60 percent of Saudis cannot afford to buy home

The Arabian Business website reports:

Up to 60 percent of Saudis are unable to own their own homes and heads of nearly 35,000 Saudi families earn less than SR2,000 ($533) a month, it has been claimed.

Mufleh Al-Qahtani, president of the National Society of Human Rights (NHSR), made the comments after signing a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Establishment for Education and Training (SEET), aimed at providing education and training to members of needy families.

He said NSHR had received complaints from many people about businesses denying them jobs despite having the necessary qualifications.

“When we investigated the reasons behind this, we found that the standard of training they received was poor while their educational qualifications were insufficient,” he said in comments published by Arab News on Friday.

The government has allocated SR10 billion to build low-cost housing in different parts of the country to meet the needs of the poor but Qahtani said the kingdom lacked regulations encouraging social service initiatives by individuals and organisations.

He said it was more important to provide education and training to change the situation of the poor rather than direct financial assistance.

Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki, chairman of SEET, said his organisation has been supporting nearly 12,000 young men and women, by providing them with scholarships in association with educational and training institutions in the country.

“We are trying to alleviate the suffering of certain needy families and individuals in terms of human rights and administrative procedures,” he said.

White phosphorous attack on Gaza school

Unrwa school, Beit Lahia, Gaza.

Palestinians battle flames

... and its impact

Time for revolution

In April 2008 Egypt’s interior ministry was faced with a dilemma. Should it send state security forces to Mahalla al-Kubra, the restive industrial town in the Nile Delta, or to Egypt’s border with Gaza, where it feared hungry Palestinians would attempt another breakout... read more

Gaza meeting

The Palestinian and Lebanese Leftist Youth Groups

Invite you to a public meeting with Comrade Marwan Abdel Al, a leadership member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) On the current political situation in Gaza, the resistance and the negotiations, and the PFLP position.

Thursday February 5th, 2009, In the Martyr Abu Ali Mustapha hall, Mar Elias camp, Beirut @ 5,30 pm

My speech for Gaza at the London rally

My speech for Gaza at the London rally can be found at solomonsmindfield's blog

French cops

Had to run this story from the AFP...

For French policemen trying to help their Lebanese counterparts bring Beirut's notoriously undisciplined drivers under control, the gestures of the local officers are a source of wry amusement.

"The traffic policemen in Beirut have their own specific gestures: they make small motions with their hands while saying, "yalla! yalla!" (go ahead! go ahead! in Arabic)," says Dominique Szymczak, a police brigadier from Paris's 13th arrondissement.

He takes his Lebanese colleague into the middle of a busy intersection to demonstrate how traffic control is carried out Paris-style.

"It is better to make bold gestures and to stand with feet together and hand raised," says Szymczak, dressed in smart uniform, peaked cap and immaculate white gloves.

Szymczak is one of six officers who have been in Beirut for the past two weeks as part of a cooperation project between the French and Lebanese interior ministries to help improve the flow of traffic through Beirut's heavily congested streets.

He is so absorbed in his mission that he forgets his French. "Come on, come on," he yells at the drivers, waving his arms vigorously.

Now it is he who has become the source of amusement -- especially for the drivers who find his antics hilarious.

Despite Lebanon being a small country of only four million people, its accident rate is among the highest in the world, with around 500 motorists killed and more than 6,000 injured each year, according to police figures.

One police officer orders a motorist to move his vehicle out of the way because it is causing an obstruction.
"You must obey the rules from now on," he tells the driver, smiling broadly.

"Ok, ok," responds the driver, flailing his arms in protest but eventually complying with the order.

"Here we drive as if we are crazy. Everyone does what he wants. Hopefully in time the Lebanese will become more disciplined," says another driver, even as the hooting of cars stacked up behind him reaches a new crescendo.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide

Antiwar protesters chased away Israeli colonel Geva Rapp when he tried to address a pro-Israeli rally in central London. Unfortunately his timing was off as 50 metres down the road was a pro-Palestinian rally.... so much for the much vaunted Mosad security services. They need to check Facebook more often.

So farewell then... the Daily Star

Lebanon's English language newspaper, The Daily Star, has folded.

It does not come as a surprise, and I feel deep sadness for the journalists and production staff who turned up to work last week to find the doors locked.

The newspaper reached its peak in the years before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where it combined good local reporting—especially on the rise of worker's disputes—with some very fine arts writing from Jim Quilty.

