Bin Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Abdul Bari Atwan is one of the only Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, spending three days with him in the mountains of Afghanistan in 1996. He is the editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabia, and the author of The secret history of Al Qaeda. ABC TV's Lateline presenter Tony Jones interviewed Mr Bari Atwan on the program last night. TONY JONES: When you met bin Laden, he told you that his long-term plan was to 'bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil'. That must have sounded like madness at the time, but now we have Iraq. ABDUL BARI ATWAN: It seems Osama bin Laden had a long-term strategy. He told me personally that he can't go and fight the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a lesson. It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq, financially and on a human basis, and even their allies, including Australia, are really losing patience, losing money, losing personnel, losing reputation in that part of the world."
Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review : "The placement of four Ethiopian girls in a separate class from their peers at a Petah Tikva grade school has sparked accusations of segregation on Tuesday morning following a report in Yediot Aharonot. According to ‘Hamerhav’ principal, Rabbi Yeshiyahu Granvich, complete integration of the girls was impossible. The reason being, said municipal workers, was that the students were not observant enough, nor did their families belong to the national-religious movement that the school was founded upon. Among the differences in the daily school life of the girls, a single teacher was responsible to teach them all of their subjects. Worse yet, the four were allotted separate recess hours and were driven to and from school separately. Such action has been labeled by observers as “apartheid.”"
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