Do you know who Robert Fisk is?

Robert Fisk is a famous British journalist, who was born on 12 July 1946 in Maidstone, Kent. Robert got his B.A in English Literature from “Lancaster University” in 1968 and his PhD in Political Science from “Trinity College” in 1985.

He first worked on the Sunday Express diary column then; he decided to move to The Times as Belfast correspondent .Now, he is working as a correspondent in The Independent, his first report in The Independent was published on 28 April 1989. During his working in The Independent, he interviewed “Osama bin Laden” three times between 1994 and 1997.

He spent more than 30 years living in and reporting from the region.Fisk has been living in Beirut since 1976, and was present in Beirut throughout the Lebanese civil war. He was one of the first journalists to visit the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

Fisk won a lot of awards the last one was in July, 2008, when Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate. The New York Times described Fisk as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain".

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk

Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask

By: Robert Fisk January 7, 2009

The writer is expressing his sympathy with the latest massacre in the history when Israel killed forty civilian refugees in a United Nation School and if George Bush had supported an immediate ceasefire earlier, those forty civilian would be alive. If we reviewed Israel history we will not surprised.

For sure we all still remember the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the 17,500 dead, most of them were children and women; Sabra-Chatila massacre when Israel killed 1700 Palestinian civilian; Qana massacre when 106 Lebanese refugees most of them were children at UN base in 1996; the massacre of Marahin refugees and bombardment of 1000 civilian during 1996 invasion. What happened was not only shameful but also a disgrace and a war crime.

Many of the West leaders, presidents, prime ministers, and journalists will keep lie; that Israel is avoiding killing civilians, Israeli deserve security and Hamas broke the truce.

In fact, Israel broke it first, on November 4th and 17th when six and four Palestinians were killed respectively.
Twenty Israeli dead in 10 years while 600 Palestinian dead in a week and the west will keep asking, why they hate us? But for sure they know the answer.

Reference:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html

Bring in the peacekeeper? It is not as easy as it sound

By Robert Fisk, The Independent, January 6, 2009

The writer in his article is trying to express his point of view for the current Gaza assault and if the Palestinians will succeed this time to internationalize their conflict with Israelis. However Yasser Arafat begged for UN force to protect the Palestinians before and after Oslo agreement, always the Israelis refused and succeeded to disable decisions.

Mr. fisk went deeply in his article through the history of the UN in the conflict since 1940s up to 2006 when Israeli - Hizbllah war ended with the Security Council decision to send a large number of UN force to South Lebanon.

Now the question raised, is the Palestinians will succeed to have UN force in the region?
Even if the answer is yes, which UN border will the UN force use? the writer raised a very good question, is it the 1940s, the pr-1967 or the post-1967 border.

Most likely it will be between Israeli and Hamas, so Gaza will be the easy option and the Palestinians will ask for the same action on the West Bank – Israeli border.

Reference:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-bring-in-the-peacekeepers-its-not-as-easy-as-it-sounds-1228137.html

The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act

By Robert Fisk, The Independent, January 1, 2009

Robert Fisk criticized the Arab presidents, kings and princes reactions to the constant bloodbaths in the Middle East in general and to the slaughter in Gaza strip in particular.

The writer shows the wide gap between the Arab regimes and their citizens, the regimes are deaf while the people are shutting in the streets during demonstrations.
The example was very clear when the Egyptians begged the president to open Rafah gate, break off the diplomatic relations with Israel and even went further hopping to send weapons to Hamas.

The Egyptian regime was not listening or reacting with anger of the people shouting in the streets against Israel and latter on turned to be against the regime.

The writer considers the weakness and powerless in Egyptian reactions and decisions are due to the bad economy situation, as the Egyptian economy is depending on the west foundations and subventions. It is also due to the corruption that has invaded the Egyptian sectors.
Mr. Fisk supported his point of view by two articles from Egyptian newspapers, Al-Masry Al-youm and Al-Dastour.

Reference:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-rotten-state-of-egypt-is-too-powerless-and-corrupt-to-act-1220048.html

Arab Stars Cancelled Their New Year Celebrations

TV stations cancelled the celebrations planned to take place in the New Year. The Egyptian and Arab artists also cancelled their sharing in those events, solidarity with the Palestinian people suffering from the Israeli aggression.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Information has decided to cancel Nile TV Channel live celebration pre-planned to take place on the eve of the first day of the New Year. This was done to express their feeling for the Palestinian people and to support their stand facing the Israeli aggression. The Egyptians were not alone in this, but some Arab singers also cancelled their concerts. “Hakim”, “Kazem El Saher” and “Mohamed Mounir” canceled their New Year concerts to express their protest for what is happening in Gaza.

