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NOVANEWWS UK police asks Internet cafes to monitor customers. By RAPHAEL G. SATTER The Associated Press LONDON — Internet cafe users in the British capital may want to watch what they download. Scotland Yard is advising administrators of public Web spaces to periodically poke through their customers' files and keep an eye out for suspicious activity. A Scotland Yard police poster is displayed in an internet cafe in London, Thursday, March 25, 2010. Scotland Yard noted Thursday that several terror plotters have used Internet cafes to coordinate planned attacks. Posters and screen savers with the Scotland Yard logo are being installed at cafes that sign up to the plan. The Metropolitan Police said Thursday that the initiative — which has been rolled out over the past weeks under the auspices...

Imagining an Israeli Strike on Iran Alicia Cheng By DAVID E. SANGER In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, declaring it could not live with the chance the country would get a nuclear weapons capability. In 2007, it wiped out a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. And the next year, the Israelis secretly asked the Bush administration for the equipment and overflight rights they might need some day to strike Iran’s much better-hidden, better-defended nuclear sites. Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning New Atomic Sites (March 28, 2010) They were turned down, but the request added urgency to the question: Would Israel take the risk of a strike? And if so, what would follow? Now that parlor game question has turned into more formal war games simulations. The government’s own s...

NOVANEWS IDF to seal off West Bank for the duration of Passover By DPA Israel will close off the West Bank from Midnight Sunday until midnight, April 6, for the duration of Passover holiday, the Israeli military spokesman announced Sunday morning. However, persons needing medical attention will be allowed to enter Israel, and humanitarian aid, as well as doctors, NGO workers and lawyers will can enter the West Bank. The closure is in keeping with the Israeli practice of sealing off the West Bank ahead of Jewish festivals, fearing militants might try to launch attacks to disrupt the festivities. On March 27, 2002 a Hamas suicide bomber killed 30 people and injured 140 more, when he blew himself up in an Israeli hotel at the beginning of the traditional Passover feast. Passover, which commem...

NOVANEWS Yemeni women who favour child bridesTHE sight of hundreds of women cheering a proposed law banning child marriage, as they did on March 22nd in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, was hardly amazing. No country has escaped the global trend towards greater equality between the sexes, not even one as poor and tradition-bound as Yemen, where half of girls are married off before the age of 18 and many even before the age of 10. Yet the day before that demonstration even more women (pictured right), nearly all wearing full face veils, gathered at the same spot to denounce the law as an imposition of unIslamic, Western values. Arab women have made huge if uneven strides since the issue of their rights arose a hundred years ago. Female education, for instance, was once virtually unknown. Today, ...

NOVANEWS By Edmund Sanders Reporting from Jericho, West Bank - As the highest-ranking commander of nearly 8,000 Palestinian security troops, Maj. Gen. Diab Ali is accustomed to being top gun. But the salutes often stop when he leaves the military base and travels through the West Bank. Experience has taught the general to leave his gun behind and trade the uniform for civilian clothes, lest some young Israeli checkpoint guard decide to hold him for questioning or block his way. "It avoids problems," said Ali, commander of the National Security Forces of the Palestinian Authority. It's a small -- some might say demeaning -- example of the challenges facing Palestinian security forces as they struggle to find a balance between operating under Israeli limits on their control in the West Bank ...

NOVANEWS Palestinian security forces walk a careful line The Palestinian Authority's reformed forces are more professional than ever. But maintaining legitimacy in eyes of their people despite Zionist limits on their authority is an ongoing battle. By Edmund Sanders Reporting from Jericho, West Bank - As the highest-ranking commander of nearly 8,000 Palestinian security troops, Maj. Gen. Diab Ali is accustomed to being top gun. But the salutes often stop when he leaves the military base and travels through the West Bank. Experience has taught the general to leave his gun behind and trade the uniform for civilian clothes, lest some young Israeli checkpoint guard decide to hold him for questioning or block his way. "It avoids problems," said Ali, commander of the National Security Forces of ...

NOVANEWS by Philip Weiss My post last night on Dennis Ross was right on time. Laura Rozen at politico reports that Ross is at the center of a battle within the Obama administration about how nice to be to Israel. The piece includes a frank statement of confused loyalty: “He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn’t seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this Administration.” Let me repeat myself. This guy is the living embodiment of the Israel lobby. He was till recently chairman of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, which opposes intermarriage, among other charming and important campaigns. A...

NOVANEWS by Philip Weiss The BBC says that the U.S. may not veto a Security Council resolution that is critical of Israel’s expansion in East Jerusalem: During their talks, [Qatar Foreign Minister] Sheikh Hamad asked the US official whether Washington would guarantee not to veto a UN Security Council resolution that was critical of Israel’s ongoing settlement construction in East Jerusalem. The diplomat said the US official had replied that the current feeling in Washington was that they would "seriously consider abstention".

NOVANEWS Today is the beginning of the Jewish holiday Passover, so here’s fundamentalist West Bank Jews Women in Green making a statement to the world: Dear Friends, As we prepare for Pessach, the People of Israel put to rest Eliraz Peretz and Ilan Saviatovsky, two soldiers who fell in battle with Arab terrorists. As the mother of Eliraz, who 12 years ago lost another son in battle, said: ”My son didn’t go in order to die, but he went so that the people of Israel could live in their land. Our sons died so that we could live here and walk here proudly.” The battle for the freedom of the Jewish People, as a people in their Biblical homeland, started when Israel left Egypt, from slavery to freedom, and continues until today. Tomorrow, Monday night, millions of Jews worldwide will certainly u...

NOVANEWS Arab leaders support peace plan By ASSOCIATED PRES Backing for 'land for peace' comes despite opposition to J'lem construction. SIRTE, Libya — Arab leaders on Sunday renewed their support for Mideast peace efforts, rejecting pressure from Syria and Libya on the Palestinians to abandon talks with Israel and resume armed resistance. The Arab League's backing for the 'land for peace' initiative with Israel comes despite its firm opposition to Israeli plans for new Jewish construction in Jerusalem, on land Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state. "The Arab peace initiative is a serious move. If we withdraw it, what will be the Arab stance after that?" Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told reporters after the summit's closing session. But the calls from Damascus and...