Shanghai builds vast bunker to shield against terrorism attackThe authorities in Shanghai, which is the Chinese financial hub, have built a huge underground shelter against the eventuality of terrorism or industrial accidents.
The vast 968,400sq ft subterranean complex could accommodate 200,000 people for up to 15 days.
It is linked to government offices, commercial and residential areas and the transport system by a labyrinth of tunnels.
The bunker can protect occupants from "nuclear radiation, poisonous gases,... (more)
|
|
Poll protests block Mexico CityThe left-wing candidate in Mexico's disputed election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and his backers are occupying the capital's main square and avenues.
Mr Lopez Obrador on Sunday called on his adherents to paralyse Mexico City until every vote was recounted.
Official results from the 2 July vote gave victory to the conservative Felipe Calderon by half a percentage point.
Mr Lopez Obrador alleges vote counts were rigged - but EU monitors have said the... (more)
|
|
Right On Time: Hamas vows attacks after Qana raidsTHE governing Palestinian movement Hamas has vowed to carry out attacks on Israel that could include suicide bombings in response to an Israeli air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana that killed at least 51 civilians.
"In the face of this open war against the Arab and Muslim nations all options are open, including striking the depth of the Zionist entity," Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas MP, told Reuters.
Asked if that meant suicide bombings against Israelis, M... (more) Related: The Israeli Roots of Hamas |
|
UN Seeks End of Nation-States; International Tax on AmericansWhile the American press concentrated on Democrat Senator John Kerry's call for a filibuster of Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation to the US Supreme Court last January, the story of why Kerry was in Davos, Switzerland was widely overlooked or ignored by the mainstream news media. Reporters palmed off the the United Nations forum as a meeting of international businessmen, but it may be the American people who will get the "business" from our own elected officials at the behest of the UN.
... (more)
|
|
Lebanese Death Toll Could Be Twice the Official FigureBEIRUT - Lebanese doctors, aid workers, and refugees are all reporting that the official number of dead in Lebanon is far lower than the actual.
"I think that the real number is at least 750 dead so far," Dr. Bachir el-Sham at the Complex Hospital in Sidon told IPS in a telephone interview. Sidon is 43 km south of Beirut, and just north of Tyre. This region has seen the worst of the Israeli bombing.
Sham said that by coordinating casualty figures with other hospital... (more)
|
|
Mysterious wounds from Israeli shells in Gaza"When the bomb exploded from the plane. I felt I was in hell. Real hell," shouts 31-year-old Ghassan stabbing the air with his finger and straining over the side of his grubby hospital bed.
Professing allegiance to Palestinian national security but parroting ideology atune to armed factions, Ghassan went to Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp last week to fight the Israelis during a particularly bloody incursion.
"I feel chemicals. I feel high heat, I feel high pain," he el... (more)
|
|
Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine A 12-year-old boy dead on a stretcher. A mother in shock and disbelief after her son was shot dead for standing on their roof. A phone rings and a voice in broken Arabic orders residents to abandon their home on pain of death.
Those are snapshots of a day in Gaza where Israel is waging a hidden war, as the world looks the other way, focusing on Lebanon.
It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and... (more)
|
|
Leaders call for a new force "beyond UN"NAQOURA, LEBANON - The daily routine at the United Nations headquarters in southern Lebanon offers vivid proof of the difficulties any new international force will face if charged with keeping the peace on the contested border between Lebanon and Israel.
Thursday was typical: First, Hezbollah fired missiles in quick succession from a launcher just a few hundred yards from the U.N. base. They sliced through the air with an ominous whooshing sound.
The Israeli respons... (more)
|
|
Bush, Blair to Seek U.N. Force on Lebanon BorderWASHINGTON — With pressure mounting for an end to the violence between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that they would call for a United Nations resolution next week designed to stop the fighting and establish an international stabilizing force on the border.
But both leaders again refused to press for a cease-fire until a process was in place to disarm Hezbollah, a position that in effect allows I... (more)
|
|
Israel Ends Gaza Raid, Leaving a Trail of Death and DestructionGAZA CITY — Israeli tanks pulled out of the Gaza Strip early Friday morning, ending an incursion that began Wednesday and left 30 Palestinians dead and a trail of damaged homes, crushed cars and uprooted trees.
On the eastern edges of Gaza City's Shaaf district, deep trenches of churned earth surrounded by newly pockmarked buildings clearly showed the path taken by an estimated 50 Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers.
"This used to be all olive and fruit trees... (more)
|
|
World 'backs Lebanon offensive'Israel says diplomats' decision not to call for a halt to its Lebanon offensive at a Middle East summit has given it the green light to continue.
"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," Justice Minister Haim Ramon said.
His comments came ahead of an Israeli cabinet meeting to decide whether to intensify the military offensive.
There have been more Israeli air raids and fighting continue... (more)
|
|
Israel 'authorised' to continue attacksIsrael has said it has recieved implicit "authorisation" from international powers to continue its attacks in Lebanon.
The Israeli justice minister, Haim Ramon, said Israel had "in effect obtained the authorisation to continue our operations" by Wednesday's 15-nation Rome conference on the crisis in Lebanon.
Ramon said on Thursday the conference had implicitly said Israel could continue its attacks "until Hezbollah is no longer present in southern Lebanon".
<... (more)
|
|
Iranian Web site: Captured troops revealed data on IDF plans Israel Defense Forces soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were abducted by Hezbollah on July 12, exposed secrets to their kidnappers, an Iranian Web site reported Thursday.
The Web site, run by the former Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, General Mohsen Rezai, says the troops revealed "secret IDF military maneuvers," including Israeli plans for a massive attack on Lebanon in the fall. Rezai has close connections with the Iranian regime.
The Web site... (more)
|
|
Israeli soldier 'to be released'Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claims the release of an Israeli soldier whose kidnapping sparked the current crisis in the Gaza Strip is "imminent".
However the armed wing of the Hamas militant group dismissed the claim and said: "Nothing has changed in the case of the Israeli soldier,"
"The file remains in the hands of the resistance factions and not in the hands of any politician."
The Israeli offensive in Gaza in response to the kidnapping of ... (more)
|
|
India could make 50 warheads under nuclear deal with Bush The US House of Representatives was set to vote yesterday on a nuclear deal with India that threatens to fuel a nuclear arms race in Asia. The deal, a centrepiece of the Bush administration's foreign policy, comes as the US is pressuring Iran and North Korea to halt their nuclear programmes.
Under the deal, the US will sell India nuclear fuel and technology for civilian purposes, in exchange for India putting most of its reactors under international safeguards. But a former head ... (more)
|
|
Children in Mideast War Zone: 'Why Are They Trying to Kill Us?'July 25, 2006 — One of the greatest tragedies of war is the loss and suffering of innocent people.
In the Middle East, young children caught in the war zone are the most innocent of victims.
Since the warfare between Israel and Hezbollah militants started almost two weeks ago, approximately 600,000 people have become homeless in Lebanon.
Approximately 10,000 more lose their homes every day, U.N. officials say, and half of those displaced people ... (more)
|
|
| 
