Assad skips questions about Russian S-300 missile delivery to Syria

In an interview on Hezbollah-affiliated TV station, embattled regime leader seemed to contradict previous claim that Syria had taken delivery of Russian air defense systems.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a television interview broadcast Thursday that Russia has fulfilled some of its weapons contracts recently, but was vague on whether this included advanced S-300 air defense systems

President Bashar Assad

President Bashar Assad speaking during an interview on Syrian state television. – Photo: AP

Assad’s actual comments differed from excerpts the TV station conducting the interview had sent to reporters in a text message on Thursday morning.

In that message, the Al-Manar station owned by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah quoted Assad as saying Syria had already received a first shipment of such missiles. Continue Reading »

Busted: Hezbollah cell nabbed and weapon cache confiscated in Nigeria

Nigerian state security forces have discovered & arrested a Hezbollah terror cell and recovered their store of weapon and explosives.

By Now News staff

 

Nigeria’s security services said Thursday they had discovered a home in the northern city of Kano where Lebanese nationals had stored weapons intended to attack Israeli and Western targets in Nigeria.

The military said the weapons carefully stored in sawdust - Photo AFP

The military said the weapons carefully stored in sawdust – Photo: AFP

The Kano state intelligence chief, Bassey Etang, and a separate military statement described the compound as hosting a “terrorist cell” tied to the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.

No evidence was provided linking the home to the Lebanese group.

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Prominent Pakistani Muslim author insists: Israel is no apartheid state

Outspoken female Muslim doctor & author who’s visiting Israel for the 1st time, says Israel is the only country in the region that allows a woman to speak freely.

By Israel Today Staff

 

Israel does not fit the description of an apartheid state, as so many of its antagonists charge, and in fact is by far the most tolerant country in the region, declared a prominent Muslim author and doctor last week in Jerusalem.

Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a  prominent Pakistani Muslim author & doctor

Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a prominent Pakistani Muslim author & doctor

Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a British-born Pakistani Muslim who today lives in New York, is a specialist in sleeping disorders, and an outspoken critic of radical Islam and the lies its perpetrates against Israel and the West. Continue Reading »

Israel’s desalination technology is making water surplus possible

The new plant and several others along Israel’s coast  became a game-changing solution to the challenges of Israel’s famously fickle rainfall.

 

Water from the Mediterranean Sea rushes through pipes en route to being filtered for use across Israel in a process called desalination, which could soon account for 80 percent of the country's potable water. (Ben Sales/JTA)

Water from the Mediterranean Sea rushes through pipes en route to being filtered for use across Israel in a process called desalination, which could soon account for 80 percent of the country’s potable water. Photo: Ben Sales/JTA

Drawn from deep in the Mediterranean Sea, the water has flowed through pipelines reaching almost 4,000 feet off of Israel’s coast and, once in Israeli soil, buried almost 50 feet underground. Continue Reading »

Lapid relays ‘revolutionary’ plan for lower housing prices

 

Israel’s Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s plan calls for the construction of 25,000 new residential units annually, and for first time, greater Tel Aviv & central Israel would be home for majority of the building.

Zeev Klein

 

 

Finance Minister Yair Lapid unveiled on Wednesday his plan to reduce housing prices in Israel, calling for 25,000 new residential units to be built annually.

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Argentinian prosecutor alleges Tehran assembled South American terrorist network

The prosecutor said Iran organized a 1982 seminar in Tehran that was attended by 380 religious men from 70 countries. The meeting was a turning point in the regime’s method of exporting the revolution, which included the use of violence & terrorism.

By JTA

 

 

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The Argentinian prosecutor in the AMIA Jewish center bombing case accused Iran of  building clandestine intelligence stations in South American countries from which to launch terror attacks.

Remains of the AMIA after the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina - Photo:  Wikipedia commons

Remains of the AMIA after the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina – Photo: Wikipedia commons

Prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s office made the accusations in a 502-page indictment released Wednesday that blames Iranian officials for the July 18, 1994 attack on the AMIA center, which killed 85 and injured hundreds.

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Canadian Protestants Boycotts 3 Israeli Companies

Canada’s Protestant church approves banning of settlement products.

By JTA

 

 

 

Canada’s largest Protestant church targeted three Israeli companies with operations in Jewish settlements for economic sanctions and boycott.

Protester calling for a boycott of Israel - Photo: REUTERS

Protester calling for a boycott of Israel – Photo: REUTERS

Last week, the United Church of Canada’s governing General Council approved the start of a boycott campaign, encouraging “economic action” against Keter Plastic, SodaStream and Ahava.

The move is an outgrowth of the church’s decision last year to boycott products exported by settlements on the West Bank and in eastern Jerusalem. At the time, the church called the settlements the “principal obstacle to peace in the region.”

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WARNING: Palestinian Coke not kosher

 

 

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate warns public against drinking Coca-Cola bottled without Kosher supervision in PA.

Businesses asked to avoid selling the cola as not to get public used to ‘purchasing products without kosher mark’.

By Itzchak Tessler

 

 

The Chief Rabbinate released an urgent statement this week, warning the Israeli public against Coca-Cola manufactured in the West Bank town of Beitunia, near Ramallah, which is marketed alongside the strictly kosher beverage that has been manufactured in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak for the past decades.

