Palestinian Authority and Gaza War

Did the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s leadership have foreknowledge of the Gaza war? That question is raised – though never satisfactorily answered – by several exchanges revealed in The Palestine Papers.

In defending their handling of the Gaza war, Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, has long held that the PA warned Hamas – both in Gaza and through its Syrian-based leadership – that Israel was planning an attack on Gaza.

The PA always maintained that their information was only based on Israeli press reports; however, minutes of meetings between the PA and Israeli leaders tell a different story.

The Palestine Papers show that Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, told George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy, in a meeting on October 21, 2009 that Amos Gilad, the director of Israeli military intelligence, alerted Abbas prior to the Gaza attack.

Erekat: […] Our trust with the [Israeli] government is zero. Amos [Gilad] spoke to Lieberman [the Israeli foreign minister] – told them about the claim that Abu Mazen [Abbas] was colluding with them in the Gaza war. He went to Abu Mazen before the attack and asked him. Abu Mazen replied that he will not go to Gaza on an Israeli tank. Amos Gilad testified about that. He was honest. So we can maintain the channel.

The Palestine Papers confirm here what was previously revealed by second hand sources that were quoted in some of the thousands of US State Department cables published by WikiLeaks in December last year.

Among the diplomatic cables is a report from June 2009 on a conversation between Bob Casey, a US senator, Gary Ackerman, a US representative, and Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister.

In the report, the US officials said that Barak explained, that the "GOI [Government Of Israel] had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to the Gaza war, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas.

"Not surprisingly, Barak said, the GOI received negative answers from both," the document states.

Confronted with these leaks, Erekat disputed Barak’s account. "We knew about the war because the Israelis were saying there was going to be a war," Erekat told The Associated Press news agency. But "there were never any actual consultations between us and the Israelis before the war," Erekat maintained.

The Palestine Papers show, however, that Gilad, who continues to serve the Israeli government as an adviser to Barak, held several conversations with PA negotiators on the situation in Gaza prior to the war.

In a post-Annapolis negotiation on March 31, 2008 with Ahmed Qurei, the former PA prime minister, Gilad and Tzipi Livni, the then-foreign minister, foreshadowed a tragedy in the making.

Livni: Israel does not want Hamas. We cannot accept to have an Islamic regime on our borders. This contradicts our strategic vision.

Gilad: My personal opinion, and I do not represent the government in this, is that sooner or later we will collide withy Hamas because they, are like Hezbollah, continue to build their military capacities. We will clash with them but we will not stay in the Gaza Strip.

Livni: The last sentence represents the position of the government.

Qurei: You said that Israel is not negotiating with Hamas, but how do you see Hamas if the situation continues as it is now?

Gilad: The West Bank is coming and this is Hamas’ strategic goal. We are not negotiating with them but we allow the entry of food and fuel into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian reasons. My strategic advice for you is to be ready. It is like Achilles’ heel; if the situation goes on as it is for a year or two more, you will become weaker and Hamas will have control over the West Bank. They in Hamas understand the situation and they are fearful. Gaza was only an example. They understand the mood in Israel.

After the war, Abbas and Erekat maintained that all the information on the Israeli attack came from the media and that the attack was not discussed with the Israelis prior to the war.

"We don’t discuss these things, no," Erekat told Al Jazeera in an interview in November 2010.

"There were plans, maps, charts published in the Israeli press and Abu Mazen met with Olmert and Olmert raised the issue of missiles from Gaza and so on, and nobody told him," Erekat said in the interview.

Some 1400 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s three week long assault on the Gaza Strip. Many of the victims were women and children.

The Palestine Papers also show a recurring theme as to what extent the PA collaborated with Israel in its attempt to defeat Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.

In that same series of October 2009 meetings, Erakat recounted to Mitchell his disagreements with Israel – as well as the Egyptian Government – on Gaza policy. Erakat appeared frustrated that not enough was being done to maintain the siege on the Gaza Strip.