On the other hand, “Amr Diab” decided to donate with the four million pounds that he earned from his “Dubai” concert in the New Year for the Palestinian people.
Personally, I’m appreciating his attitude and reaction with the Palestinian; however an official announcement for receiving his donation is expected.

Gaza Assault

For the fifth day, December 31, 2008 Israeli warplanes continued to pound the Gaza strip and according to Israeli leaders, it is just the start. The assault aimed to eliminate the Hamas movement and to stop firing rockets inside Israel. Up till now, Israel had killed 397 of the Palestinians and over 2000 Palestinian were injured.

Hamas continued firing rockets against the Israeli soldiers and civilians. As a result for the firing about 250 rockets from Gaza in the past four days, only four Israelis were killed and twenty four Israelis were injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that, the attack on Gaza still the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet. Additionally, Israel amassed tanks and thousands of troops along the Gaza border are ready for ground operations.

According to Hamas, 180 0f its members were killed, while the U.N agency in Gaza estimated that among the civilian casualties were 62 women and children. As the Islamist Hamas group said “Israel is targeting everything in Gaza”.

Palestinian analyst says “Israel is repeating the same mistake of Lebanon in Gaza and as obvious that Israel didn’t learn anything from its failure in 2006”.

Reference:

Abdallah, Sana. “Israel Continues Assault on Gaza, Death Toll Rises.”Middle East Times 30 Dec.2008.

Internet Outage

New cut in the internet cables for the second time in 2008. On Friday the 19th of December 2008, most of the people opened their own computers and started to serve the web but they couldn’t, so they thought that it was a temporary problem or slow down in the service due to routine maintenance. Unfortunately, the whole country was internet less on Friday morning. People were seeking to know the reason for the internet less in Egypt, and the Ministry of Communications declared that three internet cables were cut off. Those cables connect Egypt to Europe, and the cause of the cut was not immediately known. The Ministry guaranteed that the internet will be back by 80 percent on Sunday.

Fortunately, the cut of the internet cables happened during the weekend, where most of the governmental offices, banks, and stock exchange in Egypt are not working during the weekend. On the other hand, travel agents were seriously affected by this cut. The travelling agents had to issue tickets manually. The internet cafes were empty. Also, student faced problem in doing their assignments or search on the web. During the problem the traditional fax machines were suddenly back.

Reference:

Leila, Reem."Internet-less again." Al-Ahram weekly 25-31 Dec. 2008 : 3.

The Possible Reasons for Internet Cut

Specialists suggested that the latest internet cables break is either due to seismic activity that was reported near Malta or the 5.9 magnitude quake that was reported by the U.S Geological survey. If the cables cut were happened due to an anchor so the cables should have been removed from its original location. The same problem happened early in Egypt this year when the undersea cables were also damaged in January, causing outages in the Mideast and India. Professionals and technicians started fixing the internet cables immediately to solve the problem quickly.

Do you know what the Narcotics Anonymous is?

Narcotics Anonymous is a worldwide organization that was established to help drug addicts to recover. This organization started in the U.S as a small movement, and then it became one of the largest organizations to help addicted people. At the beginning, the organization grew very slowly because it was not well known. Now, NA is well established in most of the countries in Western Europe, Australia, and Middle East. In order for the NA to be able to reach most of the addicts, it makes the organization books and pamphlets available in 34 languages.

Going deeper into the “NA”, it is non-profitable organization for drug addicts and “NA” as a whole has no opinion on outside issues, including prescribed medications. There are no restrictions in the membership about gender, age, religion, and social class; also, it’s for free. The “NA” mission is to provide an environment in which addicts can help one another to recover and to find a new way to live by sharing their own experiences. Finally, it is worth mention that the “NA” is self-supporting and it is not accepting any financial support or charity.

The Shock

Most of the people all over the world are against "George W. Bush" strategies in Iraq and Middle East. This did not give the right for the Iraqi journalist “Muntadar Al-Zaidi” to throw “Bush” with his shoes during a press conference in Baghdad, because this is not the way to express his anger and the Iraqis depression from the destruction happened in Iraq.

People differed in their views on this subject between the supporters and opposition. In my opinion throwing "Bush" with the shoes will never change anything and the situation will remain as it is, the only thing added is the image of the uncivilized Arab.

One of the comments that I read supporting what “Al-Zaidi” did was written by the famous American journalist “Dave Lindorff". He said that what the Iraqi Journalist did should have been done by the White House Press corps several years ago also; the press corps should stop treating presidents like royalty. “Lindorff” is suggesting inviting “Al-Zaidi” to teach classes about press conference journalism technique in Mass communication faculties at USA.