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 Sunday, May 01, 2005

Israel Blacklisted by US for Violation of Property Rights

  from Ynet News


Other Breaking News

  • USA: The U.S. military has determined that NO disciplinary action should be taken against any soldier involved in the mistaken killing of an Italian intelligence agent who was trying to spirit a just-freed hostage out of Iraq.The investigating officer "concluded that the vehicle approaching the checkpoint failed to reduce speed until fired upon," said a statement accompanying a report released Saturday. "The soldiers manning the checkpoint acted in accordance with the rules of engagement." The Italians have disputed the conclusion surrounding the incident that occurred March 4, and the differences with the American report are likely to further strain relations between the two countries.Read here for more

  • North Korea: North Korea called President George W. Bush a "hooligan bereft of any personality,'' in an official response to Bush's characterization last week of leader Kim Jong Il as a "tyrant.'' "He is a half-baked man,'' the official government mouthpiece Korean Central News Agency said late yesterday, quoting an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman. "No one can expect to hear reasonable words from Bush, once a cowboy at a ranch in Texas. Bush is a world dictator whose hands are stained by blood.'' Read here for more

  • North Korea:The US military informed Japan Sunday that North Korea may have launched a short-range missile toward the Sea of Japan, Kyodo News agency said, citing government sources.Japan's government was trying to confirm the information. The launch could have taken place earlier Sunday.Read here for more

  • Vietnam: An official Vietnamese newspaper advised the United States should reflect on the lessons of the Vietnam War and conduct itself appropriately abroad . "The experiences gained from the Vietnam War are fully capable of helping the United States to have a more appropriate comportment on the international scene," Hanoi Moi said.Vietnam was celebrating 30th anniversary victory over the US-backed South Vietnam. In a thinly-veiled allusion to the war in Iraq, the daily said, "if the United States were to look back with wisdom at past wars, including the Vietnam War, it could prevent itself from painful injuries in the future." Read here for more

  • Russia/Vietnam: April 30th, 2005 is the 30th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam.Vietnam's North was receiving help from the USSR and China that were rivaling for their possible influence in Hanoi. The USSR was supplying military arming, equipment and anti-aircraft missiles to Vietnamese troops. Yevgeni Antonov, retired Major-General, was involved in the USSR's assistance to Vietnam during the war. In 1969-1970, Antonov chaired the group of Soviet military specialists in the field of the anti-aircraft defense. According to his words, the USSR was sending whole air defense regiments to Vietnam in the beginning of the conflict. As a result, Vietnam virtually became a range ground to test the Soviet weaponry there. The Soviet Union was testing and amending its military hardware in Vietnam to develop technologies of protection against homing missiles, to train attacks of low-altitude targets, etc. Anatoly Khupenen, retired Colonel-General, the former commander of anti-aircraft troops of the USSR, is certain, though, that the scale of the Soviet Union's participation in the Vietnamese war is exaggerated. The number of Soviet military specialists involved in the conflict in Vietnam was not more than 6,000. Read here for more

  • USA/Israel: A group of over 10,000 Orthodox Jews were protesting outside the Israeli Consulate in New York against the actual existence of the state of Israel. Behind them hung large posters showing the beating of Orthodox Jews by Israeli police while they were protesting the desecration of antiquated Jewish cemeteries which are in the path of a planned highway expansion. In Jerusalem, tens of thousands of religious Jews are protesting in the streets against the state of Israel stating that the state of Israel, according to the Torah (that is the Jewish teachings) is illegitimate. They state that since the time that God sent the Jews into exile with the destruction of the temple two thousand years ago the Jews were forbidden to have their own state and that the whole concept of Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel was formed by irreligious Jews contrary to the Torah and the opinion of almost all of the Rabbinical leaders of Judaism worldwide. Read here for more

  • USA:The US prison population, already the largest in the world, reached a new high of more than 2.1 million last year, with one in every 138 residents of the country now behind bars, according to new government statistics. The data, made public by the Bureau of Justice Statistics on Sunday, put the US far ahead of countries like China and Russia, whose combined population is about five times that of America. "The numbers are pretty consistent with what they have been in the last few years," Justice Department statistician Paige Harrison, a co-author of the report, said. "We are seeing continued growth in prisons and jails, but at a lower rate than we had about 10 years ago." The study shows the number of inmates across the country rose an estimated 48,452 people, or 2.3 per cent, in the 12-month period ending on June 30, 2004. Read here for more

  • USA: Police handcuffed a 7-year-old boy outside his elementary school in Massachusetts this week after he allegedly assaulted three teachers and two police officers.The boy was handcuffed around his wrists and ankles on Thursday until he calmed down and his mother came to pick him, police said. The boy, who police did not identify, faces assault and battery charge in juvenile court.Some parents waiting outside the school for their children Friday said the use of handcuffs was excessive."He's only seven, that's young," said Lori Correia. "If they had done that to my daughter, I would not be happy. No matter what she had done." Read here for more

  • Palestinian Territories: Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged aid and military equipment to the Palestinians to reform, boost security and rebuild the shattered economy, as he wound up a historic Middle East tour. Putin, the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel and the Palestinian territory, on Friday held talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank after a day of negotiations with Israeli officials and a two-day stop in Egypt. "Russia will continue to offer aid to the Palestinian Authority to implement reforms and construct a state," Putin said.Read here for more

  • Australia: The so-called global war on terrorism does NOT exist, an Australian high-ranking army officer has declared in a speech that challenges the conventional political wisdom. Brigadier Justin Kelly dismissed several of the central tenets of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, saying the "war" part is all about politics and terrorism is merely a tactic. Speaking at a conference on future warfighting, Brigadier Kelly also suggested that the "proposition you can bomb someone into thinking as we do has been found to be untrue". Although such wars were fuelled by global issues, they were essentially counter-insurgent operations fought on a local level. This would result in Australian soldiers fighting in increasingly urban environments.To fight such a war, a new kind of soldier was needed - one not only proficient in the latest technologies, but who had been educated in "cultural understanding" and sensitivity.He said that "if you take out violence out of the first line, it's a description of politics".His speech appears to fly in the face of a comment by the Prime Minister, John Howard, last year that the "contest in Iraq represents a critical confrontation in the war against terror ..." Read here for more

  • Egypt:Two veiled women opened fire on a bus carrying foreign tourists and the fiance of one of the woman blew himself up when he leaped off a bridge during a police chase in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, yesterday. Seven people were hurt by the explosion, three Egyptians, an Israeli couple, a Swedish man and an Italian woman. The blast, a nail bomb, went off in a crowded square between an exclusive hotel on the banks of the Nile and the Egyptian museum. Read here for more


  • 30 April 2005

    American International Trade Commission blacklisted Israel for being among the world's major intellectual property violators.
    The U.S. International Trade Commission decided to blacklist Israel as one of 14 countries identified as serious infringers when it comes to the protection of intellectual property.

    The U.S. Commission's report says Israel is among the world's worst offenders when it comes to violation of intellectual property rights.

    The U.S. says Israeli authorities allow Israeli drug companies to examine research information from patent-holding foreign pharmaceutical companies.

    In the past year, Israel and the U.S. have been engaged in negotiations in a bid to resolve the matter, but the Americans were not satisfied with measures taken by Israel.

    Countries that have been blacklisted by the U.S. are subject to special American supervision in areas such as film, music, and software.

    Other countries placed in the unflattering list include Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, India, Venezuela, Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, China, the Philippines, Russia, and Pakistan.

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