in the number of its fighters and trainers. The Maariv report pointed that Hezbollah is seeking to reach a level of capability that would enable it to launch a thousand rockets on “Israel” during a 60-day period of time.

Citing Israeli intelligence assessments, the Israeli daily also estimated that the party was close to reaching this level of capacity as it can today send between 500 and 600 rockets a day to Tel Aviv and surrounding areas.

The report added that unlike the rockets fired during the 2006 war, Hezbollah’s present rockets are mostly long-range and mid-range missiles and in case a new war breaks out, the daily said, the center of “Israel” will be targeted with salvos of such rockets.

Maariv’s report also said that Hezbollah has spread its rockets in a more complicated manner for Israel to figure out, as most of them are heavier caliber rockets, more precise and longer in range.

The number of trained fighters, the report says, has increased from 5000 to 8000 well trained fighters and that Hezbollah is building fortified garrisons and underground systems to serve an organized deployment of fighters and field commanders between north and south Litani River areas.

Maarvi described Hezbollah’s formations as a compact defense system that enjoys the ability of ‘reciprocal coverage’, artillery, anti-armor and intelligence capabilities in addition to the ability to deploy special unit forces.

In case a confrontation takes place, the report said, a self-martyrdom unit would be called in to break through the border line and conduct operation against Israeli forces inside occupied territories, including martyrdom operations.

Maariv concluded that Hezbollah assumes that in case of confrontation, the Israeli army will go for a large-scale ground assault. This is why, it said, Hezbollah is preparing itself for such a scenario with a defensive battle relying on the aforementioned formations and the party’s goal will be to continue firing rockets deep inside occupied territories for at least two months in a fatal pace, Maariv estimated.

http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/Politica...89015716870.htm

In Bosnia, Each Funeral Never Ends

How many times can you bury your child without going mad? It's a question that has haunted hundreds of Bosnian mothers facing an agonising dilemma: as researchers identify remains scattered around mass graves from the Srebrenica massacre, do they bury the first few bones or wait potentially years for a skeleton to come together?

Many choose to bury whatever fragments turn up first. Then another bone is found and they have to reopen the grave. Months later researchers find another piece, and then another – and each time, the women say, it feels like another funeral. The identification mission being carried out by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is a monumental task. More than 8,100 men and boys were killed over five days when Bosnian Serb forces overran a United Nations-protected enclave during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Newly identified Srebrenica remains are buried at a memorial centre each year on the 11 July anniversary of the start of the 1995 massacre, Europe's worst slaughter of civilians since 1945. After the bloodshed – classified by the UN as genocide – troops led by General Ratko Mladic scattered the bodies in dozens of mass graves that are still being found. Yesterday, the partial remains of 534 victims were buried.

Ten years after a DNA lab took a drop of blood from Habiba Masic, researchers called her to say they had made a positive identification. It reopened a new cycle of anguish. The man at the lab said they had found 90 per cent of her husband's body. His bones had been dispersed among four different mass graves. "And the children?" she recalled asking. "The man went silent, and I knew something was wrong." She was told there was no trace of one of her boys but a small part of the other had been found. The problem was DNA analysis could not determine which one he was. "I couldn't breathe," she said. "I couldn't speak."

Now, she cannot bury the precious fragment, for what would the gravestone say: Sadem Masic, 1976-95? Or Sadmir Masic, 1977-95? "Brother is now waiting for brother," she said.

The ICMP, established in 1996 at the urging of the then US President Bill Clinton, has collected 87,049 blood samples from relatives of the missing, has analysed their DNA profiles and is now matching them with profiles extracted from the 29,185 bone samples that have been exhumed. The ICMP grew into the world's largest DNA-assisted identification programme, and so far investigators have helped to identify 12,518 individuals in Bosnia. Out of those, 6,185 are Srebrenica victims. The agency also carries out work in Chile, Iraq, Colombia, Norway, Kuwait and the Philippines. It helped to identify victims of the 11 September 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the remains of those who died in the 2004 Asian tsunami. But Bosnia remains its biggest operation.

