From PressTV
Israel declares part of al-Quds military zone: Local leader
Israel has announced part of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as a military zone in the occupied West Bank, a local leader says.
According to Bassam Bahr on Monday, the head of the committee to defend land and resist settlements, the Israeli army declared part of the desert area a “closed military zone”prohibiting the Palestinian people from entering.
The area borders al-Khalil (Hebron) from the south, the Dead Sea from the east, and covers lands stretching from eastern Anata to Bethlehem in the central West Bank.
The Palestinian official further noted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had previously announced plans to establish an airport and a natural preserve in the area.
The Israeli “occupation preempted any Palestinian steps,” Bahr noted.
Click here for the full story
From PressTV
Israel plans to expand four settlements in West Bank
Israel is preparing to expand its activities in four illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank amid the international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime’s land grab policies.
Israeli media reported on Monday that Tel Aviv has grabbed about four square-kilometers of Palestinian land near the settlements of Kedumim, Vered Yericho, Neveh Tzuf and Emanuel.
According to the reports, Tel Aviv has made preparations to construct 18 residential projects in these areas, with more than 99 percent of the occupied land being allocated to settlements.
Israel is facing widespread global condemnation over its settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian lands.
Click here for the full story
From Russia Today
Le Pen says Washington attempting to start ‘war in Europe’
The leader of France’s rightwing Front National (FN), Marine Le Pen, has called Brussels “American lackeys” over the EU’s Ukraine policy. She further accused Washington of attempting to start a “war in Europe” and expand NATO towards Russia’s borders.
“European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent on US positions on Ukraine,” Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.
“Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys,” she said, before warning that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Netanyahu says speech will go ahead as planned
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is determined to speak to Congress on March 3.
“At a time when there are those who would deal with protocol and politics, an agreement with Iran is taking shape in Munich that would risk Israel’s existence,” Netanyahu said on Twitter, apparently referring to talks over the weekend in the German city between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
“Therefore, I’m determined to travel to Washington and present Israel’s position before Congress and the American people,” he said. “From the day the State of Israel was established, there have been substantive differences between Israel and the United States. Relations remained strong. That’s how it will be this time.”
Earlier Monday, there were reports that Netanyahu was considering recalibrating the March 3 speech to a joint meeting of Congress that has infuriated the White House and congressional Democrats.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
P.A. to boycott Israeli products
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Palestinian Authority said it will boycott products manufactured by six major Israeli companies.
Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, announced the boycott on Monday of products manufactured by the Strauss Group, Tnuva, Osem, Elite, Prigat and Jafora-Tabori, the Wafa-Palestine News Agency reported. The boycott will begin Wednesday.
Al-Aloul told reporters that the boycott was in response to Israeli settlement activity and Israel’s two-month freeze on Palestinian tax revenue after the Palestinians joined the International Criminal Court.
Palestinian merchants have two weeks to remove the products from their shelves.
From PressTV
Palestine slams Israel settlement plan
A senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official has condemned Israeli plans to build new settler units near East Jerusalem al-Quds.
Saeb Erekat slammed Israel’s decision to build 64 new settler units in the illegal Ramot settlement on Sunday, saying that Israel’s expansionist policies make a strong case for the Palestinians to sue the regime at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“The ongoing Israeli settlement activities confirm our credible and true attitude to sue Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC),” the chief Palestinian negotiator said.
Click here for the full story
From Ynet News
Obama warns Netanyahu: Don’t sour Iran talks with Congress speech
US president says difference in stance on Tehran is separate from the decision not to meet with PM during his Washington visit; Netanyahu says he’s determined to speak to Congress to ‘prevent dangerous agreement’ with Iran.
US President Barack Obama on Monday warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against souring nuclear negotiations with Iran with his planned Congress address.
“It does not make sense to sour the negotiations a month or two before they’re about to be completed and we should play that out. If, in fact, we can get a deal, then we should embrace that,” the president said in a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
U. of Calif. student group votes to divest from Israel, U.S.
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The University of California Student Association passed two resolutions urging the university to divest from several countries, including Israel, the United States and Mexico.
