Israeli forces abduct seven Palestinians

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Israeli forces have raided a number of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, arresting at least seven people.

The Palestinians were arrested after Israeli troops stormed their homes in the cities of Bethlehem, located about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of al-Quds (Jerusalem), Husan and al-Khalil (Hebron), located 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of al-Quds, early on Sunday.

Local residents said the abductees were taken to an unknown location.

Five of the detainees are reportedly accused of throwing stones at Israeli military forces.

A Palestinian human rights organization says Israel is holding 540 Palestinians without trial, showing a sharp increase in the number of Palestinian arrestees over the past six years.

The Ahrar Center for Prisoners Studies said on September 26 that the number of Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention is the highest since 2008.

According to the group, Israeli authorities have extended the detention of 70 prisoners in the past three weeks and transferred dozens more to administrative detention.

It says Israel has used the detention policy for scores of Palestinians arrested since June, following the disappearance and death of three Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.

Human rights groups often criticize Israeli prison authorities for rampant rights abuses in jails and reports of mysterious deaths of inmates in custody.

MP/HMV/SS

‘Takfiris false representation of Islam’

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United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has lashed out at Takfiri terrorist groups in the Middle East, saying the groups are a false representation of Islam.

“The acts of these terrorist organizations, which include indiscriminate killings, mass executions, kidnappings and intimidation of innocent women and children, are criminal acts, which are strongly condemned by the UAE,” the UAE foreign minister said, addressing the 69th annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Saturday.

The official further noted that such heinous crimes committed by the terrorist groups are against the teachings of Islam, saying the Takfiri groups are falsely carrying the flag of the religion.

“The UAE also denounces the brutal methods used by such groups in the name of Islam, as Islam rejects such crimes, which are inconsistent with the moderate approach of Islam and the principles of peaceful coexistence among all people,” he added.

He also called on the international community to act against the terrorist groups in the region, especially the ISIL terrorist group which is also known as the ISIS, warning that the Takfiri groups represent a danger to the whole world.

“With the increased incidence of terrorism and extremism in our region, most notably perpetrated by the ISIS, the international community must be aware that the threats posed by these terrorist and extremist groups are expanding beyond our region to threaten the rest of the civilized world,” he said, adding that “The UAE, therefore, calls upon the international community and Member States to cooperate in combating these terrorist groups and to take comprehensive measures to fight them through a clear, unified strategy.”

The Takfiri ISIL militants have seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria. They have carried out heinous crimes in the two countries including mass execution of people.

IA/MAM/KA

US policewoman shot in Ferguson

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An American police officer has been shot in Ferguson, Missouri, as anti-racial protests continue over the death of unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown.

Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department, said the incident occurred on Saturday night and that the officer was a woman.

The officer was shot in the arm and expected to recover.

The suspect fled the scene of the shooting near West Florissant Avenue and Stein Street.

People in Ferguson have been in the streets since the police killing of 18-year-old Brown on August 9.

Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson issued an apology to the family of Brown on Thursday.

“I want to say this to the Brown family. No one who has not experienced the loss of a child can understand what you are feeling,” Jackson said. “I am truly sorry for the loss of your son.”

However, Brown’s parents have rejected the Ferguson police chief’s apology.

His mother, Lesley McSpadden, demanded Jackson’s ouster, while his father, Michael Brown Sr., called for the arrest of white police officer Darren Wilson, who shot their son.

“An apology would be when Darren Wilson has handcuffs, processed and charged with murder,” Brown Sr. said.

Activists want prosecutors to charge Wilson with murder, although he has continued his job on paid administrative leave. Wilson has spoken with investigators and testified before a grand jury, who is still considering his case.

The US Department of Justice and the FBI are continuing to investigate the incident for civil rights violations.

In a speech on Saturday night, President Barack Obama urged black leaders and law enforcement to build trust over racial issues.

“Too many men of color feel targeted by law enforcement … and the mistrust scars the heart of our children,” he said. “It’s not the society our children deserve. Whether you’re black or white, you don’t want that from America.”

AGB/HRJ

US’s ISIL plans ‘to fail’ in Syria

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The United States’ plan to have the so-called moderate militants in Syria fight against the ISIL is doomed to failure as many of such militants share the same ideology as the Takfiri group, says an analyst, Press TV reports.

In a Friday article on Press TV website, Yusuf Fernandez pointed to the recent plan by the US government to train and arm 5,000 militants inside Syria in order to have them fight both the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the ISIL, and explained how the scheme is headed for failure.

“According to media, some experts of the US intelligence community doubt the effectiveness of this plan. They see it as a repeat of the same failed strategy launched by Washington to overthrow President Assad in these past three years,” Fernandez wrote.

“US President Barack Obama himself said in an interview with The New York Times in August that the idea that arming rebels would have made a difference had ‘always been a fantasy,’” he wrote.

