Presenter, Man # 1
Yemeni citizens and officials demanded that Arab and African states take effective and practical steps so that the International Criminal Court’s decision be canceled, which they described as unjust, or else the stability in the region will be threatened.

Reporter, Man # 2
Yemeni officials declared their support with Sudan in defying the International Criminal Court’s accusations against president Bashir and said that the decision of the international criminal court is a blatant violation that is aimed at destabilizing the region.

Guest, Man # 3
Calling for the arrest of a country’s president is a violation to Sudan’s national sovereignty. This encourages the Sudanese to unite behind their president as we have seen in people’s reactions.

Reporter, Man # 2
Making random accusations against Sudan while ignoring the genocide in Gaza shows that the International criminal Court’s decision was politically motivated. It ignored the Sudanese law and constitution.

Guest, Man # 4
The Intentional criminal court’s decision is aimed at derailing the peace process in Sudan.
The government represented by Bashir and the opposition groups in Darfur have entered a dialogue. Therefore, issuing an arrest warrant against one of these two sides encourages violence inside Sudan.

Reporter, Man # 2
Yemeni political officials called on Arabs to unit in the face of such challenges and demanded that Arabs take strong actions to have the international criminal court’s decision reversed. Its decision to arrest Sudanese president is a violation to the country’s sovereignty.

Guest, Man # 5
If Arab and African countries do not take a strong position calling for the cancelation of the international criminal court’s decision, not postponing it, then the security and the stability of the African continent and the Arab states will be at stake.

Reporter, Man # 2
Yemeni citizens and officials expressed resentment towards the international criminal court’s decision to arrest President Bashir. This decision showed double standards which cast doubt on the legitimacy of the International criminal court and decrease the confidence of international community in it. Muhammad Al Makhazi, Sudan’s television, Sana’.

Presenter, Man # 1
The Sudanese Ambassador to Holland, Abu Al Qasem Abdel Wahed, said that the decision of the International criminal court is politically motivated to serve the interests of greedy countries.

Guest, Man # 6
The decision was politically motivated to a great extent. An incident that took place several months ago confirms this. The US ambassador to the UN at the time, Zamai KahlilZadah, said that the International criminal court will make a decision to charge the Sudanese president but drop the genocide charges. This is exactly what happened today. Of course, it was natural to expect this kind of a decision from such court.

Presenter, Female #1
Al Bustan Neighborhood in Silwan is under the threat of complete demolishment. The end of the week report reveals the dangerous plan, which is to vacant the Yemeni neighborhood in Silwan that has a population of 7000 Palestinians. The Settlers took over the neighborhood, and the fate of the Palestinians remains unknown until the intention of the settlers becomes clear.

Guest, Male #1
They gave him $200, and then they sent him to the US and put him in a hotel. A week later after they took his house they brought him back and threw him like a dog. They threw his family and the furniture. His wife went to her parents’ house because there is no where else for her to go.

Reporter, Male #2
The eye cannot avoid this 7 floor building that is covered with an Israeli flag. The settlers built this in the Yemeni neighborhood in east Jerusalem which makes it look unique.
It is like a huge advertisement saying that the settlers are here and they are striving to take over the neighborhood that has a population of 7000 Palestinians. They put their hand on the land with the excuse that it was Jewish land 120 years ago. As for AL Bustan Neighborhood, they claim that it was Jewish thousands of years ago.

Guest, Male #3
The M9 plan states that they cannot build as they please. However, due to the population increase in the area they built building that violated the M9 plan. Due to this violation, the municipality of Jerusalem issued an appeal to demolish these homes. 400 homes were demolished within the past 10 years. In Al Bustan neighborhood there is 90 homes…

Reporter, Male #2
The homes in Silwan and Al Bustan neighborhood that were taken over by the settlers will no be demolished.

Guest, Male #4
There was an issued appeal to demolish a house, then the Israelis bought it, they turned it into a castle, they added rooms to it, and renovated it. So now the appeal to demolish the house has been stopped. It’s that simple, the appeal is gone.

Guest, Female #2
This is discrimination. The appeal to demolish the home was stopped, because they are Jews. They want to help the settlers settle here. They do not have a permit and they did not have a permit to build anything, however, the municipality does not say anything.

Reporter, Male # 2
The field researcher for peace is Israeli, she is out of place, and does not have the power to change the over and underground violations that are committed by the settlers, and supported by the government. The warning to demolish dozens of homes in Al Bustan neighborhood, and the similar threat that faces the Yemeni neighborhood in Silwan reveals the truth about the jewdification of East Jerusalem. The idea is supported by the government and the settlers, and the law is designed to support the settlers and expel the Arabs. Ziad Halabi, Al Arabiya, Occupied Jerusalem.

Presenter, Male #1
We asked the Jerusalemites about their opinion regarding the Arab peace Initiative, lets hear what their reactions where:

Guest, Male #2
The proposed Arab initiative by the Arab League is the most suitable for everyone.
It is the fairest initiative for everyone.

