Source: Syria Working on Clandestine Nuclear Program Since 1986

From Source: Syria Working on Clandestine Nuclear Program Since 1986:

A former Syrian military officer who has had access to sensitive military information in Damascus confirmed Tuesday that Syria has been working on a clandestine nuclear program at least since 1986. He said many North Korean nationals are in Syria in relation to that program. He claimed that Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan has visited Syria several times since 1989, after being introduced to the Damascus Baathist regime by Libya. He also said Syria possesses the "latest Russian technology in air defense," but that it was reluctant to expose it during the latest attack because, two decades ago, such exposure allowed Israel to destroy all Syrian anti-aircraft missiles in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Challenging the UN's Darker Side

The further dumbing down of the United Nations. From Challenging the UN's Darker Side:

The UN on Monday will launch a series of international meetings on racism, leading up to a major world conference in 2009. The so-called "Durban Review" process is the follow-up to the 2001 conference in South Africa that turned into a diplomatic fiasco. All indications suggest next week's session, and the events that follow from it, will mimic both the format and script of the original. The ghosts of 2001 are almost certain to be conjured up by the shamans of Durban II. The party chosen to chair the entire process through 2009 indicates its seriousness of purpose: Moammar Qaddafi's Libya.

On Thursday, while the Geneva session is underway, the European Parliament in Brussels will host a UN "International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace." The UN's 16-member Palestinian division is part of a sprawling infrastructure of anti-Israel committees and programs launched by the General Assembly in 1975 alongside its resolution declaring that "Zionism is racism." A UN secretary general cannot be judged by country-driven bodies that go astray.

But as Secretary General Ban did recently in protesting the hypocrisies of the Human Rights Council, he can choose to speak truth to power now.

Gaddafi's Son: Bulgarians Were Tortured

From Gaddafi's Son: Bulgarians Were Tortured:

Six Bulgarian medical workers imprisoned on charges of infecting children with the HIV virus were tortured by electric shock during their captivity, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi told al-Jazeera television. The doctor and five nurses were released last month after eight years in prison, and several have described ordeals of electric shock, rape, attacks by dogs and other torture during their incarceration.

Libya Destroyed Millennia of Jewish Heritage

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Letters

Kudos to Journal reporter Lucette Lagnado for her poignant account of the bustling, cosmopolitan Egypt she and her family, as Jews, were forced to leave in 1963 and the country's anemic condition today ("Searching For My Father's Lost City, June 30, 2007). I could recount a remarkably similar story about Libya, my native country. It was exactly 40 years ago this month that more than 2,000 years of the Jewish presence on what is today Libyan soil came to an end. That presence, incidentally, predated by centuries the Arab conquest and occupation. At its peak, the Jewish community numbered 40,000 and was particularly active in the country's thriving commercial life. Most left after deadly attacks against Jews in 1945 and 1948, but several thousand remained, including my family, hoping against hope that the 1951 constitution, which formally protected the minority rights of Jews, Italians, Maltese and Greeks, would ensure our well being. But we were wrong. Jews could not vote, hold public office, obtain Libyan passports, acquire majority ownership in any new business or even supervise their own communal affairs.

In the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, when Jews once again became targets of locally inspired violence, we were compelled to leave, never to return. We, and hundreds of thousands like us in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, became the "forgotten" refugees of the Middle East. Unlike generations of Palestinians who have languished in camps that are incubators of hatred and violence, we moved on and established new lives in Israel, Europe and North America. But the scars have not healed. How could they? Our properties were seized. But more importantly, our presence was extinguished. There is no trace today of the rich legacy of Jewish life in Libya. Cemeteries have been destroyed, synagogues converted to other purposes. It is as if we never existed in a country that we called home for two millennia.

To understand the current deficits of political, economic and cultural dynamism in much of the Arab world, it is critically important to grasp the patterns of discrimination and exclusion against non-Arab, non-Muslim minorities and the outflow of these groups to this very day. But alas, apart from Ms. Lagnado's superb article, far too little attention has been paid to this critically important dimension of the region.

G_______ B________
Chappaqua, N.Y.

Libya Backs Out of Deal with U.S. to Destroy Chemical Weapons

There is not one Arab nation that keeps its word. From Libya Backs Out of Deal with U.S. to Destroy Chemical Weapons:

Libya has informed the U.S. of plans to back out of a contract to destroy its mustard gas stocks as promised under a landmark 2003 agreement, U.S. officials said. Libya is believed to still have 23 metric tons of old mustard gas and 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals, and had promised to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction. "The bottom line is, I don't know what the Libyans are up to," one U.S. official said.