Gaza kids struggle to leave their world of silence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Osama Radi - July 27, 2010 - 12:00am

The four-year-old Gaza boy Noor stuttered when he tried to utter the word "baba". A deaf specialist, sitting next to him, was teaching him to say the easy word, hoping to help the boy leave the world of silence. Noor and another eight hearing-impaired children were in one room with their specialist mentor who produced several musical sounds and slowly moved her tongue and lips to teach them the correct pronunciation of the early childhood expressions.

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With blockade's easing, some Gaza factories revive
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Karin Laub - July 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Some of the hundreds of Gaza factories idled by Israel's blockade are cranking up rusty machines to can tomatoes, mix concrete and press pills again now that Israel is allowing in raw materials for the first time in three years. But Israel's recent easing of the closure appears unlikely to get Gaza's battered economy back on its feet.

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Cheaper Internet: Next Stop, ‘Palestine’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Benjamin Joffe-Walt - July 18, 2010 - 12:00am

[Jerusalem] Internet is about to get cheaper for Palestinains. Within weeks, the Palestinian Authority will be taking action which is expected to end the virtual monopoly held by the Palestinian Telecommunication Group PalTel over Internet services in its territory. Palestinian Authority Minister of Telecom and Information Mashhour Abu Daka told The Media Line he will be issuing certificates shortly for telecommunications companies wishing to provide Internet services to the Palestinian market.

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Home demolition leaves mother, four children homeless
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - July 13, 2010 - 12:00am

Dalal Rajabi, a mother of four children, came home Tuesday to find that her modest two-room house that has sheltered her family for two years had been razed. A team of Jerusalem municipal workers protected by a large police force came to the Rajabis' 200-square-foot home in Beit Hanina, an East Jerusalem Arab neighborhood, broke down the main door, took the furniture out and proceeded to demolish it. Dalal Rajabi was not home at the time. She had left the house to take her son to see a doctor when the workers and a bulldozer arrived.

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Most Palestinians believe proximity talks to fail: poll
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
July 12, 2010 - 12:00am

Most Palestinians believe the U.S. -led indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) would fail, a poll showed on Monday. The survey, conducted by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO), said 53 percent of the surveyed expected the negotiations that started in May would fail, 37 percent said the proximity talks would be successful and 10 percent refused to answer the question.

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Palestinians in Syria have to be taught about 'home'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Phil Sands - July 11, 2010 - 12:00am

A year before Srur Ali’s father died, he gave his son a bundle of papers, wrapped in a pillowcase and a plastic bag, with instructions that they were a priceless inheritance and must never be lost. Aged 15 at the time, Srur, a Palestinian refugee living in Syria, gave little thought to the contents but promised to protect them. For the next half-century the documents were hidden away.

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Palestinian village to be encircled by barrier
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Karin Laub - July 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel has started construction on a new section of its West Bank separation barrier that Palestinian residents say could sound a death knell for their hamlet. The barrier, running much of the length of the West Bank, has already disrupted lives in many Palestinian towns and villages in its path. But it threatens to outright smother Walajeh: The community of about 2,000 on the southwest edge of Jerusalem is to be completely encircled by a fence cutting it off from most of its open land, according to an Israeli Defense Ministry map.

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Gaza's smuggling-tunnel millionaire
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Jon Donnison - July 10, 2010 - 12:00am

While many Gazans live in poverty, one Gazan refugee has used the illegal network of tunnels which enable goods to be smuggled into Gaza to build a millionaire's empire. Maybe, like most people in Gaza, I had been watching a little bit too much of the World Cup. But sitting on Abu Nafez's lush sprinkler-assisted lawn outside his palatial home in the southern Gaza Strip, I kept thinking it was a bit like meeting a Premiership footballer.

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Netanyahu and Obama should do some reading
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) July 9, 2010 - 12:00am

It was my intention while cruising the Danube River — which is disappointingly muddy and not blue as Mozart claimed — for two weeks last month aboard a comfortable Viking boat with my wife that my attention would be mainly focused on the Fifa World Cup and the beautiful countryside and its rich history.

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About 4 mln Palestinians live in West Bank, Gaza Strip: report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
July 9, 2010 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The number of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is estimated at 4.05 million, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said Thursday. About 2.51 million of the population lives in the West Bank and 1.54 million in the Gaza Strip, PCBS said in a report issued ahead of the World Population Day which falls on July 11, adding there are 2.06 million males and 1.99 million females. The city of Hebron is the highest populated area in the West Bank, as the report said some 600,000 people live there.

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