The Future of Fatah

Gaza Fatah leaders quit in protest Arab News — Eleven senior leaders from the Gaza Strip of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party resigned in protest on Wednesday over the election process and results of their movement’s top decision-making body. The 11 members of Fatah’s highest committee in the Gaza Strip complained that Fatah members from the Gaza Strip were underrepresented in the newly elected, 23-member Central Committee. click to read complete article

Fatah Party Election Brings in a New Generation New York Times — Fatah, the mainstream Palestinian nationalist party, elected a mostly new leadership committee, ushering in a younger generation and ousting some prominent veterans, according to preliminary results released here on Tuesday. The new leaders are considered more pragmatic than their predecessors and grew up locally, in contrast to the exile-dominated leadership they are replacing. But many are familiar names who have already played active roles in Palestinian society and the peace process, and their election to the committee is not expected to bring about significant changes in Fatah policies. click to read complete article

Fatah vote gives boost to Abbas The Jerusalem Post — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has emerged victorious from the elections for Fatah's Central Committee, as almost all his preferred candidates won seats in the key decision-making body. The elections were held in the context of Fatah's sixth General Assembly, which convened for the first time in 20 years in Bethlehem last week. click to read complete article

Obama - Health Care

Obama attacks healthcare insurers Aljazeera — The US president has launched an attack on insurance companies who he accuses of limiting people's access to medical care, during a town hall session on health reform. Barack Obama said on Tuesday that Americans are often "held hostage" by insurance companies that deny or drop clients' coverage or charge excessive fees. click to read complete article

Obama defends ability of government on health care Associated Press — President Barack Obama says Americans wary of a government-run health care plan should look no further than Medicare. Critics of Obama's overhaul effort say creation of a public plan to compete with private insurance adds up to a government takeover. Obama told a New Hampshire town hall Tuesday that he received one letter from a woman who said "keep your hands off my Medicare." click to read complete article

High Fees Common in Medical Care, Survey Finds New York Times — A patient in Illinois was charged $12,712 for cataract surgery. Medicare pays $675 for the same procedure. In California, a patient was charged $20,120 for a knee operation that Medicare pays $584 for. And a New Jersey patient was charged $72,000 for a spinal fusion procedure that Medicare covers for $1,629. The charges are among a long list of high fees cited in a survey released online Tuesday by America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents 1,300 health insurance companies. The group said it had used Medicare payments for comparison because Medicare was so familiar and payments are, on average, about 80 percent of what private insurers pay. click to read complete article

North American Summit

Drugs gangs, flu dominate North American summit Agence France Press — US President Barack Obama joined the leaders of Canada and Mexico on Monday to fine tune the fight against swine flu, murderous drugs gangs and economic recession at the North American summit. At the quick summit in the western city of Guadalajara Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper targeted incremental change rather than breakthroughs. click to read complete article

Canada to train Mexican officers fighting drug cartels. Canada.com — Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Sunday that Canada will train Mexican police officers to assist Mexico in its brutal war against rival drug cartels. The announcement came as the prime minister touched down here for a two-day summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama. click to read complete article

Obama Promises Calderon Solution to U.S.-Mexico Trucking Spat Bloomberg — President Barack Obama told his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon that he is committed to resolving a dispute over truck access to U.S. highways. Obama said he will also address safety concerns about the trucks raised by the U.S. Congress, an administration official said after the two leaders met in Guadalajara yesterday at a summit of North American leaders. Calderon told Obama that the dispute has hurt trade, raised consumer costs and reduced job creation, according to a statement from his press office. click to read complete article

IRAN: Ahmadinejad sworn in as president

Pro-Mousavi Iranians chant death to the dictator Malaysian National News Agency — Hundreds of supporters of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi chanted "death to the dictator" in Tehran on Thursday, a witness said, a day after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as president. The renewed protests come despite a heavy police presence and the mass trial of some 100 leading reformers accused of fomenting the unrest that has continued for eight weeks since disputed June 12 polls returned hardliner Ahmadinejad to office. click to read complete article

Cleric: Iranian nation is united and vigilant Tehran Times — Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani has said that the Iranian nation is “united and vigilant” and that is why all plots against the Islamic Republic have failed so far. He made the remarks in a sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran. Ayatollah Kashani also stated that the Supreme Leader’s approval of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency on Monday was an endorsement of the fact that “republicanism and Islamism” are inseparable in Iran. click to read complete article

