Was Yasser Arafat murdered?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - (Opinion) August 30, 2012 - 12:00am

Barber Mohammed Hamad was in no doubt about the reasons for Yasser Arafat's death just under eight years ago. As he trimmed a customer's hair in his shop in the Amari refugee camp yesterday, he welcomed the news that French prosecutors have opened a murder investigation.

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Palestine central to Israel-Turkey relations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Common Ground News Service
by Faik Tunay - (Opinion) August 30, 2012 - 12:00am

Approximately two years have passed since a flotilla of six ships, including the Turkish Mavi Marmara, set sail carrying hundreds of activists protesting the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Before reaching their destination the ship was boarded by Israeli naval commandos and nine Turkish activists were killed in a confrontation on board.

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Swiss experts ready to help Arafat probe, but time running out
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Stephanie Nebehay - August 30, 2012 - 12:00am

(Reuters) - A Swiss institute has agreed to a request from the Palestinian Authority to exhume Yasser Arafat's body and determine whether he was poisoned, but time is running out for a credible scientific examination of his remains, it said on Thursday.

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Why did Hamas cancel participation in Iran's Non-Aligned Movement summit?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - (Opinion) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am

A fierce storm briefly raged in the Palestinian political arena over the weekend. A few hours after the Hamas government spokesman announced in Gaza on Saturday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had invited Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to attend the Non-Aligned Movement conference and that Haniyeh intended to go, officials close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that if Haniyeh goes to Tehran, Abbas would not.

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Corrie verdict exposes Israel's false narrative
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am

After nine years of injustice, the Israeli court's decision did not come as much of a surprise. For the parents of the 23-year-old American activist crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to stop it from demolishing a Palestinian home, there will be no justice from an Israeli court. But today, perhaps more than at any time since her death, Rachel Corrie continues to fight the injustice that Palestinians face under occupation.

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French probe deepens confusion over Arafat death
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Josef Federman - August 29, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — A French murder probe into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat prompted an Israeli denial of responsibility on Wednesday and renewed doubts that Palestinians would stick to a halfhearted pledge to exhume Arafat's body. Arafat's death eight years ago in a French hospital has remained a long-running mystery for many, driven by murky but persistent conspiracy theories that he had cancer, AIDS or was poisoned.

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Egypt leader said to reach out to Sinai radicals
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Maggie Michael - August 29, 2012 - 12:00am

Egypt's Islamist president is using former jihadists to mediate with radical Islamists in Sinai, trying to ensure a halt in militant attacks in return for a stop in a military offensive in the lawless peninsula, participants in the talks say.

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Egypt broadens Sinai campaign against militants
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Marwa Awad - August 29, 2012 - 12:00am

Egypt's military said on Wednesday it would broaden its offensive against militants in the Sinai Peninsula, a campaign that has raised concerns in Israel about the movement of heavy armor into the area near its border. After militants attacked and killed 16 border guards on Aug. 5, Egypt launched an operation using the army and police to raid militant hideouts, arrest suspects and seize weapons, including rockets and other arms, that are rife in the area.

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The U.K. extreme right is undecided on who to hate: Jews or Muslims?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am

The battle for leadership of Britain's far-right took a bizarre twist this month when the British National Party, long the most prominent racist group in British politics, issued a detailed report accusing their main rivals, the English Defense League, of being the “useful idiots” of “neo-cons” and “ultra-Zionists.”

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Court Rules Israel Wasn’t at Fault in U.S. Activist’s Death
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Jodi Rudoren, Danielle Ziri - August 28, 2012 - 12:00am

Rachel Corrie, the young American woman who was run over by a military bulldozer in 2003 as she protested housing demolitions in the Gaza Strip. The lengthy verdict in the civil case, read to a courtroom packed with supporters of Ms. Corrie’s family here, called the death an accident that occurred during “a military activity meant to prevent terrorist activity.”

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