Coca-Cola from Ramallah and Jordan - IsraelandStuff/PP

Coca-Cola from Ramallah and Jordan – IsraelandStuff/PP

According to the statement, written by Rabbi Yaakov Sabag, director of the Chief Rabbinates Kashrut Department, and Rabbi Rafi Yochai, head of the Kashrut Fraud Division, “We have recently discovered the marketing of a four-pack Coca-Cola, in which each bottle carries a caption in Arabic with no kashrut mark. Continue Reading »

Hezbollah exiles Hamas members & officials saying, ‘leave Lebanon immediately’

Lebanese Shiite terrorist movement’s decision to oust Hamas from Lebanon comes as response to Palestinian’s role in fighting against Assad’s rule in Syria.

By Middle East Online staff

 

BEIRUT – The powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah called on Hamas members and officials who are still present in Lebanon to leave the country ‘immediately and within hours.’ The decision comes as a response to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s role in the ongoing war in Syria against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

No longer friends, Hamas' Meshaal & Hezbollah's Nasrallah - Photo PIC

No longer friends, Hamas’ Mashaal & Hezbollah’s Nasrallah – Photo PIC

Media sources close to the Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah in Lebanon said a Hezbollah senior security official informed Hamas representative in Lebanon, Ali Baraka, that all of those related to Hamas on the Lebanese territory became have become unwelcome.

Continue Reading »

Bahrain to seek Hezbollah added to Gulf States’ terror list

Not only are Gulf States consider placing Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Gulf terror blacklist, Iranian spy networks running amuck in Gulf states to be addressed.

By The Daily Star staff

 

KUWAIT CITY: Gulf Arab states will consider placing Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is openly involved in the Syrian conflict, on its terror list, Al-Rai daily quoted highly placed diplomats on Thursday as saying.

Hezbollah rally in Lebanon (archive) Photo Reuters

Hezbollah rally in Lebanon – Photo: Reuters

Bahrain will ask foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to discuss “placing Hezbollah on the terror list” at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the newspaper said.

Bahrain currently holds the GCC’s rotating presidency. Continue Reading »

Palestinian leader under int’l pressure to enter peace-talks

Aides reveal Mahmoud Abbas is torn between alienating Washington & Western countries or public backlash over his dropping settlement freeze as a precondition to begin negotiating.

Associated Press

 

The Palestinian president has told advisers that as the US tries to restart Mideast peace talks, he is under intense international pressure to return to negotiations with Israel and drop demands for a Jewish settlement freeze in the West Bank, officials said Wednesday.

Kerry, Abbas in Ramallah – Photo: AFP

In a closed meeting, Mahmoud Abbas lamented his difficult choice: Rebuff the Americans and alienate Washington, or cave in and face an uproar at home. Continue Reading »

Norwegian daily prints Anti-Semitic cartoon of gory circumcision

‘Cartoon crossed all lines of decency & is dripping with hate & anti-Semitism’ says President of the European Jewish Congress

 

A leading Norwegian daily  published a caricature depicting what some construed to be Jews torturing a baby during a circumcision.

The anti-Semitic cartoon published in Norway’s Dagbladet, Tuesday - Photo screenshot, Dagbladet.no

Anti-Semitic cartoon published in Norway’s Dagbladet, Tuesday – Photo: screenshot, Dagbladet.no

The caricature that appeared Tuesday in the Dagbladet newspaper –- the country’s third largest in terms of circulation — showed police officers looking on as a bearded man wearing a black hat and black coat sticks a three-tooth pitchfork into the head of a blood-soaked baby while holding a book.

Continue Reading »

Washington tells Hezbollah to leave Syria

U.S. St. Dept says Hezbollah involvement  broadens Syrian unrest and is an “unacceptable & extremely dangerous escalation”.

US went on to affirms Washington’s continuing efforts to aid & support Syrian opposition.

By REUTERS

 

 

WASHINGTON – The US State Department called on Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia on Wednesday to withdraw its fighters from Syria immediately, saying their involvement on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad signaled a dangerous broadening of the war.

Hezbollah terrorists - Photo by EPA

Hezbollah terrorists – Photo by EPA

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned the declaration last weekend by the leader of the Lebanese guerrilla movement, Hasran Nasrallah. He confirmed his combatants were in Syria and vowed they would stay in the war “to the end of the road.”

Continue Reading »

Jerusalem will act to prevent Russia’s S-300 missile from becoming operational

Netanyahu informs European foreign ministers that after Russian missiles get to Assad, Israel’s ‘entire airspace will become a no-fly zone’ & therefore it ‘cannot stand idly by.’

 

 

Israel’s National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror sketched out what Jerusalem’s “red line” is vis-à-vis the S-300 missile systems Russia intends to send to Syria before the 27 European Union ambassadors in Israel.

IDF on Lebanese border

In this picture taken on Thursday May 23, 2013, Israeli soldiers patrol their side near the southern Lebanese-Israeli border of Hamames village, Lebanon. – Photo: AP

 

Two diplomats who were in the room during the briefing last Thursday, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was a closed event, said that Amidror stressed Israel will act “to prevent the S-300 missiles from becoming operational” on Syrian soil. Continue Reading »

Natanyahu’s Gov’t to Build 80,000 Housing Units

Gov’t plan calls 80,000 new housing units to be made available by end of 2014, and for marketing of plots for construction of at least 25,000 units per year.

By Gil Ronen

 

The Finance Ministry published the government’s housing plan for 2013-2014 Wednesday evening.

Har Homa neighborhood in Jerusalem

The multi-year plan calls for improvement of coordination between official agencies, enlarging the stock of housing plans, especially in the areas where there is high demand, and for a policy of urban renewal.

The plan calls for at least 80,000 new housing units to be made available by the end of 2014, and for marketing of plots for construction of at least 25,000 units annually. Continue Reading »