Headlines from the Arab press

AN-NAHAR (LEBANON)

Assad welcomes ’honorable rival’

Damascus made a point of giving an exceptional reception accorded to presidents to one of its oldest Lebanese rivals, Michel Aoun of the Free Patriotic Movement, who made his first visit to Syria since the mid-1980s.

Sources who attended the meeting between Mr. Aoun and President Bashar Assad said the latter told him that he had always been an “honorable rival. … I appreciate your strength and your patriotic positions that make you a true man on the Arab level.”

AL-ARAB AL-YAWM (JORDAN)

Hundreds protest at Egyptian Embassy

Hundreds of Jordanians protested in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Amman demanding that the leadership there open the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip.

Political parties and union activists called on Egypt to allow basic supplies into Gaza and let the sick out of the strip to seek medical attention.

AL-MESRYOON (EGYPT)

Israel negotiates gas deal with Egypt

Israel plans to enter negotiations to import additional amounts of natural gas from Egypt in a new deal estimated at $3 billion.

This development comes despite the crisis between the two countries over the increase of natural gas prices, and in the aftermath of an Egyptian judiciary decision to stop pumping gas to Israel.

OKAZ (SAUDI ARABIA)

India gave Rice evidence in attacks

An Indian government official said that New Delhi provided visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with “evidence” that Pakistan was linked to the recent attacks in Mumbai, including phone recordings and telephone numbers showing a link between the terrorists and their leaders in Pakistan.

Miss Rice said after meeting with Indian officials that Pakistan should cooperate fully and immediately in the Mumbai attacks investigation.

TISHREEN (SYRIA)

Thousands of Iraqis march against pact

Thousands of Iraqis living in Syria demonstrated in Damascus against the U.S.-Iraqi security pact, denouncing it as prolonging the U.S. occupation of their country.

They carried banners reading, “No to rewarding the occupation for their crimes,” and, “Shame on those who signed it,” as they chanted slogans against what they said is legitimizing the occupation.

AL-SEYASSAH (KUWAIT)

Minister rules out normalizing ties

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abel Gheit ruled out restoring normal Egyptian-Syrian ties, but said he hopes the future will hold changes that would return the situation to the time preceding the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.

In remarks during a visit to Brussels, the minister said the relationship with Syria was an internal Arab matter and they would not allow foreign intervention in this regard.

AZ-ZAMAN (LONDON/IRAQ)

Thousands in Iraq held without trial

Shortly before 15,000 Iraqis in U.S. jails are to be turned over to Iraqi authorities, the United Nations said in an annual report that the human rights conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate.

The report said that thousands of prisoners have been held for years without trial and that many of them have been tortured.

AL-WAQT (BAHRAIN)

Chemical Ali again sentenced to death

A special Iraqi court has sentenced to death by hanging, for the second time, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, Saddam Hussein’s cousin, for crushing an uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.

Al-Majeed, also known as Chemical Ali for his role in using gas against Kurdish farmers, was sentenced last year to death on charges of killing thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. A top former Ba’athist leader, Abdel Ghani Abdel Ghafour, also was sentenced to death, after which he chanted, “Down with the American-Persian occupation.” The judge, Mohammed al-Oreibi, yelled back at him, “Shut up, you dirty Ba’athist.”

Compiled by Sana Abdallah of the Middle East Times