During the war, the United Nations declared Srebrenica, besieged by Serbs throughout the conflict, a protected area for civilians. When General Mladic's troops overran the enclave, people flocked to the UN base in the suburb of Potocari for protection. Outnumbered Dutch UN troops never fired a shot. They watched troops round up the entire population, and take the men and boys away to be shot. After the massacre, the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, waved satellite photos of mass grave sites at Security Council members. Washington knew what had happened and where the mass graves were, she told them.

Serb troops rushed to the sites with bulldozers and moved victims to other locations – now called "secondary" mass graves – to conceal evidence of war crimes. As the machines ploughed up bodies, they ripped them apart, and now fragments of the same person can be scattered among several sites. The ICMP found "one man in five different locations who came to us in 11 different body bags", says the head of the Sarajevo-based organisation, Kathryne Bomberger. She believes the enormous cover-up should be considered another war crime.

One thing is certain. It created a forensic science nightmare. "This is the biggest forensic puzzle that exists anywhere in the world," Ms Bomberger said. Over a decade ago, when the ICMP began its work in Bosnia, most pathologists, anthropologists and those in the forensic community said, quite simply, that what they were trying to do was impossible. Nobody in the world had ever tried to find, exhume, identify and in many cases reassemble so many sets of remains – and then return them to families. Slowly, however, the researchers have made progress.

At the ICMP Podrinje Identification Project in Tuzla, 70 kilometres (45 miles) north-west of Srebrenica, the case manager, Emina Kurtagic, pushes a heavy morgue door to reveal aisles of blue and white body bags. The 876 trays in the aisles were built to accommodate one body each. Instead, they hold a total of 3,500 bags, each with a few bones of one or more victims waiting to be identified and reassembled. Remains of one of Habiba's sons are probably in here somewhere and won't be among the 600 victims to be buried at this July's memorial. "About 12,000 bags passed through this room in the past decade," Dr Kurtagic said. "Today, we just loaded 503 fairly complete and identified bodies on the truck. Those will be buried this year in Potocari, it's just part of this year's delivery."

At another facility, Cheryl Katzmarzyk, a senior forensic anthropologist, is trying to solve hundreds of other human jigsaw puzzles. She is running a department established to deal with the worst cases – those scattered over multiple sites. On one table is a nearly complete skeleton. Just the head is missing. The one on the other table has only five bones. "This case is more common," Dr Katzmarzyk said. "Here we have approximately 20 per cent of the skeleton of this man recovered. In fact, he was found in two different graves, his arm was found in one, his lower body, his legs, were found in another, mixed up within that grave."

General Mladic, indicted for genocide, is still in hiding, apparently in Serbia. Recently, television channels aired videos confiscated by Serbian police in one of his hideouts. They showed him dancing, singing at parties and cuddling his grandchild. "Mladic is holding his granddaughter in his arm at a birthday party. And how do we feel?" Habiba Masic said bitterly.

It is hard to imagine anybody would envy her, but Rufeida Buhic, 68, does. Her husband was killed early in the war. Serbs caught her only son, Razim, 17, when he tried to escape from Potocari. A massacre survivor told her Razim was one of the first to be shot. His body was never found. Mrs Buhic returned to her pre-war home near Srebrenica to be where the three had lived together. "That's where they walked, where they worked. That's where I want to walk," she said. When neighbours see her working around the house and the garden all day, "They say, you really work too much. But I'm not alone, I tell them. The two are with me and are helping me."

Mrs Buhic can't sleep at night. No medication helps. Often she visits a neighbour's house, where her son's friend lived and where Razim once measured how tall he grew. She goes there just to look at the line carved in the wood of the doorway: 195 centimetres, or nearly 6ft 5ins. Constantly, she checks her mobile phone.