Erekat: […] I told Amos Gilad: "You are Egypt’s man. You know the Egyptians. 11km! [Referring to the length of the
Egyptian border with Gaza]. What’s going on with you and the US, the $23 million [given by the US Agency for International Development to
prevent tunnels] and ditches – its business as usual in the tunnels – the Hamas economy […]."

Thank You: http://english.aljazeera.net

Anti Government Revolution – Rising Up In Yemen After Tunisia

Tens of thousands of people in Yemen have taken to the streets in the country’s capital, calling for an end to the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president.

Inspired by recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, opposition members and youth activists are rallying at four different locations in Sanaa on Thursday, chanting for Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years, to step down.

"Enough being in power for [over] 30 years," protesters shouted during the demonstrations.

They also referred to the ouster of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, saying he was "gone in just [over] 20 years".

"No to extending [presidential tenure]. No to bequeathing [the
presidency]," they chanted.

An opposition activist said that the staging of the demonstration in four separate parts of the capital was aimed at distracting the security forces.

One area chosen for the protest was outside Sanaa University. Security measures at the demonstrations appeared relaxed, but were tight around the interior ministry and the central bank.

‘Not like Tunisia’

Meanwhile Saleh’s ruling General People’s Congress held counter marches attended by thousands of the government’s backers.

"No to toppling democracy and the constitution," the president’s supporters said in their banners.

Motahar Rashad al-Masri, the Yemeni interior minister, ruled out any resemblance between the protests in Yemen and the public outcry in Tunisia and Egypt.

"Yemen is not like Tunisia," he said, adding that Yemen was a "democratic country" and that the demonstrations were peaceful.

He told Al Jazeera that Yemeni authorities will not curb any demonstrations that are peaceful, regardless of their size.

Seven-year mandate

Saleh was re-elected in September 2006 for a seven-year mandate.

A draft amendment of the constitution, under discussion in parliament despite opposition protests, could allow him – if passed – to remain in office for life.

Saleh is also accused of wanting to pass the reins of power in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state to his eldest son Ahmed, who heads the elite Presidential Guard.

But in a televised address on Sunday, Saleh denied such accusations. "We are a republic. We reject bequeathing (the presidency)", he said.

Tunas – Tunisia May Purge Ben Ali Loyalists

Tunisians have rallied for a fifth day outside the prime minister’s offices in Tunis as the interim cabinet prepared for a crucial shake-up in response to calls for a clean break with the old regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the ousted president.

Thousands also took to the streets of Sidi Bouzid, an impoverished rural town in central Tunisia where mass protests that led to Ben Ali’s ouster, first erupted.

"No to the theft of the revolution! Yes to the resignation of the government!" chanted the protesters on Thursday. Some of them waved Tunisian flags as the town held a general strike in a bid to mount pressure on the country’s current leadership.

Loyalists of the former president who have continued as interior, defence and foreign ministers, are likely to be replaced in Thursday’s shake-up.

The move comes almost two weeks after Ben Ali fled into exile, seeking refuge in Saudi Arabia after weeks of violent protests against poverty, repression and corruption toppled him after 23 years in power.

Since then, an interim government that includes many former ruling party officials, has struggled to impose order.

Arrest warrant

Tunisia says it is seeking an international arrest warrant to bring Ben Ali, his wife and other family members to justice for theft and currency offences during his rule, when those surrounding the president grew wealthy.

"We are asking Interpol to find all those who fled, including the president and this woman (his wife), for trial in Tunisia," Lazhar Karoui Chebbi, the justice minister, said.

Ben Ali was also being charged with illegally acquiring real estate and other assets abroad, the justice minister said.

Tunisia has frozen huge assets held by the family and France and Switzerland have said they will also block any Ben Ali holdings in their countries.

The justice minister also said the head of Ben Ali’s presidential guard and five others were being investigated for violence following his ouster.

Ben Ali, his wife and their clan have been widely accused of abusing their power to enrich themselves. In France, where family members are believed to have assets ranging from apartments to racehorses, prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into their holdings.

