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News about Syria
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Aug.6, 2007: Palestinian President Abbas kissing
US State Secretary , Condelesa Rice. What about this kissing , this remind
us of the late President Yasser Arrafat , who was nicknamed the Big Lips ,
since he will kiss anyone and everyone or even any thing that move!!!!
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June 25, 2007: Syrian
Airlines planes were fully booked by the government and passengers were told
to go home. Actually there was an air link were a total of 18 planes
transported weapons and Fighters from Iran to join Hezbollah in Lebanon in
preparation of a revolt and war against the legal government of Lebanon.
Syria is still interfering in Lebanon affairs and as stated by the Head of
Military Intelligence ( Assef Shawkat) he will burn Lebanon before he
is taken for the International court of Harreri assassination.
Sept.26,
2006: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has held a
secret meeting with a senior member of the Saudi royal family, believed to
be King Abdullah, Israeli officials say. Saudi Arabia has offered
a plan for Israel diplomatic recognition from all Arab states in return for
a complete withdrawal from the territory it occupied by Israel in 1967 and a
negotiated solution to the 58-year Palestinian refugee issue. Well Israel
consider such a plan , from the history of the Zionist government , no such
solution will be accepted by Israel.
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Sept.25,
2006: Egypt & Turkey are planning to
build nuclear power plants . Thus
raising concern about the long-term prospect of a nuclear arms race in the
Middle East. Israel's possession of nuclear weapons has been of great
concern in the Middle East since it is the only country having such weapons.
- Feb.7,
2006: More than 20 American universities are offering $10 million (Dh36.8
million) in scholarships and financial aid for prospective students from the
Middle East region. This reflect the shortage of Middle Eastern students
studying in USA.
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Jan.30, 2006: Arla Foods'
products have been removed from shop shelves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar,
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The Middle East is Arla Foods' main
market outside Europe. It has $430 million in annual sales in the Middle East
and about 1000 employees in the region.
Jan.27, 2006:
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state,
has assured Saad al-Hariri, the son of the slain former Lebanese prime
minister, that the US government will keep the pressure on Syria to respect
Lebanon's independence and to make sure that there will be
no intimidation of the Lebanese people.
Jan.16,2006:
Former Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam said members of President
Bashar al Assad's inner circle embezzled $20 billion from Lebanon and Syria
and accused President Emile Lahoud of corruption.
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Jan.9, 2006:President Assad of Syria is running around between Saudia Arabia and
Egypt trying to get help from the two nation , to avoid questioning by UN for
the assassination of Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Harreri. However as he try to
evade the UN Investigation , claiming he can not questioned as his is immune as
president, in that sense he is really proving that he guilty. President Assad
does not realize that the world is against him and he must submit to the UN and
admit to his crimes. He must order the stop of killing of civilians in Lebanon
and Syria...Mostly President Assad does not realize the end of his regime and
that he will be tried by an International court soon.
 Dec.31,
2005: Former Syrian vice-president
Abdul Halim Khaddam denounced the current government in Damascus. He accused the
Syrian authorities , including president Bashar Assad of assassinating Prime
Minister of Lebanon , Rafik Harreri. He clearly indicated that
The Syrian intelligence
services could not have carried out such an operation without al-Assad being
informed. He
declared that he was formally breaking away from Bashar and the Baath Party
regime due to their un ethical manner of running the country. He accused Rustom
Ghazale of stealing $35 million from Madiena Bank in Lebanon. He also accused
Bashar of running Syria as a dictator and criticized his poor assessment of
foreign policies. Bashar Assad and his Baath regime are now in a very awkward
situation , with such declaration from an inside person.
The days of Baath party in Syria will soon
be over , hopefully in 2006. The Middle East is looking for democracy and the
relief from dictatorships.
Dec.21, 2005:
Jordan's King Abdullah II has appointed a new intelligence chief to replace
Samih Asfoura who resigned.
Major-General Mohamed al-Zahabi, a Western-trained career intelligence officer,
was assigned the post of head of the General Intelligence Department (GID), the
Mukhabarat. This comes due to recent terrorism activities in Jordan , and the
attack on western Hotels that killed many people.
- Dec.3, 2005: Yemen's National Aids
Program (NAP) has declared 121 new HIV/Aids cases, confirming 1,714 cases in the
country while officials estimate the unreported cases could be about 12,000.
This figure is alarming , as the
virus spread in the Middle east , were there is no accurate reporting and the
real figures can be much much more.