Its managing editor Marc Sirois is a gutsy hard working journo who combined a healthy contempt for politicians with a deep respect for ordinary people (who he felt were getting a rough deal).

And although Sirois was a proud and unreconstructed "conservative", he was able to engage in a real way with ideas he did not agree with—even avowedly Marxists ones.

The Star lost its voice when it hired a cabal of neo-cons whose only interest was to peddle the US line on Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. This turn drove away its readership—who were far too well read to buy the gush pushed by bought-and-paid-for hacks like Micheal Young.

These pro-war liberals have destroyed everything they touched. The world eventually grew tired of their false moralism and sickening justification for blatant imperial conquest. They lost all credibility and destroyed the Star in the process.

In the end the paper became a mouthpiece for the US embassy in Beirut. It killed off any hope for a future when it abstained from reporting the 2006 war (it ran pictures instead).

When the whole world was desperately looking for answers and some independent reporting, the paper was muzzled. This was the worse form of journalistic suicide.

The best reports (in English) on that war came from the former journalists in the form of a blog.

I wish all the best to its staff, and thank them for all the great times we had.

***

Here's the IHT report:
The publisher of Lebanon's only English-language daily says a court order forced the newspaper to shut down over financial troubles.

Jamil Mroue says judicial authorities shut and sealed the Beirut offices of The Daily Star on January 14, less than two hours after the order.

The paper has since been out of print and its Web site hasn't been updated.

Mroue says he is appealing the decision and looking for new investors. The Star is a rare English-language daily in the Arab world independent of government control.

The paper, founded by Mroue's late father in 1952, has suffered from financial troubles for years. Mroue says the newspaper owed a Lebanese bank around $700,000.

Occupied for Gaza!

British universities lightening occupations in support of Gaza... read the blogs here!

Essex
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45143838671

Kings
kcloccupation.blogspot.com

LSE
lseoccupation.blogspot.com

Oxford
occupiedoxford.wordpress.com

Soas
soassolidarity4gaza.blogspot.com

Sussex
sussexoccupation.blogspot.com

Warwick
warwicksolidaritysitin.wordpress.com

Armed forces

By The Associated Press
Lebanon’s military is a volunteer force of about 60,000 members, and for decades has acted largely as an internal security force to keep the peace in a nation buffeted by conflict and instability. Here’s a look at its strength:

— Infantry: The army has 11 combat brigades, 1 Presidential Guard brigade, and five special regiments. Troops are mainly armed with US-made M-16 and Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles.

— Armor: 160 T-55 Russian-made tanks, 60 M-48 US-made battle tanks, about 1,000 M-113 tracked US-made armored personnel carriers and a number of wheeled armored carriers. The US pledges to deliver M-60 tanks in spring 2009.

— Artillery: 80 US-and French-made 155mm, 30 Russian-made 130mm, 200 Russian-made 122mm, 40 Russian-made multiple rocket launchers.

— Air Force: Four 1950s-era, British-made Hawker Hunters fighter jets, 24 UH-1H US-made helicopters and nine french-made Gazelle helicopters that are unarmed. Russia pledged in December to give Lebanon 10 MiG-29 fighter jets.

— Navy: About 30 patrol boats and landing crafts.

Meeting

The Palestinian and Lebanese Leftist Youth Groups

Invite you to a public meeting on

"Civil Rights for the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon"

With the member of the central committee of the Leftist Assembly for Change

Ghassan Makarem

Thursday January 15th, 2009

@ 7:00 PM

Jebran Khalil Jebran park, ESCWA, Beirut (Open Sit-in)


تدعوكم المنظمات الشبابية اليسارية اللبنانية والفلسطينية الى المشاركة في الاعتصام المفتوح لدعم اهالي غزة امام الاسكوا إلى لقاء حواري حول



"حقوق الإنسان المدنية للاجئين الفلسطينيين في لبنان"



مع عضو اللجنة المركزية في التجمع اليساري من اجل التغيير

غسّان مكارم

وذلك في تمام الساعة السابعة من مساء الخميس الموافق فيه 15/1/2009

حديقة جبران خليل جبران - الإسكوا، بيروت

Gathering/Sit-In, Saturday Jan 10 @ Sassine Square

Stop the war on Gaza

Both, The Leftist Assembly for Change and
Attac Lubnan (Lebanese Association for Alternative Globalization)
Invites you to a Sit-In and candlelight vigil
on Sassine Square, Saturday January 10th, 2009 @ 5:00 PM

“Shame on Egypt”

This just in from the Associated Press:

An estimated 50,000 people protested in the coastal city of Alexandria after Friday prayers, joining thousands of people across the Middle East rallying against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

The protesters, who thronged the streets in Alexandria, also berated Egypt for not lifting its border with the beleaguered Gaza Strip, chanting “Shame on Egypt,” and "Gaza excuse us.”

