Saudi royals loot national wealth

Reports show that members of the Saudi royal family have appropriated billions of dollars of the country's national wealth, including oil revenues, for their personal use.

According a Reuters report, Saudi royals took some $2 billion of the national income in 1996, while they as well as others closely associated with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz, now spend $10 billion of the country's earnings annually for personal expenses.

Also, it has already been revealed that revenues from the sale of one million barrels of oil per day go to only five or six Saudi princes.

Documents show the better part of national spending in Saudi Arabia over the past two decades has been allocated to the royal family.

One such document reads that Saudi royals, who number in the thousands, are known to possess great wealth and spend lavishly.

Monthly salaries given to the members of the royal family range from $800 a month for the most junior members to $270,000 per month for senior royals, reports Reuters. The figures do not include the expenses for wedding ceremonies and building palaces.

The same report suggests that five percent of Saudi Arabia's $40 billion overall budget for 1996, that is $2 billion, was earmarked for salaries of the royal family.

This comes as many senior officials and royals in Saudi Arabia have gone into business, pocketing upwards of $10 billion dollars besides their regular salaries.

Some Saudi royals have even confiscated public land to sell to the Saudi government.

There are four main opposition groups in Saudi Arabia. There are the Hijaz tribes that have complained the Al-Saud family has even named the country after itself, excluding other tribes and groups from the government. Then there are the reformist technocrats and the youth, who would like to see a constitution as well as elections incorporated into the Saudi system of monarchy.

The thrid group that opposes the monarchy are mainly the reformist Salafis, and the fourth major group are the Shias, who mainly occupy the oil-rich eastern part of the country but are the most oppressed in the country.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/168648.html

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US : Europe Biased against Muslims

The annual report of US State Department on human rights has warned of increasing concern that discrimination against Muslims was on the rise in Europe.

The human rights report for 2009 cited Switzerland's ban on the construction of minarets on mosques enacted in November, as well as continued bans or restrictions on head scarves and burqa worn by Muslims in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The report said: "Discrimination against Muslims in Europe has been an increasing concern."

Germany and the Netherlands have prohibitions against teachers wearing head scarves or burqa while on the job, and France bans the wearing of the religious garb in public, the report said.

Western culture

The report particularly focused on problems in the Netherlands, where Muslims number about 850,000, saying that Muslims face societal resentment based on the belief that Islam is not compatible with Western values.

The report blamed right-wing politicians for playing a role in fuelling the resentment.

It said: "Major incidents of violence against Muslims were rare, but minor incidents, including intimidation, brawls, vandalism, and graffiti with abusive language, were common."

It added that the department's annual human rights report is mandated by Congress to allow MPs to factor the issue into decisions on allocated aid to foreign countries.

Among other countries, the report most critically faulted human rights practises in Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria and Russia.

China and Iran

The report criticised China for crackdowns on Uighurs and in Tibet, as well as increased restrictions to the internet and other forms of information and news.

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner said: "The Chinese government's human rights records remain poor and worsening in some areas, including increased cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities ... and increased detention and harassment of activists and public-interest lawyers."

The State Department also focused on Iran and the repression of demonstrators who took to the streets following June's presidential election. Dozens of people were killed and thousands were detained, some facing prosecution.

Posner said: "An already poor human rights situation (in Iran) rapidly deteriorated after the June elections. It is a place where we are continuing to see severe repression of dissent and are continuing to pay great attention."

Civilian casualties

The report also cited the increased toll conflicts in some countries inflicted on the civilian population in 2009, including in Afghanistan, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

There remain "significant human rights challenges" in Pakistan, the report said of the important US ally in the war on terrorism. The report said there were extrajudicial killings, torture, and disappearances.

The State Department cited reports the military carried out up to 400 killings during counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban in North West Frontier Province and the Swat Valley.

Source : Aljazeera



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Psychological trauma, nightmares stalk Gaza children

GAZA, 2 February 2010 (IRIN) - Mona al-Samouni, 12, is depressed and has nightmares about the day - just over a year ago - when she witnessed her parents and a number of relatives being shot by Israeli soldiers in their home in Zeitoun, southeast of Gaza City.