“Therefore,… someone could wonder if the opposition armed groups, which have been unable to defeat the Syrian army when the conditions for the Syrian state were much worse, could now fight both the Syrian army and the ISIS and win. Is it not a greater fantasy?” Fernandez asked.

The analyst said the militants are “unwilling” to fight against the ISIL as they sympathize with the group ideologically.

“Recently, Riad Assaad, leader of the US-supported Free Syrian Army, announced that his group would not join the anti-ISIS coalition,” Fernandez wrote, using another acronym for the ISIL. He also referred to the recent signing of a non-aggression pact between militant groups in Syria and the Takfiri ISIL terrorists in a Damascus suburb.

“Despite all these evidences,” Fernandez said, “the US administration refuses to admit that all these ‘moderate’ groups and ISIS share the same extremist Wahhabi ideology and the Takfiri thought.”

The US and its Arab allies have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without formal authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate since earlier this week. A similar bombing campaign had started earlier against ISIL positions in Iraq.

Fernandez concluded by saying that Washington would have a more serious and effective choice if it really was interested in fighting terror in “Syria, Iraq and elsewhere: to cooperate with the Syrian army.”

The ISIL Takfiris control large areas of Syria’s east and north. They sent militants into Iraq in June, seizing large parts of the land straddling the border between Syria and Iraq.

HJL/KA

US protesters block Israeli ship

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Hundreds of American protesters, angered by Israel’s recent deadly assault on the Gaza Strip, gathered at the Port of Oakland to block an Israeli ship from unloading its cargo.

Workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) refused to unload the Zim Shanghai as about 200 activists picketed outside several of the port’s gates on Saturday morning.

The cargo ship is managed by Israel’s largest shipping firm, Zim Integrated Shipping Services.

About 50 police officers were also present at the port.

The protesters said they would continue with their “Block the Boat” campaign.

They said Israeli authorities must be held responsible for the deaths of more than 2,100 Palestinians during the recent 50-day war on Gaza.

“I think it was a big victory today for those who are opposed to the policies of Israel in Gaza,” said Steve Zeltzer, an organizer of the protest.

Similar actions were taken in August, when protesters blocked Israeli-owned ship Zim Piraeus for five days, forcing it to leave for Los Angeles with most of its cargo unloaded.

Longshore workers refused to cross picket lines to unload Zim Piraeus in August.

Protesters on Saturday said they hoped to achieve the same outcome.

“We ask the ILWU to carry on its long historical tradition of opposing injustice and honoring community picket lines. Let’s keep the pressure on and continue this tradition of labor blockades against oppression,” the “stop ZIM action committee” said in a statement.

HRJ/HRJ

Turkey police clash with Kurds

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Kurdish protesters in a southern Turkish town have clashed with police during a protest over attacks by the Takfiri ISIL militants on Syria’s Ain al-Arab, a town known as Kobani to the Kurds.

The protesters in Cizre, located near the Turkish border with Syria, threw petrol bombs and firecrackers at the security forces.

Police forces, in response, used water cannon and fired teargas to disperse the angry crowd.

The Takfiri ISIL terrorists have had the strategic border town under siege during the past several days.

The terror group has captured dozens of villages in the area. Its advance has sent over 144,000 Syrian refugees, mainly Kurds, to Turkey’s southern province of Sanilurfa since September 19, according to the UN refugee agency.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, meanwhile, said rockets fired by ISIL struck Kobani for the first time on Saturday since the Takfiris’ attack started on September 16. A dozen people were injured.

The development came as warplanes of the US-led coalition against ISIL in Syria hit militant positions near Ain al-Arab on the same day, as well as several other places.

The Takfiri ISIL militants have seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria. They have carried out heinous crimes in the two countries including mass execution of people.

Kurds accuse the Turkish government of lending support to the Takfiri terrorists operating in Syria, an allegation that Ankara denies.

Quoting Turkish government officials and media reports, The New York Times recently reported that Turkey is one of the biggest sources of foreign recruits for the ISIL.

MR/HSN/KA

Television Watching boosts obesity

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The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended television-free days to maintain a healthy weight.

The Institute has issued draft guidelines covering a range of health-related behaviors that aim to help people maintain a healthy weight and prevent excess weight gain.

The designed programs mainly centered on TV as well as other types of screen time, such as smartphones.

While health experts suggest walking to work and avoiding fizzy drinks, they believe that TV encourages both overeating and inactivity.

The guidance aims to help reduce risk of diseases associated with excess weight, especially obesity such as coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, type 2 diabetes, liver disease.

The NICE draft recommends reducing TV viewing with strategies such as TV-free days or setting a limit of no more than two hours a day in front of the TV screen.

Cutting down on calorific foods, such as fried food, biscuits, sweets and full-fat cheese as well as adopting a Mediterranean diet high in vegetables, fruit, beans and pulses, whole grains, fish and olive oil were also suggested in the draft guidance.

