By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, May 30, 3:36 PM

JERUSALEM — Israel’s Housing Ministry said Thursday it has given the final go-ahead for the construction of 300 new homes in a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, complicating the mission of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to renew Mideast peace talks.

The announcement came less than a week after Kerry urged Israel to avoid “provocative” actions during a visit to the region. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman described the move as “counterproductive.”

Palestinian officials immediately accused Israel of undermining the U.S. mediation efforts.

The issue of Jewish settlements has been at the heart of a nearly five-year impasse in peace efforts. Negotiations broke down in late 2008 and have remained stalled since then.

The Palestinians say they will not return to negotiations until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas they claim for a future state. Israel, which captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war, says talks should resume without any conditions.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-to-build-300-units-in-jewish-settlement-in-east-jerusalem-threatening-kerry-efforts/2013/05/30/974ff646-c92e-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, May 30, 3:36 PM

JERUSALEM — Israel’s Housing Ministry said Thursday it has given the final go-ahead for the construction of 300 new homes in a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, complicating the mission of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to renew Mideast peace talks.

The announcement came less than a week after Kerry urged Israel to avoid “provocative” actions during a visit to the region. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman described the move as “counterproductive.”

Palestinian officials immediately accused Israel of undermining the U.S. mediation efforts.

The issue of Jewish settlements has been at the heart of a nearly five-year impasse in peace efforts. Negotiations broke down in late 2008 and have remained stalled since then.

The Palestinians say they will not return to negotiations until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas they claim for a future state. Israel, which captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war, says talks should resume without any conditions.

MORE...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-to-build-300-units-in-jewish-settlement-in-east-jerusalem-threatening-kerry-efforts/2013/05/30/974ff646-c92e-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html

MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – Reports that Syria’s president had confirmed receiving a consignment of Russian-manufactured S-300 air defense systems emerged Thursday, but were quickly brought into question.

In comments widely reported across the world, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar quoted Syrian President Bashar Assad as saying Damascus had received initial deliveries of the S-300 system.

Assad's remarks were allegedly made during a pre-recorded interview to be aired on Hezbollah-controlled Almanar television channel on Thursday evening at 10:00 p.m. Moscow time.

But a high-level source at Lebanon-based Almanar, who said he had been present throughout the interview, told RIA Novosti by telephone that at no point did Assad explicitly confirm any S-300 deliveries.

When Assad was asked about the delivery of the anti-missile systems, the source – who requested that his name not be printed – said, the Syrian president replied that “everything we have agreed with Russia will be implemented, and a part of it has been implemented already.”

more...

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130530/181422107/Doubts-Cast-Over-Reported-S-300-Deliveries-to-Syria.html

WASHINGTON, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – A US Islamic rights group said Thursday it is calling for an official investigation of the FBI shooting death in Florida of a 27-year-old man who was being questioned about his ties to a suspect in the Boston Marathon bomb attack, amid reports the victim was unarmed.

“The bottom line is you have an unarmed individual who was not convicted or even charged with a crime who was interrogated and then was shot and killed,” Hassan Shibly, director of the Tampa branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told RIA Novosti.

“Were his rights violated during the interrogation-questioning process? Was excessive force used against him? We’re not accusing anyone of anything at this point. We just have a lot of unanswered questions,” Shibly said in a telephone interview.

He said CAIR expected to file its formal complaint with the US Department of Justice by Friday calling for an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of Ibragim Todashev, who was shot by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Orlando on May 22.

more...

http://en.rian.ru/crime/20130530/181426419/Probe-Sought-in-FBI-Killing-of-Boston-Bombing-Suspects-Friend.html

HELSINKI, May 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is disappointed with the EU move to end the ban on arms sales to the Syrian opposition and may reconsider its own commitments to restrictions on weapons deliveries to the war-torn country, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday.

“Every decision has two sides. If one side lifts restrictions, the other may consider itself free from observing earlier commitments,” Shoigu said at a joint news conference in Helsinki with his Finnish counterpart, Carl Haglund.

Russia has been harshly criticized by the West for reported deliveries of six S-300 air defense systems to Syria under a 2010 contract rumored to be worth $900 million.

Moscow, however, has insisted that such deliveries would be legal under international law and has denied supplying Syria with offensive weapons that can be used to kill civilians.
Before the start of the rebellion against Bashar Assad’s regime in March 2011, Syria, the largest importer of Russian arms in the Middle East, had shown interest in purchasing various armored vehicles, Yak-130 combat trainer aircraft and Iskander-E tactical ballistic missiles.

more...

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130529/181410473/Russia-May-Revise-Ban-on-Syrian-Arms-Exports---Minister.html

The proposal put forth by Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin is nothing short of an apartheid law, aiming to provide a solid legal basis for the exclusion of Israel's Arab minority.

Haaretz Editorial | May.30, 2013 | 3:01 AM

The exclusion of the Arab minority in Israel has until now lacked a vital basis to its institutionalization. There is no law discriminating against Arabs, limiting where they may settle, negating their language as an official language or determining that they are challenging the state’s Jewish identity.