Guest, Male #3
I disagree. The Arab peace initiative validates the Zionist entity as a normal facet in the Arab World. However, it not a normal facet, it is a colonial entity, and an oppressing force that occupied the land. First and foremost this initiative validates this occupation.

Guest, Male #4
The problem is Israel. Israel does not acknowledge the Arab peace Initiative, nor does it acknowledge international resolutions or international laws. The issue is in the hands of Israel, and as a result Israel is not committed to the Initiative.

Guest, Male #5
The initiative is good for peace. The problem is not whether the initiative is good or not.
The key is how Israel perceives the initiative and whether or not they accept the initiative. And if they reject it, then what is the reaction of the Arab countries to this Israeli rejection.

Guest, Male #6
When Saudi Arabia proposed this initiative, and changes were made to it in 2002 at the Arab league conference in Beirut, it was obvious that it met the demands of the Palestinians because it adhered to international resolutions.

Guest, Female #1
We do not want peace unless the all Palestinian people agree. As of now, I think that the Arab peace initiative is not necessary.

Guest, Male #7
Israel has been making fools out of us for 60 years. Israel believes in peace, but peace without giving us land or anything, and we think that is peace. Israel is saying there is peace while they are building settlements and expelling us. You think this is peace?

Presenter, Man # 1
Naji Hamdan is an American citizen of Lebanese dissent. He left Los Angeles in the US to the UAE so that his children can grow in an Arabic culture. His family as will as the ACLU said that the FBI arrested him in August 2008. Al Jazeera reporter, Wajd Waqfi presents the information she was able to obtain about Naji Hamadan in the fowling report.

Reporter, Woman # 1
The pain of Naji Hamdan’s family stretches from Los Angles to Beirut and Abu Dhabi, where his immediate family lives. Naji is American citizen of Lebanese dissent who has been detained in one of Abu Dhabi prisons for the past five months and no one seems to now what is the accusation. Even Najai does not now much about the accusation.

Guest, Man # 2
The incident under which the law allows the American government to detain an American citizen is when criminal charges are made against him in an American court.
He must be convicted by a jury. Then the US can demand that he be detained and extradited to the US to stand in court. Naji however was never convicted here.

Reporter, Woman # 1
Naji send a letter to an American official in the UAE, which Al Jazeera acquired a copy of from his relatives, explaining the way he was arrested and what he described as the use of torture to force him to sign untrue confessions, and that he was a member of Al Qaeda.
He was threatened that otherwise his wife and sons would be arrested and tortured in front of him.

Guest, Man # 3
The UAE government has always denied that Naji is in their custody. When I call them, they would deny that they have him and tell me that they don’t know who is Najo Hamadan. They made it look like he dose not exist. We waited for along time, and we talked to the America Embassy, but they also pertained like they do not know.
They would tell us that they do not know. We contacted the FBI, and told them that Naji disappeared after they talked to him. Does this make any since?

Reporter, Woman # 1
Los Angles city officials said that Naji was a successful business man. His brother told us that he wanted to live in an Arab country because he wanted his children to be exposed to Arab culture. Naji had been monitored by the FBI for years. After Lebanese authorities conducted an investigation with him, he decided to move to UAE. While Naji was living there, the FBI made a visit to his brother.

Guest, Man # 3
They started asking me about him. They asked me was he very religious, was he extremist, did he hate someone, did he do acts of terrorism, and did have relations with others and terrorists?

Reporter, Woman # 1
Since Naji is an American citizen, we went to the American Justice Department, but they refused to make any comment except for an advice that we go to the State Department, which we did.

Guest, Man # 3
We are concerned about the arrest of any American citizen. Our press office has comments pertaining to this issue.

Reporter, Woman # 1
According to the State Department press office, Naji left before the investigation was completed. However his family and lawyers said that he signed all release forms before leaving the US.

Guest, Man # 4
Even if the American government was not involved in this issue, it still obligated to insure the safety of Naji, his release, and to make sure that all evidence that were acquired through torture from him be dismissed. The failure of the US to so, proves that it is involved.

Reporter, Woman # 1
We asked the FBI and they responded with this letter, saying: The FBI requests foreign governments to arrest American national on their behalf and suggested that we go the UAE government, which we did. We made sure to give the UAE an opportunity to respond to the accusation that Naji was arrested in its territories based on an FBI request. However the UAE embassy in Washington refused to comment saying that that this is a security issue pertaining to an American citizen. The American authorities did not respond to our inquiries about the fate of Naji during the past five month; however they did not deny that he is being detained in a prison in the United Arab Emirates. During the five month that has passed, sadness overcame his family, his father died and his mother can no longer leave bed due to illness. Wajd Waqfi, Al Jazeera, Washington.

Presenter, Male #1
The children of Iraq have adjusted and overcome hardships; this is because of their determination to reach their goals. They have showed that they have the will power and the ability to overcome hardships. They were always a symbol of liveliness in the Iraqi society. Their childhood suffers because they are orphans, and because of the unstable security situation that has exhausted the Iraqi people.