Like a number of other children who witnessed horrific events during last year’s 23-day Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, Mona has become increasingly withdrawn and silent - common ways of coping with tragedies, doctors say.

Statistics about Palestinians who lost their life during the military operation vary, but NGOs place the overall number of persons killed between 1,387 and 1,417. The Gaza authorities report 1,444 fatal casualties, whilst Israel provides a figure of 1,166, according to the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report.

The killing of Mona's family is one of the most notorious incidents of last year’s conflict in Gaza (see BBC slideshow) and was one of 11 incidents investigated by the UN Mission “in which Israeli forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcome” and in which “the facts indicate no justifiable military objective pursued by the attack”. It said Israeli forces “killed 23 members of the extended al-Samouni family” on that day.

“There is a significant deterioration in the psychological well-being of Palestinian children who are living in the Gaza Strip, especially after the recent war,” Ayesh Samour, director of the Psychiatric Hospital in Gaza, told IRIN.

According to a study by NGO Ard al-Insan in Gaza, 73 percent of Gaza children are still suffering from psychological and behavioural disorders, including psychological trauma, nightmares, involuntary urination, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Samour said children in Gaza were being denied a normal childhood because of the insecurity and instability in their environment. He said a culture of violence and death had pervaded their mentalities, making them angrier and more aggressive.

Basem Naim, the Hamas minister of health in Gaza, said hospitals and primary care facilities damaged during the Gaza conflict have not been rebuilt due to the blockade of the territory under which Israel bans the entry of construction materials, saying they could be used for military purposes.

"Health professionals in Gaza have been cut off from the outside world," Naim said.

Hussain Ashour, director of al-Shifa Hospital, the main hospital in Gaza City, said they lacked medical equipment and paediatricians.

Project

Save the Children Sweden and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on 25 January launched the Family Centres Project in Gaza.

“The project will ensure that the right to survival and development of children at risk… is ensured through the establishment of 20 Family Centres in different communities of the Gaza Strip,” Patricia Hoyos, director of Save the Children in Gaza, told IRIN.

“Its main role is to serve a wide population and to provide quality child protection, educational, health and psychosocial services to all those in need of support,” she said.


This Story was published by Irinnews.org


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Israel shoots an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner

Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire has been shot with a rubber[-coated metal] bullet by the Israeli military while taking part in a nonviolent civil rights protest organised by Palestinians and Israelis.

The incident took place on Friday 20 April, and Ms Maguire, famed for her work for reconcilition in Northern Ireland, has now returned home.

She won her Nobel Laureate for galvanizing popular demands for a just peace and opposition to both military and paramilitary acivities during 'the troubles'.

She said yesterday: “I was invited with my friend to attend a nonviolent conference in Bilin, a village outside Ramallah [in the West Bank], and to give a talk there, which I did. At the end of the conference, we were invited to participate in a nonviolent demonstration with some of the Palestinian members of parliament and Israeli peace activists and local villagers and international visitors.

“We walked along to try to walk up toward the separation wall, and it was a totally nonviolent protest. And we were viciously attacked by the Israeli military. They threw gas canisters into the peace walkers, and they also fired rubber-covered steel bullets."More



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The massacre of Jenine refugees camp

The massacre of Jenine refugees camp - 12.04.2002

The Battle of Jenin took place in April 2002 in Jenin's Palestinian refugee camp as part of Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale military operation conducted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the largest conducted in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War. The battle attracted widespread international attention because journalists, particularly in the UK, reported that a massacre of Palestinians had taken place during the fighting, and that hundreds, or even thousands, of bodies had been secretly buried in mass graves by the IDF.

The United Nations (UN) report said that the number of Palestinians killed was at least 52, 22 of whom were civilians, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). 23 Israeli soldiers were killed. A section of the camp was destroyed during the fighting.

An UNRWA administrated refugee camp near Jenin was entered by Israeli forces in early April 2002, an operation the IDF described as intending "to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure operating out of the P.A.-controlled areas". Over the next few days a battle took place between the IDF and Palestinians. According to the IDF, Israel chose not to bomb the spots of resistance using aircraft as it entered, but rather to take hold of the city using infantry, although there appears to have been a limited use of helicopters.

Read more here




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