Archive for April, 2010

WASHINGTON – US legislators met to reconcile differences in the House and Senate versions of the Iran sanctions bill Wednesday, as they pressed forward with the measure in the face of administration reservations.
The Obama administration has expressed concern that the legislation could hurt multilateral efforts to get countries such as China and Russia on board with its long sought UN Security Council resolution [...]

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards launched a new “ultra-fast” boat capable of causing high destruction after testing it in a key oil supply route during a three-day military drill that began on Thursday.
The boat, named Ya Mahdi, is “ultra-fast and has high destruction capability”, said Ali Reza Tangsiri, spokesman for the exercise. “Since the boat has [...]

Royal Jordanian (RJ) was forced to cancel five flights yesterday – to Paris, Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt and Zurich/Geneva – as several European airports remained closed due to a cloud of ash released from a volcano in Iceland.
RJ officials yesterday estimated the airline had incurred $5 million in losses due to the cancellation of most of [...]

Kuwait’s parliament approved the first reading of a privatisation bill on Thursday that has drawn strong protests from the opposition and trade unions and accusations of selling off the country.
Thirty-three MPs backed the bill, including all cabinet ministers. Ten voted against the measure during a noisy session that saw 17 opponents walk out of the [...]

Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer has accepted another five-year term at the invitation of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.  A special press conference was held Wednesday to announce the renewal, with a law passed in Knesset Tuesday to enable Fischer to continue in his post.
// Prime Minister Netanyahu told Fischer that there is [...]

Her Majesty Queen Rania on Monday paid a surprise visit to the Children’s Museum of Jordan (CMJ), a non-profit organisation she launched in 2007 to encourage and nurture lifelong learning in children and their families.
During a tour of the facility, Her Majesty met with students from different public schools, who told her how the museum’s [...]

Hamas is suffering a financial crisis due to the three-year-old international ban on transferring funds to the terrorist authority. Successful lawsuits obligating Hamas to pay out millions of dollars in compensation for terror victims have compounded its financial problems.
One sign of the severity of the crisis was the recent Hamas robbery of an Arab bank, [...]

The March 26 clash between elements of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Golani Brigade and Palestinian operatives near the Gaza border was the most serious since the end of Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. The incident has exacerbated tensions — already on the rise due to increased rocket attacks on southern Israel — and [...]

Jurist Richard Goldstone, whose report to the United Nations accused Israel of war crimes, challenged United States President Barack Obama on Thursday over charges of bias. Obama’s administration expressed concern that the report was both biased against Israel and flawed.
// “I have yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report [...]

Activists led by Noam Shalit had hoped to arrange a gift exchange Thursday in which a present would be sent to kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Noam’s son, in exchange for the delivery of 100 presents to Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israel. The proposed swap was conducted Thursday morning, but delivery has been delayed on both [...]