French media has reported that Ben Ali’s wife left the country with millions in gold, but Mustapha Kamel Nabli, Tunisia’s new central bank governor, says no gold was taken from the bank’s vaults during the final days of Ben Ali’s regime.

The US state department declined to take a position on the arrest alert. "This is a matter for Tunisian authorities," said Philip Crowley, state department spokesman.

Curfew relaxed

Clashes broke out on Wednesday near government offices in the old city. Riot police fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters, mainly teenagers and young men, who threw stones.

Despite the clashes, the interim government announced it would reduce the curfew, in place since the revolt, by several hours, effective from Wednesday night.

The protesters appeared to be Tunisians from the rural hinterland who have been camping out at the government compound.

They shouted at the security forces that they were the "police of Leila", a reference to Ben Ali’s unpopular wife, who was seen as having excessive influence and lavish tastes.

Trade unions held a general strike in Sfax, Tunisia’s second biggest city, and declared another strike for Thursday in Sidi Bouzid, the town where the uprising against Ben Ali started with a social protest last month.

Violent unrest

At least 78 people were killed during the anti-Ben Ali protests.

On Wednesday, the justice minister highlighted the scope of that unrest: Some 11,029 prisoners – about a third of the country’s prison population – were able to escape amid the chaos, he said. Of those, 1,532 prisoners are back behind bars and 74 other prisoners died in fires that broke out.

Tunisia’s uprising has electrified Arabs across the Middle East and North Africa, where many countries share the complaints of poor living standards and authoritarian rule.

Barack Obama, the US president, said in his State of the Union speech that "the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator".

Inspired by Tunisia’s example, thousands of Egyptians have taken to the streets to demand an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule, clashing with police who fired tear gas and used water cannon.

Population explosion-Unemployment

Meaning of Population Explosion:

In common parlance, the term specifically refers to the relationship of human population to the planet. Overpopulation is not the number of people, but rather the number of people/in comparison to the resources they need to survive. In other words, a ratio — population number: resource amount.

Resources include: clean water, food, shelter, warmth, and cultivable land. Other lesser resources include: jobs, money, education, fuel, power, medicine, proper sewage and garbage management, and transportation. It has often been argued that future pressures on food production, combined with threats to other aspects of the earth’s habitat, make overpopulation a still more serious threat in the future.

Malthus’s theory;

Early in the Malthus argued populations would continue to grow until they would become too large to be supported by the food grown on available agricultural land. He proposed that, while resources tend to grow arithmetically, population exponentially. At that point, the population would be restrained through mass famine and starvation. Malthus argued for control measures through "moral restraint", to avoid this happening. As the population exceeds the amount of resources the population lowers, since the lack of resources causes mortality to increase. This process keeps the population in check and ensures it doesn’t exceed the amount of resources

Effects of unregulated population growth;

The world’s current agricultural production, if it were distributed evenly, would be sufficient to feed everyone living on the Earth today. However, many critics hold that, in the absence of other measures, simply feeding the world’s population well would only make matters worse, natural growth will cause the population to grow to unsustainable levels

Some other characteristics of overpopulation:

• Birth rate is high low life expectancy,
• Low literacy,
• High rate of unemployment village people are not gainfully employed (caught in cycle of poverty
• Insufficient cultivable land Little surplus food Poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases ,
• GDP per capita is low (under US$765 per annum)
• Many live in unhygienic conditions,
• Government is stretched economically
• High crime from people who steal resources to survive,
• House price would increase,
• Living condition would get worse, which may cause more disease, and thus tax might be increased support hospital
• Unemployment rate might increase (which may trig more crime)
• of the land available for agriculture
• Medicine shortages; the largest shortage for important resources is of medicine. A shortage of educated people can lead to a shortage of doctors. Fewer doctors in a population cause the price of medical bills and health insurance to rise higher than lower income people can afford of social and economic issues, Such as land prices and housing costs. For example, relatively densely populated countries have higher land prices than less densely populated countries and even in that country, land prices have doubled and redoubled as the population has increased. It is sometimes argued that reducing the populations of some areas, such as large cities, would have positive benefits for these reasons
• It has been rightly said that population explosion is one of the mother of all social problems, Population becomes a bane when a country is unable to provide it basic needs and necessities of life, We are facing enormous social and psychological problems due to over population, There is need to pay full concentration to control run away population, so that we can make our human resource useful by providing proper education and technical skills.
• The problems due to overpopulation in any country are what you see in everyday news and on the streets. Poverty, unemployment, terrorism, high crime rate, load shedding, lowers human development index, food crises, electricity crises, water crises, and extremism. When resources are scarce and demand is high, people would do whatever they can to snatch on anything that they what they want to survive. Population grows exponentially, where as there is no way to make resources grow exponentially as well. So contrary to popular myth, over population is not a blessing.
• Problems of population explosion:

