Report: Bulgaria expected to blame Hezbollah, Iran for Burgas bombing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - February 5, 2013 - 1:00am The Bulgarian government is expected to blame Hezbollah and its ally Iran for the terrorist attack last July that killed five Israeli tourists. The investigative report on the bombing in the Black Sea resort city of Burgas is likely to be released on Tuesday. Citing U.S. and Middle East officials, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Bulgaria is expected to announce that Hezbollah carried out the attack and that Tehran was involved in the operation. |
Bright spot in Palestinian economy: more women opening businesses
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Christa Case Bryant - February 4, 2013 - 1:00am It's a rainy day in the West Bank village of Ajoul, and when the kids get out of school a few dart into Myassar Issa's mini-market to buy sweets before running home up the muddy hills leading out of the valley. |
Mashaal says his reported 'two-state' comments are false
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency February 5, 2013 - 1:00am Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal told Jordanian state TV on Saturday that media reports suggesting he accepts the two-state solution are false. Last week, the Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq reported that Mashaal asked Jordan's King Abdullah to inform US President Barack Obama that Hamas will accept two states for Israel and Palestine. But Mashaal tried to dampen the comments in a TV interview, saying the movement would not "all of a sudden accept a Palestinian state with interim borders." |
Saudi Arabia opens housing project in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency February 5, 2013 - 1:00am A Saudi delegation on Monday opened the biggest housing project in the Gaza Strip and pledged further funding to support Palestinian refugees. Saudi Arabia financed the 752-home neighborhood in Rafah for families whose homes were destroyed by the Israeli army. It features four schools, a market, a mosque, a clinic and a community center. |
Israeli army demolishes Palestinian protest camp out of its jurisdiction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua February 5, 2013 - 1:00am The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) demolished a Palestinian protest camp over the weekend although it was out of its jurisdiction, the Ha'aretz daily reported Monday. Israeli security forces on Saturday evacuated the camp in the Burin village near Nablus in the West Bank, where 150 Palestinian activists protested against Israel's expansion of its settlements. Clashes erupted following the eviction between the Palestinian activists, security forces and settlers living nearby. |
Israeli airstrike complicates Syria's crisis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua February 5, 2013 - 1:00am Israel's recent airstrike on a Syrian military research center has complicated the Syria crisis that has been protracted for nearly two years with no signs of an end in sight. On Monday, Syrian Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij said Israel launched the Wednesday airstrike in cooperation with armed Syrian rebels fighting government forces on the ground. |
In Israel raid, Syria options severely constrained
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Zeina Karam - February 4, 2013 - 1:00am Syria's defense minister signaled Monday that his country won't hit back at Israel over an airstrike inside Syria, claiming the Israeli raid was actually in retaliation for his regime's offensive against rebels he called "tools" of the Jewish state. |
Herzog, Fayyad meet, warn of PA collapse
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post February 5, 2013 - 1:00am Labor MK Isaac Herzog met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah on Monday and warned that the collapse of the PA would be "catastrophic" for Israel. Fayyad told Herzog that Israel's continual withholding of tax revenues to the PA and the failure of donor states to transfer promised aid to the West Bank had the Palestinian Authority on the brink of collapse. |
Dissenters on Panel Blast Study Claiming Palestinian Textbooks Don't Vilify Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Jeffay - February 4, 2013 - 1:00am Controversy quickly engulfed a new study that said Palestinian textbooks do not incite hatred for Jews with Israel blasting the report — with some members of the report’s advisory panel claiming they were blindsided by its release. |