Date
Type

August 11th

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian Poet, Is Dead
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
August 11, 2008 - 4:48pm

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Mahmoud Darwish, whose prose gave voice to the Palestinian experience of exile, occupation and infighting, died Saturday in Houston. He was 67. The preeminent Palestinian poet, whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages and has won numerous international awards, died from complications after open heart surgery at a Houston hospital, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for the Palestinian presidency.

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Pro-peace West Bank Radio Station Closes Down Due To Lack Of Funding
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
August 11, 2008 - 4:46pm

A West Bank radio station that sought to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to the tune of easy-listening rock music has gone of the air because of a lack of funding. RAM-FM had been broadcasting English-language talk shows and artists like Michael Bolton and Air Supply from a studio in the town of Ramallah since last year. An official from the station confirmed Monday it went off the air last week. In a statement, the station said it was unable to generate sufficient advertising revenues to sustain its ongoing operation.

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Hamas Blames Egypt For Deaths Of 8 Palestinians In Border Tunnels
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
August 11, 2008 - 4:43pm

Hamas blamed Egypt on Monday for the deaths of eight Palestinians, claiming it used water, gas and explosives to seal a network of tunnels under its border with the Gaza Strip. Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghsain criticized Egypt's anti-smuggling tactics as dangerous. Three Palestinians were crushed to death on Monday when their tunnel under the border collapsed, medics said. Five others suffocated on Aug 1.

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Lebanon’s Palestinian Ghetto Redesigned
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Le Monde Diplomatique
by Don Duncan - (Special Report) August 11, 2008 - 4:41pm

Lebanon proposes to rebuild Nahr al-Bared, the Palestinian city-camp near Tripoli pulverised in a long siege last year in an attempt to kill Sunni militants holed up there. The new, as yet only imagined, town is intended to preserve the memories of the old, yet return the area to the control of Lebanon.

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Guide: Gaza Under Blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bbc News
by Heather Sharp - (Analysis) August 11, 2008 - 4:38pm

  The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade since the militant group Hamas seized control in June 2007. What gets in and out of Gaza, what has been the impact of the restrictions, and what has changed since the truce between Israel and Hamas in June 2008? OVERVIEW For the past year, Gaza's 1.5m people have been relying on, on average, less than a fifth of the volume of imported supplies they received in December 2005. Some weeks significantly less than that has arrived.  

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Palestinians Doubt Two-state Deal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bbc News
August 11, 2008 - 4:26pm

Israel's strategy in negotiations could force the Palestinians to abandon their goal of a two-state solution, a top Palestinian negotiator says. Ahmed Qurei says they may instead seek a binational solution, that is a single state for Israelis and Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel fears such a this would spell the end of the Jewish majority state. Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. Its negotiators have always resisted full withdrawal from them.

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Darwish, Poet Of The Palestinian Cause, Dies After Surgery
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Mohammed Assadi - August 11, 2008 - 4:23pm

Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry encapsulated the Palestinian cause, is to get the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank following his death this weekend – an honour only previously accorded to the PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Tributes for Darwish poured in yesterday, a day after he died, at the age of 67, from complications following heart surgery in a hospital in Houston, Texas.

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August 10th

Mahmoud Darwish, respected Palestinian poet, dies after complications from heart surgery at the age of 67, and will be honored with an official funeral (1) (7). The BBC looks at life on the ground in blockaded Gaza (3). Eight Palestinians are killed as an underground smuggling tunnel collapses near the Egypt-Gaza border (5). Israel’s recent decision to build 447 new settler homes around Jerusalem draws criticism from the French EU Presidency (9). Three articles from Bitterlemons.org examine different scenarios for the Annapolis process (10) (11) (12).

August 8th

Eu Deeply Concerned By Decision To Build New Israeli Settlements -- France
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Kuwait News Agency (kuna)
August 8, 2008 - 3:50pm

The French Presidency of the European Union said Friday that the 27-member EU was "deeply concerned" by an Israeli decision to approve the construction of more illegal settlements in defiance of agreements and calls not to do so. "The Presidency of the European Union Council is deeply concerned by the decision of Israeli authorities to approve the construction of 400 housing units in the Neve Yacov colony and to issue tenders for 286 units in Beitar Illit and 130 units in Har Homa," a statement issued in Paris said.

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Israel Opens West Bank Roadblock For Trucks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
August 8, 2008 - 3:49pm

Israel, under international pressure to ease curbs on Palestinian movement, opened a roadblock in the occupied West Bank to commercial traffic on Thursday. The Israeli army said the checkpoint between the city of Hebron and a commercial crossing point into Israel would be open for trucks for six hours a day. Private vehicles remain banned. Residents said the measure reduces travel time between Hebron and the Tarqumiya crossing to less than 20 minutes from about 45.

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