1. Illiteracy is the main problem in the society today. Every other problem arises from illiteracy in one way or the other. With lack of education the standard of living decreases and fraud increases.

2. Unemployment and underemployment:

Effects of human overpopulation;

• Inadequate fresh water Depletion of natural resources,
• Deforestation and loss of ecosystems that sustain global atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide balance; about eight million hectares of forest are lost each year. <br />
• Irreversible loss of due Deforestation and desertification can be reversed by adopting property rights, and this policy is successful even while the human population continues to grow.
• High infant and child mortality High rates of infant mortality are caused by poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant mortality
• Increased chance of the emergence of new diseases
• For many environmental and social reasons, including overcrowded living conditions,
• Poverty coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level of capital formation. Poverty and inflation are aggravated by bad government and bad economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated absolute poverty and keep their inflation rates very low. Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations
• Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion, discharge of raw sewage and solid waste disposal. However, this problem can be reduced with the adoption of sewers.
• Elevated crime rate due to drug cartels and increased theft by people stealing resources to survive Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare Less Personal Freedom / More Restrictive Laws. Laws regulate interactions between humans. Legislation "serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people." The higher the population density, the more frequent such interactions become, and thus there develops a need for more laws and/or more restrictive laws to regulate these interactions.

Mitigation measures;

• While the current world trends are not indicative of any realistic solution to human overpopulation during the 21st century, there are several mitigation measures that have or can be applied to reduce the adverse impacts of overpopulation. All of these mitigations are ways to implement social norms.
• Overpopulation is an issue that threatens the state of the environment in the above-mentioned ways and therefore societies must make a change in order to reverse some of the environmental effects brought on by current social norms. In societies like China, the government has put policies in place that regulate the number of children allowed to a couple. Other societies have already begun to implement social marketing strategies in order to educate the public on overpopulation effects. "The intervention can be widespread and done at a low cost. A variety of print materials (flyers, brochures, fact sheets, stickers) needs to be produced and distributed throughout the communities such as at local places of worships, sporting events, local food markets, schools and at car parks (taxis / bus stands). Such prompts work to introduce the problem so that social norms are easier to implement. Certain government policies are making it easier and more socially acceptable to use contraception and abortion methods.
• Education and empowerment;
• One option is to focus on educating about overpopulation, family planning, birth control measures and intrauterine devices easily available. Some 80 million pregnancies – nearly 40% of the total each year – are unplanned. An estimated 350 million women in the poorest countries of the world either did not want their last child, do not want another child or want to space their pregnancies, but they lack access to information, affordable means and services to determine the size and spacing of their families
• Remedial measures:

To solve the problem of population explosion the following measures are suggested.

1. Family planning: The most important method for reducing the growth of population is family planning. Couples should have children not by chance but by choice. The voluntary methods of family planning are

a) Moral restraint The use of birth control methods

2. Late marriage: By increasing the age of marriage. The present age of marriages is 18 for girls and 21 for boys. It must be increased.

3. Education: education would induce the people to adopt family planning measures.

4. Rapid economic development. Rapid economic development increases the employment opportunity, standard of living and birth rate to fall.

5. Urbanization: Almost all facilities medical, health, educational etc. are available in towns which help to reduce the birth rate.