A police official in Cairo, who did not want to be identified because he was not allowed to speak to the media, said an estimated 50,000 people took part in the protest.

In the coastal city of El-Arish, the closest city to the border, protesters clashed with police during another protest. At least 10 people were slightly injured, said a police official.

***

And Earth Times:

Demonstrators in their thousands took to streets in the Arab world following Friday prayers to show their support for the people of the Gaza Strip and denounce the nearly two- week Israeli military offensive there.

Demonstrators in Doha, Baghdad and Amman carried Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in support of Gaza. Others decried the Egyptian government, accusing it of indirectly supporting Israel by keeping its border to the salient closed.

The largest demonstrations took place in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, where eyewitness accounts say about 200,000 demonstrators took to the streets, calling for "Death to America and Israel" and saying that "Islam would win."

In the southern port city of Aden, police had to fire warning shots and tear gas to disperse tens of thousands of protesters after they tried to access the diplomatic quarter.

In Amman, tens of thousands of demonstrators carried photos of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who expelled his country's Israeli ambassador.

Demonstrators gathered near the Israeli embassy, but were prevented by security forces from reaching the building. They demanded that the Israeli ambassador be kicked out of Amman.

The Friday demonstrations were called by prominent Egyptian-born, but Qatar-based, Islamic scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi.
He called for Friday to be a "day of support for Gaza" and has urged imams around the Muslim world to deliver their Friday sermons on the Gaza situation.

Qaradawi delivered the Friday prayer sermon in one of Doha's mosques in which he attacked US "double standards" and Washington's "involvement in the Zionist scheme."

Demonstrators then came out of the mosque onto the streets carrying Qatari and Palestinian flags and wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, or scarf.

In Baghdad, thousands of demonstrators marched in Baghdad and chanted slogans like "Where are the Arab leaders?" and carried placards reading "Gaza martyrs, you are going to heaven" and "The attack on Gaza is an attack on humanity."

The demonstrators then gathered at the Muslim Youth Association, where speeches were delivered and songs sung in support of Gaza.

Police tried to stop protests by 100,000 people in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, but eventually decided to let the protest continue. Proteters decried Egyptian policy.

In clashes in the Sinai peninsula city of El-Arish, eight demonstrators and multiple policemen were injured in clashes. More than a dozen demonstrators were arrested.

Also, about 3,000 people protested in Ramallah in the West Bank at the urging of Hamas. Protesters chanted "Hamas, Hamas," but, unlike previous demonstrations, did not wave Hamas flags. The protest was dispersed by authorities after about half an hour.

Demonstrations also took place in Bahrain and support marches were expected in the United Arab Emirates.

Friday action

Activities of the open sit-in in support of Gaza organized by Lebanese and Palestinian Leftist Youth Groups- Friday 9/1/2009

- Action in front of Egyptian Embassy, in support of the position of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who kciked out the Israeli Ambassador- 11 am

- Discussion on the boycott of the supporters of Israel, with the participation of Dr. Samah Idris, 5 pm, at the open sit-in across from ESCWA building, Riad El-Solh square

Street Meeting

The Plaestinian-Lebanese Leftist Youth organizations invite you to a meeting with:

Fawaz Traboulsi on "The War on Gaza: Resistance and Arab Regimes"

Wednesday January 7th 2009 at 6:00 PM,
Open Sit in, Downtown Beirut, Opposite ESCWA

Protest

In Response to the shameful and racist position of the European Union and in response to the "Surrender" initiative of Frensh president Nicholas Sarkozy

The Palestinian and Lebanese Leftist Youth organizations invites you to:

Popular Demonstration on the Office of the European Commission (Charles El Helou) Wednseday January 7th 2009

Gathering point at 2:30 in the location of the Sit-In (ESCWA GARDEN) then to head towards the European Commission office and demonstrating there at 3:00 PM

We say no for surrender, Stop the agression Now, and Full Support to the resistance