Posted on August 15th, 2010 by Marian Houk
An Associated Press report this morning indicates that the Israeli Defense Forces have launched a new information offensive against Hizballah.
The IDF has taken journalists to the the northern “border” [though there is no agreed border as yet] between Israel and Lebanon, and shown what the IDF claims is evidence that “Hezbollah is moving fighters and [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Lebanon, UN Peacekeeping
Posted on August 9th, 2010 by Marian Houk
lsraeli political and security analyst Shlomo Brom, [Brig-Gen {Res}], of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, INSS, has just written that: “Underlying this incident is the dispute between Israel and Lebanon over the demarcation of the Blue Line separating Lebanon and Israel, as well as Lebanon’s political reality. In its unilateral withdrawal from [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Lebanon, UN Peacekeeping, United Nations
Posted on August 6th, 2010 by Marian Houk
Here is another example of Israeli extreme imprecision about the nature of the demarcation between its territory and Lebanese, in a Haaretz editorial whose sub-headline says: “The government and IDF must understand that not every time is right for demonstrating Israeli sovereignty right up to the last millimeter, certainly not when tension is rising on [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine & Palestinians, UN Peacekeeping
Posted on August 5th, 2010 by Marian Houk
This is what the UN likes best – holding meetings… [This one was, unsurprisingly, "constructive"]. That, and calling on both sides to exercise “maximum restraint” [safely, after the most senior officials in the U.S. administration already used the exact same language]…
Here is a statement issued today by the UNIFIL spokesperson in Naqoura, Lebanon:
“UNIFIL Force [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Lebanon, UN Peacekeeping, USA
Posted on January 13th, 2010 by Marian Houk
According to a statement made by the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the French Ambassador to Haiti has visited the “devastated UN headquarters building in Port-au-Prince and said ‘everyone who was in the building is apparently dead’.” The Associated Press (AP) picked up reported Kouchner’s remarks to RFI (or perhaps to RTL, or both) [...]
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Filed under: Haiti, UN Peacekeeping
Posted on June 26th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The Free Gaza movement has been warned not to try to sail to Gaza — its latest expedition of two ships was supposed to leave Cyprus yesterday but did not, after Cypriot authorities required additional detailed inspections — but the international activists say they “will not back down from Israel’s threats and intimidation”
According to their [...]
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Filed under: Cyprus, Gaza, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Law of the Sea Convention, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions, UN Peacekeeping, USA
Posted on October 13th, 2008 by Marian Houk
Reports today in the Australian press state that “East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta has said he wants the United Nations to drop its investigation into bloodshed surrounding a 1999 independence vote from Indonesia. Leaders in East Timor and Indonesia said in July that the issue was closed after expressing regret at the findings of [...]
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Filed under: East Timor, UN Peacekeeping, UN Security Council
Posted on June 27th, 2008 by Marian Houk
Some interesting details on the Shebaa Farms issue from Nicholas Blanford in The National, an English-language paper published in Abu Dhabi :
“Securing the liberation of the Shebaa Farms has been a cornerstone of Fouad Siniora’s diplomacy since 2005 when he headed his first government. Mr Siniora said he believes that an Israeli withdrawal from the [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East Peace Process, Shebaa Farms, Syria, UN Peacekeeping, United Nations
Posted on April 14th, 2008 by Marian Houk
A guest post by Aletheia Kallos/MD:
i see ban [UNSG BAN Ki-Moon] has cut out the indignation & bluster
& is reduced to issuing warnings of the dangers of an improbable war
& the uncertainty of the fate of unmee has been institutionalized
& extended to fill out the present 6 month mandate
ending in july
from
http://www.maximsnews.com/news20080411unossgenglish10804110201.htm
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: TERMINATING U.N. MISSION
COULD RESULT [...]
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Filed under: BAN Ki-Moon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, UN Peacekeeping, UN Security Council
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Marian Houk
The UN acting tough, I mean.
In Kosovo today, the AP reported, “Danish military police said they exchanged fire with protesters as they helped evacuate wounded fellow officers … The town is divided between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority and the Serb minority, which fiercely opposed the declaration of independence and is furious over Western support for [...]
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Filed under: Kosovo, UN Peacekeeping