Reporter, Male #2
The rights of children are worshiped all around the world; however, the orphans of Iraq still suffer after losing a mother or a father. Some of the orphanages received some aid from different governmental and international organizations, such as the UNICEF, the Worlds Children Organization, and the Red Crescent; yet, other are still suffering. The city of Al Sadri West of Baghdad has an orphanage called, “The Safe home.” The situation of this orphanage is obviously suffering.

Guest, Male # 3
The house is very crowded, there is no room to walk or play. We just have a room, a bathroom and a kitchen.

Guest, Male #4
My father is in prison and there is no to defend him.

Reporter, Male #2
The head of the house has assured that the house is very small and it has 33 children in it, which is a crisis.

Guest, Male # 5
We have 33 children in this house. The size of the house is 170 meters, which is small. We only have two bedrooms, the room you saw and another upstairs. This is the biggest crisis we face. And just for the record, we pay rent for this house. We ask the government to provide housing, or a house bigger than this one for the children. If we have a house bigger than this one, then we can bring in more orphans. We can bring more children from the provinces and Baghdad.

Reporter, Male #2
Under normal circumstances strong family networks would help these children, however, given the unstable security situation these orphans are vulnerable. Families are now striving to feed their children and educate them, but more and more families are unable to achieve this anymore. This means that either children will go to the orphanages or they just sleep on the streets. Despite all the obstacles that the Iraqi children face, they still have huge hopes that the international organizations would help them in the near future.

Presenter, Woman # 1
The city of Wilat in teastern part of the Mauritania desert was a center of civilization and science for along time. Some of it remains are still standing until today, testifying for the prominent role it gained due to its geographic location between Sudan and the Moroccan oasis. Our reporter in Mauritanian Mahmud Muhammad made a visit to this city and prepared the flowing report.

Reporter, Man # 1
The historic city of Wilat is located between Sudan and the oasis of Morocco. At one point, it was one of the beigest trade centers in the great desert. Historians documented the prosperity of its residents and talked elaborately about the scientific achievements of its scholars.

Guest, Man # 2
This city of Wilat was one of the most prominent and oldest Mauritanian cities.
It was kwon for being the home of large number of scientists and scholars in Arab civilization and Islam.

Reporter, Man # 1
One of the remaining elements of the old city of Wilat is the architectural. Homes in the city still have their beautiful architecture though they were built centuries ago. The designs decorating these homes were meant to protect people from evil spirits, spells, and illness.

Guest, Man # 2
These decorations show that the residents of Wilat were influenced by northerners from especially Morocco and the Andalus. It was one of the trade centers in the Sahara desert.
It seems that the city was much larger than what remains of it today. Excavations in the desert areas around the city revealed historical artifacts that were swallowed by the desert for a long time. The writing on these artifacts which was aimed to exorcise evil spirits did not protect them forces desertification. One year ago, in one of the largest discoveries of its kind, it turned out that half of the historical homes of the city of Wilat are actually covered with sand. One can expect anything here in the desert. Perhaps under my feet, a whole nation lived in peace and glory one day. Ahmad Muhammad, Dubai Television, Wilat, eastern Mauritanian.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity -- the court's first against a sitting head of state. The court's decision grimly spelled out the suffering of the people of Sudan's western region of Darfur: a history full of murder, extermination, torture, rape, pillage, the forcible transfer of people and deliberate attacks on civilians.

According to the United Nations, some 300,000 have died in Darfur since the conflict erupted in 2003 and more than two million have been displaced -- figures strongly rejected by Khartoum.

Al-Bashir, however, remains defiant.

"The true criminals are the leaders of the United States and Europe," he told some 10,000 protesters who crammed themselves into central Khartoum in support of their president.

While the U.S. and several western countries have hailed the court's decision, most Arab countries and several African nations called it "regrettable" and warned that al-Bashir's arrest could damage peace negotiations. Meanwhile, editorials in the Arab press have expressed strong feelings that the ICC employs a double standard in focusing on Africa while avoiding issues involving the Middle East and powerful members of the U.N. Security Council.

A commentator on Al Jazeera demanded that the precedent be extended to former U.S. President George W. Bush, "who authorized torture in Iraq's Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, thereby giving his approval of American crimes against humanity."

An Al Arabiya television report showed Washington's ally Israel as a potential candidate for prosecution, in view of the fact that it recently used banned weapons on civilians in Gaza.

The strongest attacks against the ICC's decision came on Hezbollah's Al Manar television, where a Lebanese member of the parliament wondered "about the blindness of justice and its absence from the prosecution of war criminals from U.S. officials and the Israelis, who filled the graves of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan with hundreds of thousands of dead and destroyed infrastructure, and milestones of human civilization."

Could the ICC's decision set a precedent?

According to David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir could extend to former U.S. President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects. Crane is a former prosecutor of the Sierra Leone tribunal that indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor and put him on trial in The Hague.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has asked the ICC to accept a complaint against Israel. After visiting Gaza, Britain's Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander publicly stated that the war crimes charges should be investigated. During the war, nine Israeli human rights groups also raised the possibility that Israel had violated the laws of war and called for investigation.

Could Israeli leaders or former president George W. Bush be next?