"Every time it rings, I think they are calling me to say they found him... even one bone," she said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/eu...ds-1742767.html

Xinjiang Riot

by Xinhua writers Zhou Yan and Li Laifang
Source here

URUMQI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The death toll has risen to 140 following Sunday night's riot in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the regional government said Monday.

Fifty-seven dead bodies were retrieved from Urumqi's streets and lanes, while all the others were confirmed dead at hospitals, said Liu Yaohua, the region's police chief, at a press conference midday Monday.

He said the death toll would still be climbing.

At least 828 people were injured in the deadly violence that erupted Sunday night.

Rioters burned 261 motor vehicles, including 190 buses, at least 10 taxis and two police cars, said Liu.

Several vehicles were still seen ablaze on Urumqi's streets Monday morning, he said.

A preliminary investigation showed 203 shops and 14 homes were destroyed in the riot.

Police have arrested several hundreds in connection with the riot, including at least a dozen who were suspected of fanning the unrest, Liu said.

He said police are still searching for about 90 other key suspects in the city. "Police have tightened security in downtown Urumqi streets and at key institutions such as power and natural gas companies and TV stations to prevent large scale riots."

Checkpoints have been set up in Urumqi's key areas as well the neighboring Changji and Turpan prefectures to prevent the rioters from fleeing, Liu said.

He said more than 100 ethnic officials from adjacent areas have been transferred to Urumqi for interrogating the suspects.

A NIGHTMARISH NIGHT

According to police report, in the early hours on Sunday, the police department of Urumqi was tipped that information was spreading on Internet forums, calling for demonstrations at the People's Square and South Gate at 7 p.m. Sunday.

At 6:20 p.m., more than 100 people gathered at there. Violence began around 8 p.m., when some rioters started beating pedestrians and smash buses on Heping Road.

The violence soon spread to many other downtown areas.

Kadi Liya, a 23-year-old female Uygur, said she was returning home on No. 106 bus when her bus was smashed at around 7:30 p.m. at Shanxi Alley, with window glasses battered. She was beaten in the head by someone with a wood baton. She suffered slight cerebral concussion and is being treated in the regional People's Hospital.

Police said buildings in the residential compounds of the traffic police department and the taxation bureau in Tianshan District were severely scorched. "Some residents had to hide themselves in forests nearby and dared not to return home," a policeman said.

"It was like a war zone here, with many bodies of ethnic Han people lying on the road," said Huang Yabo, deputy director of the Urumqi Public Security Bureau.

Two workers of a scorched massage house on Yan'an Road were beaten to death. Fourteen people along the road said they were homeless.

A witness said an injured person was lying under the Tuanjie Road viaduct, bleeding, late Sunday night. On another street, a woman lay dead, with a bag on her back.

On Xinhua South Road, a sedan and a truck were overthrown. Their windows were smashed and doors deformed.

Rioters also set fire to a large hotel near the office building of the regional foreign trade department.

ORDER PARTIALLY RESTORED

Traffic blockades were partially lifted Monday morning in parts of Urumqi, but tension still exists in the city.

With the exception of Yan'an Road, Tuanjie Road, a road near Xinjiang University, and Ningxiawan in the suburbs of Urumqi, blockades in downtown Urumqi have been removed.

Debris has been cleared from the roads and normal traffic has resumed. Workers are still pulling away damaged vehicles from the worst-affected roads in the city.

But most shops in areas where the violence occurred remained closed.

At a market on Guangming Road, only ten vegetables and fruit stalls opened Monday, compared with dozens on normal days. The market was usually crowded.

Li Guifang, a resident near the market, said they had heard the violence last night and few residents came to the market in the morning.

Armed police are patrolling streets that are still blockaded.

MASTERMIND BEHIND VIOLENCE

Initial investigations showed the violence was masterminded by the separatist World Uyghur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer, according to the regional government.

Rebiya Kadeer, a former businesswoman in China, was detained in1999 on charges of harming national security. She was released on bail on March 17, 2005 to seek medical treatment in the United States.

"The violence is a preempted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad, and carried out by outlaws in the country," a government statement said early Monday.