"Who is next"
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May 29,
2005: Members of the US congress called on the US President George W. Bush
not to approve permitting Saudi Arabia to join the World Trade Organization.
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May
22, 2005: Syria needs to introduce political and institutional reforms to
attract foreign investments necessary for the economy to flourish, Asma, the
wife of President Bashar Al Assad, said yesterday in the
Woman in Business International Forum held in Damascus.
The real question here is how it can be done in the
existing dictatorship style of government of the baath party of Syria.
- March 26, 2005: Misery in
Yemen continues to encourage child trafficking into Saudi Arabia, with
widespread cases of parents paying smugglers to take on their offspring to
work as beggars on the streets of the oil-rich neighbour. Thousands of
children, as young as seven and including girls, continue to be entrusted by
their parents to traffickers who help the youngsters cross the desert
borders illegally into Saudi Arabia, UN officials said. The children, who
mostly come from large and poor families, sweat to earn money through small,
menial jobs or most often by begging on the streets. Thousands of them are
regularly caught by Saudi police and sent back home.
 March
24, 2005: Another weak Arab summit was held in Algiers. Qaddafy proved to be the
funniest state head. The Arabs reaffirmed a peaceful initiative with Israel ,
who quickly refused the peaceful proposal. The Arabs as usual have
"The Arabs have agreed
not to agree." On all other issues.
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March
23, 2005: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a summit of Arab leaders
that another more comprehensive investigation may be needed into former
Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.
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March 17,
2005:
Syrian intelligence
agents pulled out of Beirut and large parts of Lebanon , a major step towards
meeting US and Lebanese opposition demands for Syria to release its grip on
Lebanon, but will it really do so. The Baath Party will not give up until it is
eliminated from Syria and democracy emerge.
 March.15,
2005: A
senior Lebanese army officer said Sunday that 4,000 Syrian soldiers - more
than a quarter of those serving in Lebanon just a week ago - have been
brought back to Syria, but he said a date for a complete withdrawal won't be
set until an April 7 meeting of Syrian and Lebanese officers. Intelligence
agents dismantled two checkpoints in the Akkar area. In all, more than 70
intelligence agents left - destination unknown, but believed to be northern
Syria. Agents were seen loading equipment and furniture from the offices in
the Ramlet al-Baida area onto trucks. They also removed pictures of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and his late father from the building, while
Lebanese police guarded the street. Damascus has promised to give the United
Nations a timetable for the full withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon soon.-
March
3,2005: Recent reports indicate that Syrian soldiers stationed on mountains
overlooking the Lebanese capital Beirut were reinforcing their positions.
The troops were digging trenches and building fortifications at four
locations, the witnesses said on condition of anonymity.
The four locations form the arc of a circle culminating in the Baidar
mountain pass at an altitude of more than 1,500 meters (4,800 feet).
They also represent the line where Syrian troops should have withdrawn to in
1992 under the Taef accord, which brought an end to the 1975-1990 Lebanese
civil war.
The Syrian positions were transformed into real work sites and the Syrian
troops, wearing helmets, seemed to be in a state of maximum alert. What is
the message here, the troops are not leaving? The Syrian government have no
intention of leaving Lebanon , without putting a fight. This is the atrocity
of a fool , just like Saddam Husain regime , the Baath of Syria will soon
fall.
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March 1, 2005:
Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara
promised after his visit to Riyadh , that Damascus would work on setting a
timetable for the pullout of its troops from Lebanon. This is in
contradiction to a statement made by President Assad of Syria who
indicated there will be no troop pullout before one year and even that
should be linked with a complete peace agreement in the Middle east.
These statements shows how
confused are the Syrian leadership and it might soon loose its grip on
Lebanon with the help on the International community and it might also loose
power in Syria. It is time to put an end to the Baath regime in Syria and
let the Syrian people live by democracy and choose their own leaders.
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March.1,20005: Syria has agreed to hand over
occupied land it has taken over from Jordan through many years of creeping
and shifting the border posts. this has come as signs of isolation and
international pressure is building on Syrian government due to its
occupation of Lebanon. Syria wants the Arab countries to stand in its
support not to leave Lebanon and this was evident in the gesture to Jordan
and other gestures to Iraq. Syrian government tactics here seem out of
contest and will not have any effect on the crisis it puts itself by
occupying Lebanon and refusing to leave that country. Syrian top generals
and secret service are making a lot of illegal money in Lebanon and theta is
the main reason they do not wish to leave Lebanon.