Defiant Iran president takes oath Agencia AngolaPress — Iran- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been sworn in for a second term as Iran's president, after weeks of post-election unrest. In an address after the ceremony, he criticised foreign powers who have cast doubt on the validity of the election, saying Iran would resist them. Opposition supporters protesting outside parliament were met by hundreds of riot police. click to read complete article

Sri Lanka - Tamil Tiger Leader Arrested

Another hit for Tigers as new leader arrested Sydney Morning Herald — THE new head of the Tamil Tigers, Kumaran Pathmanathan, was being interrogated in Sri Lanka last night after being arrested outside the country and flown to the capital, authorities have said. The arrest is a fresh blow to the separatist group, which was routed on the battlefield in May after more than two decades of armed struggle. Pathmanathan's detention comes a little over a fortnight after he was announced as the group's new leader. click to read complete article

UPDATE 1-S.Lanka bourse at 14-mo high after Tamil Tiger arrest Reuters — Sri Lanka's share market .CSE rose to its highest in more than 14-months on Friday before retreating to close up marginally amid a lack of foreign buying, after the arrest of the new Tamil Tiger leader the night before. The new head of the Tamil Tigers, the separatist group defeated by the Sri Lankan military after 25 years of war, was being held in the capital Colombo, the military said on Friday. click to read complete article

Australian Sri Lankan Disapora needed back home Radio Australia — The Sri Lankan government has begun allowing people displaced by the civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, to return home, but a major de-mining operation is required before large-scale re-settlement can begin. THOMAS: Look the Government has a program on resettling people within 180 days. Which may be an oportunist approach because there's such a large number of people across a large area, it's a very slow process, the roads are very slow, so I applaud their enthusiasm but I think it's going to be an enormous task to resettle these people back to their homes. click to read complete article

Georgia - Russia One Year Later

Georgia Draws Gains, Not Lessons, From War Moscow Times — Exactly one year after the war over South Ossetia, Georgia’s chances of becoming a NATO member have been reduced to almost zero, but the South Caucasus nation might actually be safer and is putting greater hopes into political integration with the West. Despite the fact that key European powers continue to be skeptical because Tbilisi’s standoff with Moscow remains fundamentally unsolved, President Mikheil Saakashvili is promoting his country as a regional champion. click to read complete article

Did Russia pay high price for winning Georgia war? Christian Science Monitor — Though the dispute over who started the war between Russia and Georgia has yet to abate, most experts agree that it erupted during the night of Aug. 7 with an apparently well-planned and massive Georgian attack on Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia, which had won its de facto independence from Georgia in a brutal civil war nearly two decades earlier. About a dozen Russian peacekeeping troops died in that assault, prompting Moscow to send its North Ossetia-based 58th Army swarming through the Roki Tunnel the next day. Russian forces rapidly routed the Georgians and went on to briefly occupy a handful of Georgian towns such as Gori, where they destroyed Georgian weapons click to read complete article

Russia urges Georgia to ink non-violence agreement Xinhua — Russia insists that Georgia assume a legal obligation on the non-use of force with respect to its breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday. "We insist that Georgia take on the legal obligation on the non-use of force. The obligation should be unconditional, not in relation to Russia, but in relation to the neighboring republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Andrei Nesterenko told a briefing. click to read complete article

NATO - Afghanistan

New NATO chief vows to strengthen Afghan efforts Agence France Presse — The new NATO chief vowed Wednesday to strengthen military efforts to counter an insurgency in Afghanistan but conceded peace talks with certain groups were an option to end mounting violence. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, making his first visit to Afghanistan as head of the 28-nation alliance, told a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that he was ready for "pragmatic steps" to improve security. click to read complete article

Rasmussen wants Afghans to take more responsibility Reuters — The new head of NATO said he wanted Afghan forces to assume lead responsibility for security within the next four years, but would not set a timeline for a complete pull out by alliance troops. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who took over as secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Saturday, faces many challenges but none more daunting than finding a winning strategy for the war in Afghanistan and improving relations with its former Cold War foe Russia. click to read complete article

New NATO chief open to talks with Taliban ABC Australia — The new head of NATO says the organisation's priority must be the war in Afghanistan and he says he is open to negotiations with moderate members of the Taliban. As the new Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen inherits a daunting task with tens of thousands of troops battling a fierce Taliban insurgency ahead of the Afghanistan presidential election. click to read complete article