China Confidential
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Israel Raises Alert Level on Northern Border
The Israeli military has raised its level of alert in the North out of fear that Palestinian terror groups, possibly acting under Hizbullah auspices, will launch rockets into Israel in the coming days to open another front as the army operates against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.Israel Determined to End Hamas Threat
Foreign Confidential....
Warplanes pounded Gaza for a fourth day on Tuesday as tanks stood by to join the "all-out" war Israel vowed would wipe out Hamas, and the Palestinian death toll rose to at least 360.
Israel made it clear Monday the offensive was just beginning, even as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged world leaders to work urgently to end the "unacceptable" violence.
Palestinian militants responded to Israeli air strikes with deadly rocket and mortar fire that has so far killed four Israelis.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who has threatened to launch ground incursions alongside the aerial blitz, said Israel is in "an all-out war with Hamas and its proxies."
Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon said the offensive's goal "is to topple Hamas ."
Barak said that if militant rocket attacks do not stop, "Israel will have recourse to every means and all legal actions at its disposal to see to it that the enemy halts its illegal aggression."
With Israeli tanks just metres (yards) away from Gaza, the army decreed the border area a closed military zone -- a move that in the past has been followed by ground operations.
"After this operation there will not be a single Hamas building left standing in Gaza, and we plan to change the rules of the game," said armed forces deputy chief of staff Brigadier General Dan Harel, quoted by the YNet News website.
"We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings," Harel said.
- AFPMonday, December 29, 2008
UN Agency: 100 Million People Need Food
Foreign Confidential....
The United Nations World Food Program is appealing to governments to come up with the $5.2 billion it needs to feed 100 million hungry people next year. The WFP says that amount is only a fraction of what governments are spending on their financial rescue packages.
The WFP warns it will run out of food by March without a quick injection of funds.
WFP Spokeswoman Emilia Casella says millions of people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other global hunger hot spots will go hungry when the warehouse stocks run out.
"A mere one percent of the money that has been spent for financial bailout packages in recent weeks would completely fund the World Food Program's 2009 budget," Casella says. "In addition, permit us to provide hot meals in school for 59 million children around the world, which is what we would aim for in our school feeding program. Our school feeding program now feeds about 19 million children around the world. But, it is about 59 million who need it."
Casella says the WFP would like to use some of the money for which it is appealing to set up a reserve fund for fast acquisition of food stocks for emergencies.
The WFP spokeswoman says money also is needed to boost the agricultural production of small farmers who can no longer afford to buy seeds and fertilizers. She says the price of these commodities has more than doubled since 2006.
Casella notes at the beginning of 2008, WFP was expecting to feed around 69 million people around the world. But, more than 100 million actually need food aid.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports high food prices have pushed 40 million more people into hunger this year, bringing the total number of those going hungry to nearly one billion.
WFP Spokeswoman Casella says it takes about 90 days from the time a donation is made for the food to actually reach the people who need it.
Hunger can lead to civil unrest. Soaring food prices have led to riots in dozens of countries around the world. One of the worst situations was in Haiti where food riots caused the death of a number of people and drove the prime minister out of office.Fascist Anti-Semitism Gaining in Greece
Foreign Confidential....
The leader of a far-right political party in Greece has compared Israel's actions in Gaza to Hitler.
The statements Monday by George Karatzaferis, the leader of the far right LAOS party, come a day after a daily newspaper in Greece blamed Jews for the world financial crisis and the Israeli operation in Gaza.
Karatzaferis released a statement that read, in part, "Someone has to pull the ear of the darling child of the West, Israel. Its aggressiveness and malice against non-combatants, whose only precedent can be found during Hitler's time, cannot leave the international community indifferent."
Israeli Ambassador to Greece Ali Yahya said in response to the statement, "Racism is not in Greece's culture. I'm saddened by the pathetic statement made by Mr. Karatzaferis; it shows, if nothing else, complete historic ignorance. It is the Jewish people that were the prey of racism."
Meanwhile, the Avriani newspaper led its front page with anti-Semitic accusations for the second time in several weeks. Sunday's headline read: "After the American Jews acquired once again the world's wealth and plunged the planet into an unprecedented financial crisis, they started rehearsing for WWIII."
Midway through the paper's story on Israel's operation in Gaza, the story, under the heading "The Plan," explains that a Jewish plutocracy, having made the "wealth of the century at the expense of the economies of the world," is preparing to put in motion "war machines" in various hot spots around the world in order to control the price of oil, redistribute the world's natural resources and start a new cycle of weapons production.
Avriani also blames U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for "playing dead" in the present crisis by not saying anything against the Jews, urging him to prove that he is not owned by the Jewish lobby.
On Nov. 4, the day after Obama was elected president, the paper ran a headline that said, "The end of Jewish domination. Everything changes in the U.S.A. and we hope that it will be more democratic and humane."
Jewish groups protested the headline.
- JTA
EDITOR'S NOTE: Karatzaferis is one of Europe's most notorious political figures. An avowed anti-Semite and racist, he is a closet neo-Nazi with close connections to the neo-Nazi-Islamist underground.Enough! Hamas Must Go!
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
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