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Feb.28,2005: Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syria captured
and handed over Saddam Hussein’s half brother, a most-wanted leader in the
Sunni-based insurgency, ending months of Syrian denials that it was
harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said
Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill. This is another proof that Syrian
Baath party ( the ruling elite) has been harboring Iraqi terrorists since
the collapse of Saddam Husain regime.
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Feb 27, 2005: Al-Arabiya television staff in Beirut had received "threats" amid
a Syrian media campaign against an interview it carried out with UN chief Kofi
Annan urging Syria to pull out of Lebanon.
"Al-Arabiya is deeply worried by the (implicit charges of) treason made against
it by the (Syrian government) newspaper Tishrin, which was coupled with threats
directed against some of our colleagues in Beirut by like-minded sides," the
Dubai-based satellite news channel said in a statement.
"threats have been received from sides believed to be linked to Syrian
intelligence".
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Feb 27,
2005: Al-Arabiya television staff in Beirut had received "threats" amid a
Syrian media campaign against an interview it carried out with UN chief Kofi
Annan urging Syria to pull out of Lebanon.
"Al-Arabiya is deeply worried by the (implicit charges of) treason made
against it by the (Syrian government) newspaper Tishrin, which was coupled
with threats directed against some of our colleagues in Beirut by
like-minded sides," the Dubai-based satellite news channel said in a
statement.
"threats have been received from sides believed to be linked to Syrian
intelligence".Feb.22, 2005:Thousands of Lebanese demonstrated
peacefully in Beirut and many Arab cities across the middle east and even in
France and other countries, demanding Syrian troop pull out and free
democratic election.
- Feb.17,205:
Lebanon has officially asked for the help of Swiss experience in the
investigations in the implications of the assassination of the former
Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri. News reports quoted official sources
in Lebanon that Lebanon refused security cooperation with
France in the investigation.
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Nazik Hariri, wife of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri, lays her head upon his coffin draped with a Lebanon flag,
before his funeral yesterday. Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb
attack Monday.
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Feb.16,2005: Lebanon is in a period of mourning after a massive car bomb killed
the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Tuesday. The attack has raised fears
that Lebanon might revert back to the political violence that characterized the
country during the 1975-1990 civil war. Many sources blame the assassination on
Syrian government or the Syrian Mafia operating in Lebanon. It is reported that
Syria take out about $5.5 billion a year from Lebanon as an occupying force.
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Feb.15,2005: Syria and Iran are joining together to confront the US policy in
the region.
Iran and Syria,
both locked in rows with the United States, said on Wednesday they will form a
common front to face challenges and threats. "We are ready to help Syria on all
grounds to confront threats," Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref said in
Tehran after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari.
Syria immediately ran to ask Iran for help due to its critical situation after
the Syrian government have been blamed for the assisanation of Lebanese Prime
Minister ( Mr. Hariri).
It seems Syria Baath party is not learning a
lesson from Iraq.
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April
29, 2004: Syria
said yesterday it would not tolerate terrorism after an armed group set off
a bomb in the tightly controlled capital's diplomatic quarter and four
people were killed in ensuing
gun battles.
Syrian security forces exchanged fire with four men after they detonated a
car bomb outside an empty former UN building in the Mazze district on
Tuesday evening, killing two assailants and wounding and detaining two, the
official
SANA news agency said. A policeman and a woman bystander were also killed.
Calm returned to
up market
Mazze, where traffic was slow yesterday as Syrians showed up to gaze at a
charred four-storey building, strewn glass and burnt-out cars.
April , 12, 2004: General Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and UAE Minister of Defense,
with King Abdullah II of Jordan and his sister Princess Haya bint Al Hussein
at the Baraka Palace in Amman. Sheikh Mohammed wedded Princess Haya on
Saturday. Happy marriage. The Arab world need more
happy news.
April
6, 2004: A Jordanian military court has convicted 10 people --
including a Jordanian suspected of operating in
Iraq
-- for the 2002 assassination of
U.S.
diplomat
Lawrence
Foley in
Amman . Eight of the 10 were sentenced to death, one was sentenced to 15 years in
prison and one was sentenced to three years in prison. Six of those
sentenced to die were tried in absentia, including Jordanian militant Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed al-Khalayleh.
Jordan
has notified countries with which it has extradition agreements that the six
convicted suspects are wanted in
Jordan .
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April
5, 2004:
Morocco said it was not prepared to host an Arab summit, throwing a spanner in the
works of efforts made over the weekend to find a compromise venue for a
meeting that collapsed last week.