• Unemployment ;

In macro-economic indicators there are three things in particular that the subject macro-economic problems. First is the problem of economic growth. Economic growth can be categorized as good if positive growth figures rather than negative. Second is the problem of inflation. Inflation is an indicator movement of prices of goods and services generally, which simultaneously also associated with purchasing power

Inflation reflects the stability price, the lower the value of an inflation means that the greater presence the tendency towards price stability. But the inflation problem is not only associated with the skyrocketing prices of goods and services. Inflation also is closely associated with the purchasing power. While the purchasing power of the community relies heavily on real wages. Inflation actually not too problematic if the price increase coupled with increase in real wages.

The third problem is unemployment. Indeed the problem unemployment has become a scourge that so frightening, especially in developing countries such as Indonesia. Developing countries often faced with large unemployment figures due to the narrowness of the field jobs and the size of the population. Narrowness of the field work because of factors due to the scarcity of capital to invest.

Problem unemployment itself is not only happening in developing countries but also experienced by developed countries. But the problem of unemployment in developed countries much more easily resolved than in countries evolved because it only related to the ebb and flow of business cycles and rather than because of the scarcity of investment, the problem of population explosion, political or social problems in the country.

There are various types of unemployment, for example, technological unemployment, and unemployment frictional and structural unemployment. High unemployment, problem of population explosion, the unequal distribution of income, and various other problems in our country became one of the main factors the low standard of living of the population in our country. However, the main manifestation of both factors causing the low standard of living in developing countries is the limited absorption of resources, including human resources. Compared with developed countries, resource utilization by developing countries relative lower than in developed countries due to poor efficiency and effectiveness of the use of resources both natural resources and human resources. Two main causes of low utilization human resource management is that the unemployment rate and level disguised unemployment are too high and continue to soar.

Full or open unemployment that is composed of people who actually able and willing to work, but will not get the fieldwork altogether.

It is very much essential for any country to take necessary initiatives in controlling its population. The best way of doing this is by educating the people about the benefits of having small families. Governments can advertise several films and documentaries showing the benefits like saving money, less domestic problems and more happiness. Also, governments can introduce new policies, which give benefits people having children restricted to one or two. For example, Chinas infamous single child policy. China claims that this policy has avoided more than 50 million births in the country which helped reducing its population hugely. Furthermore, government should conduct campaigns in rural areas where media is hard to reach. In these campaigns government can organize free health checkups attracting more number of people and suggest them on several medical problems which include the family planning benefits.

Summing up, several policies and educational programs can help reducing the population growth.

List of Parliament members in Military – This is Myanmar

Myanmar to the Federal Election Commission on January 20 issued a statement declaring the upcoming parliamentary and provincial Union of Myanmar State Council composed of representatives of the military members, detailed list will be released in 21.

The statement said the military representatives of the Federal Parliament members account for 110 Lok Sabha seats in the House of Peoples in the Federal Parliament 56 seats in the provinces accounted for 217 state assembly seats. Under the new Constitution, the Union of Myanmar State proposed by the Parliament and provincial elected members, as well as directly nominated by the commander in chief, non-elected military members, which accounted for 25% of total number of members.

Myanmar, 7 November last year, held its first multi-party system in 20 years national election. The election is widely considered to promote the Burmese regime to a democratically elected government by the military transformation of an important election. According to official data, the leadership of Prime Minister Wu Dengsheng Union Solidarity and Development Party won the federal parliament (Lok Sabha and the House of Peoples) and the provincial state assembly seats in 1154 and 882 seats.

Under the new constitution, Myanmar new constitution will be held on January 31 convened the first meeting of the Federal Parliament come into effect when the federal parliament will be elected president and vice president, responsible for forming a new government by the President. Subsequently, the junta elected government will hand over power.

In 2008 a new constitution adopted by referendum in Myanmar. Under the new constitution, Myanmar, Union of Myanmar, the country name as the Republic; the capital to Naypyidaw; President for the Heads of State and Government; Commander in Chief as the supreme commander of the armed forces; multi-party system; the adoption of market economic system