Envoy Blair' waits in wings at summit

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem  
Tony Blair is expected to be confirmed as a special international envoy to the Middle East today in the wake of a summit at which the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed the release of 250 Palestinians.
Mr Blair's post will be discussed at today's meeting in Jerusalem of the international "quartet" of the US, EU, UN and Russia.The prisoner releases

Iran has increased the price of gasoline by 25 percent, from 30 cents to 38 cents per gallon, and is attempting to reduce subsidies, Fars News Agency reported on Wednesday. The quasi-official Iranian media organization quoted Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi as saying the move is in keeping with the new budget law. Pour-Mohammadi added that fuel rationing will begin June 5.

Lebanon's Mall Bombing: The Syrian Connection

kurdroj-bairut
A bomb exploded in a predominantly Christian neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon, on May 20, killing at least one person and wounding a dozen. Though the blast occurred shortly before midnight on a Sunday, the bomb was placed in the parking lot of a shopping mall whose restaurants and movie theaters are still crowded at that hour -- meaning the bomb

Lebanon: A Syrian Hand in Political Instability

A car bomb exploded in an upscale market in a predominantly Sunni district of west Beirut, Lebanon, on May 21. The blast came shortly after deadly clashes died down between Lebanese forces and Sunni militants in northern Lebanon, in which at least 71 were killed. The standoff in the north, along with this latest bombing and a May 20 bombing at a popular Beirut shopping mall, likely are the result of Syria's politically motivated fostering of a jihadist-oriented group known as Fatah al-Islam

Turkey: A Bombing, a Scapegoat and Election Season

Kurdroj-Ankara:
Turkish authorities said May 23 they believe a Kurdish suicide bomber carried out the May 22 bombing in Ankara. Blaming a Kurd, along with the blast's timing, will allow the Turkish military and ultra-secularist political forces to undermine the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, accusing it of being soft on the Kurdish issue. The bombing thus will intensify the struggle between the AK and its opponents ahead of July parliamentary polls.

Blood borders How a better Middle East would look

By Ralph Peters
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference - often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of

Israeli PM says Bush won't change stance on Syria

Kurd Roj - Jerusalem -response agencies
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that he believed U.S. President George W. Bush would not change his stance regarding Syria and Iran, Israel's local daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on its website. Addressing the weekly cabinet meeting, Olmert was quoted assaying that he is content with Bush's position on the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report

Why Syria Matters

Barry Rubin*
The emergence of the HISH alliance (Hizballah, Iran, Syria, Hamas) has changed the direction of the Middle East in several respects. This group has formulated a new ideology merging Arab nationalism and Islamism, which can be called "National Islamism." It has sought hegemony in Lebanon and Iraq as well 

UN: Iranian arms still flowing to Hezbollah via Syria

Kurd Roj - response agencies
Beirut & NY - The United Nations has been informed of "movements of arms" on the Syria-Lebanon border, but could not independently verify the report, the French foreign ministry said. A report into the implementation of Security Council Resolution

recommendations on the Baker-Hamilton

Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria’s
Security, stability, and peace cannot be established in Iraq or in fact in the Middle East while the same regimes in Syria and Iran continue to pursue their agenda of defeating the US in Iraq, destroying the democracy in Kurdistan of Iraq, meddling in Lebanon’s affairs, destroying Israel and supporting terrorist organizations through-out the Middle East. The radicals and the terrorists who are part of or an extension of these regimes have been gaining momentum

Bekhal's Tears European Premiere

Bassam Moustafa /Erbil
After the world premiere in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan in November 2005, a special screening in Amman, Jordan, participating in the Emirates Film Competition 2006 in the UAE, a premiere in Mexico in September, Bekhal's Tears is ending the year 2006 with 2 more film festivals. The European premiere of the Kurdish Drama dealing with

No More Blocking !