Morocco “categorically denies information without any basis” that it could play
host to the summit, a foreign ministry spokesman was quoted. An Arab
diplomat earlier said Morocco could emerge as compromise location as Arab
League Secretary General Amr Moussa was in Rabat to hold talks on rescuing
the summit. Tunisia took the unprecedented decision of calling off the
summit last week after Arab foreign ministers failed to agree on proposals
Tunis deemed essential for political reform in the Middle East. There has
since been a deadlock over where to hold a rescheduled summit.
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March
14,2004: Fourteen Kurds, including three children, have reportedly been
killed in violence that broke out in northern
Syria over a football match.
Six of those killed on Friday were shot at, while three children, aged
between 10 and 15, died in a stampede that broke out in the city's stadium
following fighting between rival fans.Earlier in the morning, dozens of
people sustained bullet wounds in Qameshli and two neighbouring towns as
thousands of Kurds gathered to protest against the deaths in police
firing." In the morning, police clashed with Kurds who "threw
stones at government buildings, including the customs office and the youth
centre," Abdel Baki Yussef, a senior functionary of the Kurdish party
Yakiti, said. The protests then spread to neighbouring towns and villages,
where police fired at the crowd. Meanwhile, the trouble also spread to
capital
Damascus , where several demonstrators were arrested. In
Lebanon , the Kurdish Democratic Party accused Syrian forces of "massacring the
Kurdish civilian population in Qameshli, killing at least 70 people and
wounding more than 400.""At what was supposed to be a football
match…the intelligence services turned on the Kurdish crowd," it
charged in a statement. The match at the root of trouble was being played
between Qameshli and Dir al-Zur. It was abandoned after fighting between
rival fans broke out.
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March
12, 2004:
Libya
has signed an agreement allowing the UN atomic watchdog to conduct snap
inspections of nuclear facilities. IAEA
supervised an airlift from
Tripoli
to
Russia
of 80% enriched uranium from a reactor near the capital. The agency said the
metal was almost pure enough to be used in a nuclear weapon.
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March
11, 2004: A cargo
ship has left
Libya
carrying the last of the equipment that Moammar Gadhafi's government
had used for its nuclear weapons program, a White House spokesman says. The
ship steamed for a secret location in the
United States
laden with 500 tones of material containing "all known remaining
equipment" associated with
Libya
's nuclear program. The equipment included "all centrifuge parts and
all equipment from its former uranium conversion facility," U.S.
National Security spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters covering President
George W. Bush's long weekend at his
Texas
ranch. The shipment also contained all of
Libya
's longer-range missiles, including five Scud-Cs, McCormack said. In
recognition of
Libya
's efforts, the Bush administration announced last month it would allow
U.S.
oil firms to begin negotiating to return. It also ended a restriction on
Americans from using their
U.S.
passports to visit the oil-rich nation. In addition, the administration
decided to allow
Libya
to establish a diplomatic presence in
Washington
following its decision to base several
U.S.
diplomats in
Tripoli
.
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March
6, 2004:Israeli occupation troops raided lands of the Syrian Arab citizens
in several areas in the occupied Golan on Wednesday morning, uprooting fruit
trees as part of the hostile policy pursued by the occupiers against the
people and lands of the Golan. Israeli military bulldozers uprooted more
than 1800 fruit trees of all kinds in lands owned by Syrian Arab citizens in
Majdal Shams town, along with many hundred-years-old olive trees in Jbata
al-Zeit, a village destroyed by Israeli occupation forces and on which an
Israeli settlement called Nvi Atif was built.
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Feb.23,
2004: The Dome of the Rock mosque (Qubbat Al Sakhra) in Occupied Jerusalem
is to undergo repairs after developing some cracks due to mild earthquakes,
thanks to the generosity of President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan
Al Nahyan, who will bear the cost of repair of one of the major Muslim holy
sites.
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Feb.16,
2004: A rare storm dumped more than two feet of snow on parts of the Middle
East, breaking power lines in
Lebanon
, collapsing a wall at a holy site in
Israel
and delaying talks between Israelis and Palestinians. At least one person
was killed. Life is almost paralyzed in Lebanon and parts of Syria.
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Feb.15,
2004 : Six Iraqi planes stationed at
Amman
’s
International
Airport
since 1991 are part of Iraqi frozen assets and will not be released, a
Cabinet minister said yesterday. Raed Abul-Saud, minister of Public Works,
Housing and Transport, told the official Petra news agency that the issue of
those planes, especially storage fees of up to four million dinars ($ 6.65
million), would be discussed with the United Nations. “
Jordan
will not give up, whatsoever, on its rights in this subject,” he said.