On Sunday, the association’s board of directors cited human rights violations in several countries in backing measures that urged the University of California Board of Regents to divest its funds.
One resolution targeted a number of corporations doing business with Israel for “violating Palestinian human rights.” The other called for divestment from the governments of several countries — what the resolution described as an “illustrative and non-exhaustive list” that included Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Mexico and the United States.
The resolution on Israel passed by a 9-1 vote with six abstentions. The other resolution passed by 11-1 with three abstentions, according to the association in a since-deleted post on Twitter. The association is made up of representatives of the student governments from each U.C. campus.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
More than 6,000 Israelis appear on list of secret Swiss bank accounts
JERUSALEM (JTA) — More than 6,000 Israelis have secret bank accounts at the Swiss branch of the HSBC British bank that had documents leaked to the Internet.
The documents leaked Monday, which showed 100,000 private individuals from over 200 countries holding the secret bank accounts, were obtained by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The group shared them with several media organizations, and they were published by The Guardian newspaper and the BBC’s “Panorama” program.
The 6,222 Israeli-connected people on the list, which is from 2007, reportedly hold some $10 billion in the accounts. Seventeen of the Israelis hold a total of over $100 million. Only about half of those on the list associated with Israel hold Israeli citizenship, according to the documents.
Israel is ranked sixth among the countries whose citizens deposited money at the bank after Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, the United States and France. The Israeli accounts were opened between 1922 and 2006.
Click here for the full story
From Russia Today
Giving ultimatums isn’t the way to talk to President Putin – Kremlin
“We’ve already said everything about the tone of the negotiations. Nobody has ever talked to the president (Putin) in the tone of an ultimatum – and couldn’t do so even if they wanted to,” Dmitry Peskov, Russian presidential press-secretary, told Govorit Moskva radio station.
The press secretary previously said the five-hour talks between Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were “substantive and constructive.”
After the talks in Moscow on Friday, Western media outlets cited diplomatic sources as saying that Merkel had issued Putin an ultimatum over Ukraine.
Click here for the full story
From Russia Today
Mission improbable: Merkel visits US to sell Ukraine peace plan
German Chancellor Merkel is visiting the US on Monday in what is viewed as a last-ditch attempt to secure a truce in Ukraine. Washington and Berlin, strategic allies in other areas, are at odds over US plans to supply arms to Kiev.
Merkel’s visit to the US is expected to be dominated by the Ukrainian crisis. The chancellor has made a string of visits to foreign countries in the past few days to advocate a new peace plan for Ukraine.
Last week, the German leader and French President Francois Hollande paid a surprise visit to Moscow to negotiate a diplomatic solution with President Vladimir Putin to the Ukrainian armed conflict. The effort was also endorsed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
From The Times of Israel
Strauss-Kahn takes the stand in French pimping trial
Former banker to testify he was unaware the women in the orgies he allegedly organized were prostitutes
AFP — Disgraced ex-IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose presidential hopes were torpedoed by a sex scandal, takes the stand at a French pimping trial Tuesday in a bid to convince judges he was not at the core of a prostitution ring.
The spotlight swings onto the 65-year-old in the second week of the trial in the northern city of Lille which involves 13 other accused, including police, a lawyer, a prostitute and a brothel owner known as “Dodo the Pimp.”
Strauss-Kahn will have three days to fend off accusations that he organized for prostitutes to attend sex parties in Paris, Brussels and Washington. He will come face-to-face with some of the sex workers during his testimony.
The former finance minister, known as DSK in France, will argue he is merely a libertine who engaged in orgies with consenting adults and did not know the women lavishing their attention on him were prostitutes.
Strauss-Kahn attended the first day of trial — luring some 300 journalists to an otherwise run-of-the-mill court case — but his name has not directly come up since, as French court rules forbid defendants from mentioning anyone not in the room.
Click here for the full story
