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Newsletter : 2fax0131.txt
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>JN Jan. 31, 2002, Vol. 10, No. 21
Arab Ministers Vow to Fight Terrorism
By VOA News
Arab interior ministers have ended a two-day conference in Beirut, saying they will fight global terrorism and continue to support the Palestinians against what they called state terrorism practiced by Israel.
The ministers, Wednesday, condemned all forms of terrorism and stressed the need to discriminate between terrorism and a peoples' right to struggle, through all means, to liberate their lands.
Peres: Iran Developing Long Range Ballistic Missiles
By IsraelNationalNews.com
According to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Iran is developing long-range missiles capable of reaching all of Europe and, ultimately, even North America.
Peres further commented in the Knesset Wednesday that "the war against ballistic missiles must be concentrated in anti-ballistic missile systems and against terrorist states and those giving refuge to terrorists, in addition to terrorist gangs."
Israel, said the minister, is a party to that struggle against terrorist states and for better anti-ballistic missile technology.
Palestinian Suicide Bomber Wounds Two Israelis
By Meredith Buel (VOA-Jerusalem)
A Palestinian suicide bomber has wounded two Israelis identified as members of the Shin Bet security service. The blast went off near the Israeli Arab town of Taibeh, which is north of Tel Aviv near the West Bank.
The bomber was identified as an informer for Israel's internal security service who apparently lured the two agents to a rendezvous point before setting off the explosion.
A statement from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office has said the men were on an operational mission when they were attacked.
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction and the militant Islamic Jihad group both claimed responsibility for the blast. Israeli police have been on alert since a bomb exploded on a main shopping street in Jerusalem earlier this week, killing a Palestinian woman who was carrying the explosives and an Israeli man.
Family members identified the woman as Wafa Idris, a volunteer paramedic who lived in a refugee camp with her mother in the West Bank city of Ramallah. A statement from a Palestinian militant group identified her as a martyr.
Her family described her as cheerful, with no overt ties to any militant groups. They said while working as a paramedic she was hit several times by rubber bullets fired by Israeli soldiers. They could not explain how she obtained the explosives for the bombing.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, an armed wing of Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem attack. The group said the woman carried out the bombing in retaliation for Israeli military actions against Palestinians.
Israeli police said they do not know whether the woman blew herself up intentionally or planned to plant the bomb and leave the scene. If she did kill herself deliberately she would be the first female Palestinian suicide bomber since the current conflict erupted 16 months ago.
Egyptian Man Sentenced for Having Too Many Wives
By Greg LaMotte (VOA-Cairo)
A ruling has been handed down in a court case that galvanized, and entertained, many Egyptians. It involved one wealthy man and many, many wives. The man has been found guilty of violating Islamic law by being married to more than four wives.
Seven years of prison with hard labor. That was the sentence handed down in the case of a wealthy Egyptian businessman convicted of having five wives, one more than his Islamic religion allows.
Ragab el-Suweirky, 56, admitted to the court that he has been married 19 times, but he insisted none of his marriages violated Islamic law because he said he was never married to more than four wives at a time.
The court in Cairo didn't agree with him. He was found guilty of distorting the truth about his marital status, tricking woman into having illicit sex and, on several occasions, having five wives at once.
He re-married one of his ex-wives four times, contrary to Islamic law that allows couples who are divorced to re-marry three times. Some of his wives were as young as 14, two years under Egypt's legal age for marriage. And many of his wives were unaware there were others.
According to Egyptian law, a man who fails to declare his other wives before a new marriage is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by six months in jail or a fine of $43.
El-Suweirky, who owns a chain of clothing stores, has 15 children. He remained composed after hearing the sentence, but as he was being led away in handcuffs he made clear he was surprised by the sentence. He said he hadn't even expected a month in jail.
The judge who handed down the sentence said el-Suweirky had been blessed with a fortune but instead of thanking God for the blessing, he chose to, "satisfy his sexual desire and lust." Many of the women he had married continued to back him during the trial. One of them screamed when the sentence of seven years at hard labor was read.