According to the government, the World Uyghur Congress has recently been instigating an unrest via the Internet, calling on supporters "to be braver" and "to do something big."

Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said in a televised speech Monday morning that three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism made use of a fight between Uygur and Han ethnic workers in a toy factory in Guangdong Province on June 26, in which two Uygur workers died, to create chaos.

The fight was triggered by the sexual assault of a female Han worker by a Uygur coworker, he said.

"We should bear in mind that stability is to the greatest interest of all people in China, including the 21 million-plus people from all ethnic groups in Xinjiang," he said.

Xinjiang, the far western autonomous region, is home to more than 10.96 million of ethnic minority people, including Uygur, Mongolian and Hui.

(Xinhua reporters Li Xiaoling, Cao zhiheng, Wang Dalin, Huang Yan, He Zhanjun and Liu Bing in Urumqi contributed to this report)

Order partially restored in violence-plagued Urumqi, situation still tense

URUMQI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Traffic control was partially lifted Monday morning in parts of Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region after a deadly riot late Sunday, but tension still exists in the city.

With the exception of Yan'an Road, Tuanjie Road, a road near Xinjiang University, and Ningxiawan in the suburbs of Urumqi, blockades in downtown Urumqi have been removed. Full story

Commentary: Riot a catastrophe for Xinjiang

"Oops! Not again!" was almost the universal response when news of the unrest came Sunday night, when blood tainted Urumqi, with at least 140 lives lost and more than 800 others injured.

BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Sunday's deadly riot in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region bruised the beautiful city of Urumqi and shocked the world, barely 16 months after the nightmarish Lhasa violence that still clings to many Chinese minds. Full story

Recalling the nightmare: witnesses' account of Xinjiang riot

URUMQI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Returning to his Geely automobile store, Guo Jianxin was still frightened recalling the nightmare Sunday.

"Fortunately I managed to leave," said the general manager of the store in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Full story


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/...nt_11661325.htm

Israeli Submarine Crosses Suez Canal, With Eye on Iran

JERUSALEM: An Israeli submarine crossed through the Suez Canal last month as a part of a military training exercise, defense officials said on Saturday.

The move is believed to have been made as a warning to Iran of the Jewish state's capabilities and and to show that Israel and Egypt, are cooperating against a shared threat. The two countries share a peace agreement but have had cool relations for years.

By using the Suez, an Israeli submarine could reach the Persian Gulf off Iran in a matter of days, compared wiith weeks to sail around the southern tip of Africa.

The submarine participated in naval maneuvers in the Red Sea last month, said Israeli defense officials who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. They did not giive further details.

Israel owns three dolphin-grade submarines, which can carry nuclear warheads. Israeli defense officials do not discuss the type of missiles that can be fired from the submarines, nor their range.

Israeli officials have a long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying its nuclear arsenal and would not comment on Saturday. It is believed, however, to have the world's sixth-largest stockpile of atomic arms, including hundreds of warheads.

The maneuvers took place before the Iranian presidential election that set off a wave of protest demonstrations. Israeli officials believe that Iran intends to acquire the ability to build nuclear weapons regardless of who leads the country.

Iran is under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze its uranium enrichment program - an activity that Tehran insists is meant to generate nuclear fuel but which can also be used to produce fissile material for nuclear warheads.

Iran's nuclear program is particularly worrying for Israel because of Tehran's belligerent stance toward the Jewish state. Egypt also has tense relations with Iran which it believes is trying to spread its radical brand of militant Islam through the region.

The Jerusalem Post reported this was the first time Israeli vessels had crossed the Egyptian canal since 2005.

Egypt's relations with Iran worsened after Egyptian officials arrested members of the Lebanese Shiite guerrilla group Hezbollah in Egypt, accusing them of operating in its territory. Hezbollah is bankrolled by Iran, and Egypt accuses it of being a proxy to obtain Mideast regional influence.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Israeli...how/4738323.cms