Tony Blair wants Cairo to mediate Israeli-Hamas' Gaza violence

Cairo (AFP) - Egyptian government, under new President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has adopted a hands-off approach towards the conflict in Gaza amid deteriorating ties with Hamas. Mideast Quartet envoy Tony Blair arrived in Cairo Saturday for talks on ending the violence in Gaza, where Israeli air raids have killed more than 155 Palestinians this week, officials said.

Blair, who represents the European Union, Russia, United Nations and United States, will hold talks with Egyptian officials to press for an end to the c

Despite international concern, truce efforts have been unsuccessful, according to Egypt, which had been key in mediating previous ceasefires between Hamas and Israel.

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SERIES OF BREAKING NEWS:

Merkel spokesman says U.S. intelligence official at U.S. embassy in Berlin has been asked to leave the country.

Oakland police headquarters has been evacuated because of a gas leak. The NB I-880 Broadway off-ramp is closed due to the leak.

A man was arrested after setting a small fire at Oakland Airport Terminal 1. There is no damage to the airport.

A series of #Israeli air strikes carried out on the border between #Egypt and the #Gaza Strip, Al Arabiya’s correspondent reports.

Pope to lead Israeli-Palestinian peace prayer

Pope Francis is scheduled to host a peace prayer with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents in a move aimed at bringing the two peoples together. Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, will lead prayers on Sunday at the Vatican with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres in a gesture aimed at fostering dialogue.

“This prayer meeting will not be for mediation or to find solutions. We are just meeting up to pray. Then everyone goes home,” Francis said after issuing the invitations during a pilgrimage to the Middle East last month.

Pius Adesanmi: No Wonder Rere dey Run

Aso Rock Villa. Living Room of the President’s private residence. Israeli, American, French, Chinese, Cambodian, Somalian, Sudanese, and Ghanaian security operatives protecting the Nigerian president are in the background. They try to make themselves unobtrusive. Also in the background, chanting Quranic hymns on mats imported from Chad, are marabouts from Niger, Senegal, and Gambia. At the centre of the living room, some distance away from all the foreign intelligence and spiritual protectors of the President, the usual suspects gather, wearing gloomy faces: President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Tony Anenih, Baba Iyabo, Ayo Oritsejafor, Mohammed Adoke, Doyin Okupe, Reuben Abati, and other inconsequential AGIPs. Nobody is talking. Soft music oozes from a central entertainment system. An old school Yoruba tune probably supplied by Doyin Okupe and Reuben Abati:

Berlin festival to honor anti-Israel filmmaker

 BERLIN – A film director who backs boycotting Israeli artists is to receive the highest honorary award at the International Film Festival in Berlin

Jewish leaders in Germany have reacted with dismay to the decision to award an honorary Golden Bear to Ken Loach, British director of such films as “My Name Is Joe” (1998) and “Bread And Roses” (2000). He is set to receive the award on Thursday.

“Ken Loach uses his prominence to call for a cultural boycott of Israel, singling out the only democracy in the Middle East where there is complete freedom of expression. It is a disgrace that a prominent German film festival panders to a film producer who has distinguished himself through bigotry and the denial of the right to existence of Israel,” Deidre Berger, head of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committees, said. ”It is not possible to judge his work on the basis of art alone, as he himself judges the work of others solely on the basis of nationality.”

Festival director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement on the festival’s website that he admires Loach for his “profound interest in people and their individual fates, as well as his critical commitment to society.”

According to the online magazine Haolam.de, Loach called for a boycott of the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2009 after he learned that Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom Ezer had been invited, and that the Israeli government had helped finance her trip. Also in 2009, he canceled plans to attend the Melbourne International Film Festival after learning that the Israeli government had paid for the flight of animation artist Tatia Rosenthal.

In a recent interview with Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper, Loach was asked why he supported boycotting Israel. He responded that “Israel presents itself as a western democracy… and at the same time breaks international agreements, fails to uphold the Geneva Convention, takes land to which it has no right, throws children in prison and lies to the world about its nuclear weapons.”

Loach said he supported an academic and cultural boycott because “it’s the only thing we can do” to accomplish what “neither the UN nor Obama has managed to do,” to get Israel to give up what he called occupied land.

He said that he had refused to go to the Tehran Film Festival out of respect for opponents of that regime.

This year’s Berlin Film Festival includes fewer films from Israel than in recent years.

TIMES OF ISRAEL