Millions of people throughout the world are blocked from using the Internet by governments that are determined to stop access to information that should be available to all.
Now the Monk Center at the University of Toronto is making available software they developed that will allow everyone to surf the web anonymously :
http://psiphon.civisec.org/faq1.html

Diplomatic Efforts Intensify for Lebanon

Beirut, Lebanon --
Arab and European diplomatic efforts to help ease Lebanon's political tensions intensified Monday, the fourth day of a sit-in protest organized by the militant Hezbollah that has paralyzed central Beirut .Soldiers and police, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, continued to surround government headquarters in a protective cordon.

Merkel eases stance on Turkey-EU

The Financial Times
German chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to moderate her hard-line stance on Turkey’s bid for membership of the European Union, apparently withdrawing a proposal for an 18-month deadline for Ankara to open its ports to Cyprus. She said the European Commission should report on Turkey’s

Syria wants Iranian gas via Turkey

Ankara (Reuters)
Turkeys Energy Ministry has received a letter from Syria expressing interest in receiving Iranian natural gas via Turkish pipelines, it said on Monday. Syria aims to buy 2 billion to 3 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas annually, a senior ministry official told Reuters, adding that officials from the three countries may meet in the next few days to discuss the issue.

Iraq – Fragmentation Or Civil War ?

H . S. Soran
The general situation of Iraq, particularly security circumstances and unprecedented anarchism, has attracted the keen and diligent attention of all the political commentators and analysts of the world. Everyday, repeatedly, we see terrible scenes of suicide, mass murder, devastating explosions, dim smoke and blazing fire on different TV screens

Investigation into Kurdish software

The New Anatolian -Ankara
The Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecutor's Office yesterday launched an investigation into Sur Mayor Abdullah Demirbas who commissioned a Kurdish language version of a widely used computer program. First launched some time ago and covered by media, the software is a Kurdish version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution

Armenian, Assyrian, Greek Genocide Haunts

Turkey's bid to join the European Union could suffer by its refusal to admit the genocide of its Armenian Christian population nearly a century ago.When European Union leaders meet in Brussels Dec. 14-15, the debate to admit Turkey likely will hinge on, among other issues, its failure to open its ports and airports to Cyprus, which opposes all talk of membership. The Netherlands, Germany, Austria and France are cool to admitting Turkey and are backing Cyprus.

Man blows self up at Syria-Lebanon border

The Associated Press
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A Syrian leader of an Islamic militant group blew himself up at a border post with Lebanon after a gun battle with Syrian security forces Tuesday, the Syrian government said. Two security forces were wounded. Omar Abdullah, the 28-year-old leader of the Islamic militant group Tawhid and Jihad, was trying to enter Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous border post with fake documents, a Syrian Interior Ministry statement said

Syria accuses France, US of meddling in Lebanon

FM brands as ‘nonsense’ US, French allegations of Syrian's role in killings of Lebanese political figures. TAMPERE, Finland - Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Tuesday accused the US and France of interference over Lebanon and rejected similar accusations levelled by Paris on Damascus.Muallem branded as "nonsense" US and French allegations surrounding Syrian's role in the killings of Lebanese

Germany gets access to jailed man in Syria

Berlin-Reuters -
A German embassy official in Damascus has obtained access to a German man who is being held in a Syrian jail after the CIA handed him over, a German foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday.
Spokesman Jens Ploetner told reporters that after repeated refusals by the Syrian government, German embassy officials had gained access to Mohammed Zammar, an associate of the Hamburg al Qaeda cell which led the Sept. 11 attacks.

EU-Turkey Talks over Cyprus Fail

Kurd Roj- response agencies
The last-ditch talks between the European Union (EU) and Turkey over Cyprus failed on Monday, overshadowing Turkey's bid for gaining a membership into the bloc.On Monday morning, Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, met separately with Cypriot Foreign Minister George Lillikas and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul

۞                                            www.kurdroj.com

info@kurdroj.com

۞
۞۞
۞
۞۞
۞