Iraq
transferred the civilian Boeing 727s and 707s to
Jordan
during the 1991 Gulf War to protect them from bombings by the US-led
coalition. Iraqi Transport Minister Behnam Zayya Polis said last week that
the planes were unfit to be used. After last year’s war on Iraq, Jordan
froze all Iraqi assets — estimated at more than one billion dinars ($1.4
billion) — and said they would be held until rule is handed over to the
Iraqi people.
Jordan
government has no plans in helping
Iraq
financially and have no intent in giving up these planes or any other
assets.
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Feb.15,
2004: The new voice of
America
started its transmission yesterday with an exclusive interview with US
President George W. Bush.
The
American-funded channel is aimed at targeting
Arabic people as part of an
ambitious political-media project, which is regarded as the biggest
project of its kind since the launch of the Arabic section of BBC Radio in
1934 and the Voice of America in 1942.This station has over 200 staff
members - Arabic journalists who were recruited from various Arabic media
and reputed professionals in their fields.
Al Hurra,
which means "The Free One", is managed by Muwaffak Harb and is
under the supervision of a board of trustees which is an independent
US
agency for transmission around the world.
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Feb.1, 2004:
Yemen
has demanded that
Saudi Arabia
stop the construction of a wall on their common border, which it considers a
breach of an international treaty signed between them in June, 2000.
Yemen-Saudi
relations have been suffering tension since the beginning of January when
Riyadh
started to build the wall aimed to prevent infiltration and smuggling of
weapons and Qat into the kingdom. Sanaa says if Riyadh wants to build a
wall, it should build it outside the disarmed area.
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Jan21,
2004: The White House announced that the presidential envoy, former
secretary of state, James Baker, started a tour on several Gulf states in
order to consult with its leaders over reducing due debts owed by Iraq or
canceling them.
Iraq got loans from the Gulf states during its war with Iran, but the Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein considered them as gifts.
American officials hope that the Gulf states will exempt Iraq from refunding
these loans, as Washington did, believe that these countries' hesitation in
taking such a decision to ensuring extra aid to Iraq, does not relate only
on what these countries say "that there is no internationally
recognized legitimate government in Baghdad," rather relates to what
the sources consider as an exaggerated concern by the Gulf states or other
Arab governments, especially in Jordan on " the future of the Arab
Sunni in Iraq." The government of Saudi Arabia want to keep the paper
of loans in its hand, until the political scene becomes clearer in Baghdad,
especially for the Sunni- Shiite balance. Why
the GCC countries pay for the mistakes and financial plundering of Saddam
Husain?
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Jan.21,
2004:
Jordan
is secretly offering Jordanian passport and permanent residency to members
of the old Iraqi regime. It has been reported that Jordanian passport is
issued for a price of $1 million and residency is given for $100,000.
Jordan
government is still playing double standards and supporting the old Iraqi
regime. What is surprising is why the GCC countries still support the
Jordanian government and offer them financial assistance. Another fact that
has been reported recently is that Jordanian governments receive their
salaries through the aids given by GCC countries.
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Jan.9, 2004:
Syria
's Minister of Finance, Mohammad al-Hussein, opened in
Damascus
Wednesday "
Syria
and Overseas Bank." The bank's capital amounts to S.P 1,500,000.
Lebanon
and the Overseas Bank contributes 39% of the SOB's capital, the International
Funding Corporation ( IFC) with 10% and the Syrian Investors with 51 %.
In statement to SANA, al-Hussein stressed the importance of establishing private
banks due to the increased banking services, and to the need to develop the
public banks in particular, and banking services in general, to serve the
economic development process in Syria. It is to be noted that this is the first
private bank in
Syria
, since the take over of the Baath Party.
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Jan.8, 2004: Syrian
and Saudi officials yesterday laid the foundation stone for the renewal of the
railway line which links the two countries known as "al-Hijaz railway"
in a project on which the chairman of al-Hijaz railway line, Salah Ahmad, said
will bring to
Syria
10,000 job opportunities and two million dollars in annual revenues.
The Syrian prime minister, Naji al-Otari, and the chairman of the Saudi al-Salam
company, which will carry out the project, and Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sharif
opened the project in
Damascus
yesterday. The Saudi company is to renew the project within a period of 3 years
at a cost of 70 million, and to be invested by it’s for 25 years, and then to
be turned over to the Syrian general railway establishment by the end of the
contract. The project states to install the railway line, and rebuild a trade
center including trade shops, restaurants and luxury flats.
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