Israel has been forced until now to rely on tricks, excuses and winks to prevent Arabs from working in so-called sensitive places of work, delay building plans in their communities, limit how many of them reside in Jewish communities and not enforce the use of Arabic in official correspondences. Only in a few instances did the High Court of Justice intervene and the government had no choice but to obey the ruling.

Coalition chairman MK Yariv Levin decided to put an end to this murky reality and provide the unofficial apartheid policy a legal basis. Levin is proposing the Basic Law: State of the Nation, which is nothing short of an apartheid law. If it will be accepted, Israel will be able to proudly hold the tile of a Jewish and racist state, a unique political creation, which will certainly astonish the family of nations.

Levin proposes, among other things, mandatory construction of Jewish communities, while building Arab communities will need authorization; abolishing Arabic as an official language and mandating the courts to give precedence in their rulings to Jewish identity in questions of democratic values and equal rights. That is to say, to give precedence to “Jewish” over “democratic” in defining the state.

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http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/basic-law-apartheid-in-israel.premium-1.526711

BEIRUT, May 28 (RIA Novosti) - Iran has opened two lines of credit totaling $4 billion to help Syria counter the economic impact of a civil war and international sanctions, Syria's government daily Tishreen reported, citing the country’s Central Bank.

Iran’s support is one of the key elements safeguarding the survival of Syria’s embattled regime of President Bashar Assad.

“Iran continues to support Syria, by opening one line of credit worth $1 billion to finance the import of consumer goods and another line of credit worth $3 billion to finance the purchase of oil and oil products,” Tishreen quoted Syria’s Central Bank Governor Adib Mayale as saying.

Mayale said Syria’s economic losses since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011 were estimated at 25 million euros ($32.2 bln).

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http://en.rian.ru/world/20130528/181380579/Iran-Extends-4-Bln-Credit-to-Syria.html

PARIS, May 28 (RIA Novosti) - The European Union’s decision to end the embargo on arms supplies to the Syrian opposition is illegitimate and at odds with the norms of international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

“Discussing at an official level whether or not to supply arms to non-state subjects [Kremlin lingo for rebels] is in conflict with all norms of international law, including the principles of non-interference in states’ internal affairs, not to mention military intervention,” he said.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton confirmed on Monday that from now on, every EU member country has the right to make its own decision on arms exports to Syria, meaning that EU countries could now supply the Syrian opposition with weapons. She affirmed that any arms sent to Syria would be "intended for the protection of civilians," and added that the EU governments would review the position on sanctions on Syria before August 1.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said earlier in the day that the EU’s failure to extend the arms embargo on Syria may directly harm the upcoming international conference on Syria.

“This is a reflection of double standards and a direct blow to the international conference on Syria proposed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry on May 7,” Ryabkov told journalists.

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http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130528/181393930/Moscow-Slams-EU-Move-to-Lift-Syria-Arms-Ban.html

Israeli intelligence experts, defense mavens and foreign policy gurus should be poring over President Barack Obama’s address to the National Defense University by now. Many of them, one can safely posit, won’t like what they’re reading, in the text and between the lines.

And it’s not only because Obama, contrary to conventional wisdom in Israel, included the Israeli-Palestinian conflict among “the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism from North Africa to South Asia.” Israelis have fought long and hard to counter the assertion that the conflict fuels or sustains Islamic extremism and the Arab Spring has only cemented their conviction.

But it will come as no surprise to most mavens that Obama, along with his vice president and secretaries of state and defense, is convinced that resolving Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians will go a long a way towards soothing Arab and Muslim resentment of, and enmity towards, the U.S. in particular and the West in general.

Rather it is Obama’s declaration of intent to bring the American “war on terror” to an end that may be a source of greater concern for Israeli policy makers, on a philosophical level at least. Obama’s view that there is no single global jihadist campaign that is being waged against America contradicts the prevailing outlook of most Israelis, inside the government and out. His conception that terrorists from Boston to Beirut to Baghdad to Benghazi, even if they are jihadi-inspired, are separate entities, rather than manifestations or even tentacles of a singular ideological central command, flies In the face of most Israelis’ view of the world. As it does for many U.S. Republicans.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/177367/obamas-speech-on-counter-terrorism-raises-concerns/#ixzz2UMrHr5Jr

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, May 24, 2013 9:31 EDT

More than a dozen cars were torched and schools, shops and a police station were set ablaze as riots swept through Stockholm’s immigrant-dominated suburbs for the fifth straight night, police and firefighters said Friday.

Police plan to call in reinforcements to help quell the riots, but parents and volunteer organisations who have patrolled the streets in recent nights have helped decrease their intensity, police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said.

The riots have shattered Sweden’s image abroad as a peaceful and egalitarian nation, and sparked a domestic debate about the assimilation of immigrants, who make up about 15 percent of the population.

Firefighters were dispatched to 70 different locations in greater Stockholm overnight, extinguishing torched cars, dumpsters and buildings, including three schools, the fire department wrote on Twitter.

That was calmer than the previous night, when they handled 90 incidents.

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/24/stockholm-riots-stretch-into-fifth-night/