Earlier studies indicated that adopting a Mediterranean diet also long believed to protect individuals against cancer and depression.

“The general rule for maintaining a healthy weight is that energy intake through food and drink should not exceed energy output from daily activity,” said Prof Mike Kelly, director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE.

FGP/FGP

95% of Iran nuclear deal agreed: Lavrov

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Russia says the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers are going ahead on the right track and that both sides have agreed on “some 95 percent” of a final deal.

“Some 95 percent of the deal is agreed,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Bloomberg Television on the sidelines of the 69th annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Saturday.

The Russian top diplomat noted that the remaining five percent consists of “two or three very difficult issues” that to be settled in the coming months.

Iran and its negotiating partners – the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – are currently in talks to work out a final agreement aimed at ending the longstanding dispute over Tehran’s civilian nuclear energy program within a November 24 deadline.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described the talks as “serious, intense and very frank.”

“Time is short, but issues are not that difficult to resolve,” Zarif told reporters in New York on Friday. “Everything is very far and very close, it depends on how you look at it and what time of the day you start looking at this question. We are still apart, there are still quite a bit of differences on all these issues.”

Last November, the two sides clinched an interim nuclear accord, which took effect on January 20 and expired six months later. However, they agreed to extend their talks until November 24 as they remained split on a number of key issues.

DB/MAM/KA

Disobedience campaign in Hong Kong

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Activists have launched a civil-disobedience campaign in Hong Kong to demand “genuine” electoral choice in the city.

Hong Kong’s Occupy Central pro-democracy movement launched a massive sit-in early on Sunday, paralyzing parts of the city in protest at a decision by China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) to restrict electoral reforms in the territory.

Benny Tai, the leader of the movement, addressed about 60,000 students and protesters who gathered outside government headquarters in the city. The students and protesters converged outside the headquarters overnight into Sunday.

“The courage of the students and members of the public in their spontaneous decision to stay has touched many Hong Kong people,” the movement said.

Activists said they will continue with the occupation of the streets outside the government headquarters.

The campaign was launched after Beijing decided to rule out open nominations for Hong Kong’s next chief executive in 2017. The Chinese government has announced that the candidates would have first to be approved by a committee.

The decision has raised fears that candidates will be screened for loyalty to Beijing.

The activists and students say they are upset at the decision by the NPC limiting the candidates in the election of the city’s leader, known as the chief executive, to two or three.

The Chinese parliament, however, says nominating more candidates will cause a chaotic situation.

Hong Kong activists also insist that the region’s citizens must be able to elect the chief executive.

The election will be the first in which the chief executive is directly chosen by voters.

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. The financial hub has enjoyed substantial political autonomy since 1997, when its leadership returned to China after a century of British colonial rule.

IA/MAM/KA

Israel ‘benefitting from ISIL the most’

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The Israeli regime is benefitting the most from the crisis over the Takfiri ISIL operations in Iraq and Syria, says an analyst, Press TV reports.

“Individuals, groups, whole industries, even nations sometimes take advantage of crises and catastrophes,” wrote Kevin Barrett in an op-ed on Press TV website on Friday. “Big bankers, for example, love war because it forces governments to borrow vast sums of money at compound interest. Arms manufacturers also make huge profits.”

Barrett referred to the US bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria that purports to target the Takfiri ISIL group and said the crisis is “making certain people very rich.”

“According to LiveLeak.com the US government is spending 200 million dollars per week to bomb Iraq and Syria. If the overall cost of the anti-ISIL campaign reaches its $500 billion projection, LiveLeak estimates that the US would be spending $30 million dollars per member of ISIL,” he wrote.

The ISIL Takfiris control large areas of Syria’s east and north. They sent militants into Iraq in June, seizing large parts of the land straddling the border between Syria and Iraq.

The US and its Arab allies have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without formal authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate since earlier this week. A similar bombing campaign had started earlier against ISIL positions in Iraq.

Barrett said, “One group, above all, has proven its mastery at profiting from crisis: The Zionist movement and ‘Israel.’”

He said the Israeli regime is trying to turn the ‘ISIL crisis’ to its own advantage as the “Zionist-dominated mainstream media are using the barbarism of Islamic State (ISIL) to smear Islam as a whole.”

“Along with anti-Islam propaganda,” Barrett said, “the ‘ISIL crisis’ provides the Zionists with a sectarian vehicle for their attempt to divide-and-conquer the House of Islam and the people of the Middle East.”

He explained that the Israeli regime may even be planning a false flag attack on US soil and have it blamed by the media on the ISIL to provoke US military action “against Israel’s Mideast enemies.”

He said, however, that the people of world have awakened to the Israeli trick of “orchestrating problems” and hoped that the public awareness enough to prevent Israeli from benefitting from “epic-scale destruction.”

HJL/KA