divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/6401?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Israeli+riot+police+evict+settlers+in+Hebronch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territories+%28News%29%2CMiddle+East+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Rory+McCarthyc7=2008_12_05c8=1129174c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territoriesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FIsrael+and+the+Palestinian+territories" width="1" height="1" //divpRiot police forcibly evacuated a house filled with dozens of Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday in the most public showdown between the government and the increasingly violent settler movement for more than two years./ppHundreds of police mounted a surprise raid on the three-storey house, which had become the latest symbol of defiance for Israeli settlers. Troops fired teargas into the crowds and dragged settlers from the house one by one. Around 30 people were injured, including one policeman who had acid thrown in his eyes./ppAlthough the house was emptied within an hour, the operation triggered broad settler protests across the occupied West Bank and in Jerusalem that continued into the night. In Hebron, masked settlers set Palestinian trees ablaze and attacked buildings. The Israeli military declared the southern West Bank a closed military zone, setting up roadblocks to prevent more settlers descending on the city./ppThe building, dubbed the House of Peace by the settlers and the House of Contention by the Israeli press, was home to 15 settler families, but their numbers had swelled as supporters poured in. Earlier this week there were riots between the settlers and Palestinians which left several people hurt on both sides. Settlers daubed a black Star of David on several graves in a nearby Palestinian cemetery as well as the word "revenge" on a Palestinian house. /ppYesterday morning the house was full mostly of young people, sitting on the cold concrete floors, praying in the hallways or playing football in the road outside. One poster read: "This land is our land."/ppThe settlers claim they bought the house nearly two years ago from a Palestinian for just short of $1m (pound;670,000) and said they had documents and videotape as proof. However, the Palestinian has since denied selling the building to the settlers. Last month, the Israeli supreme court said the house should be evacuated until the ownership dispute was settled./ppJust minutes before the raid, Nadia Matar, a prominent settler figure who had spent the past week living in the house, defended the project. "They were able to do what we have been doing since the beginning of Jewish history: to live in the land of Israel, to purchase land like Abraham did," she said. /ppThe house sits just outside the large Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba and, Matar said, was a strategic asset that linked the settlement to the centre of Hebron, the burial place of the patriarch Abraham./ppLike most in the house, she believes Israel has a biblical right to take all the land between the Mediterranean sea and the River Jordan. All Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law./ppMatar was one of the last to be dragged from the building and as she crouched in the dirt after being deposited by the four policemen who carried her out, she said: "Shame on the government for using all this force against us."/ppRuth Hizmi was one of the first to rent an apartment in the house and she lived there with four of her children. Her flat had bare concrete walls and floor, with electricity cables stretching across the ceiling and sheets of cloth dividing the bedrooms. /pp"We are citizens who are holding on to our country, the only country we have and they are giving it away. They are throwing Jews out of their homes," she said, just hours before the raid. /ppWhen the police arrived Hizmi was out collecting children from school but quickly returned, forced her way through rows of police and briefly back into the house before she too was carried out. /ppPolice will now occupy the building and prevent the settlers returning./ppFor the settlers, holding on to the house was also an act of defiance against the Yesha council, the traditional settler leadership, which has lost support among a younger, more hardline generation, particularly after Israel removed its settlers from Gaza three years ago. /ppHowever, there has been growing antipathy to the settlers within Israel itself. Yesterday, the left-leaning Ha'aretz newspaper described their actions in Hebron this week as "Jewish terrorism"./ph2Clashes/h2pstrongHebron/strong is the second largest and most contentious city in the occupied strongWest Bank/strong. It is home to about strong600 Jewish settlers /strongand strong170,000 Palestinians/strong. The settlers arrived just after the strong1967 war /strongand are protected by the Israeli military. They insist on a biblical right to live in the city - the burial place of the strongpatriarch Abraham/strong. As a result, strongPalestinians/strong are kept out of the city centre and their strongshops/strong strongclosed/strong, leaving the old commercial heart deserted. The city frequently witnesses strongviolent clashes./strong/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians"Israel and the Palestinian territories/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast"Middle East/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/z7eLKqOoFLkEtVP8cPhow9jjFoI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/z7eLKqOoFLkEtVP8cPhow9jjFoI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

antispam_ben writes "The President of Italy, which will have the Presidency of the G8 starting January 1, says he wants to use the future position of Italy to 'Regulate the Internet.' Italy's President Berlusconi appears to be a cantankerous character, prompting riots when Italy last had the G8 presidency in 2001. This will no doubt be a serious effort, but knowing the fundamental design of the Internet involves routing around damage, the efforts could be more amusing than threatening."pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/04/2330232amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/04/2330232"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/04/2330232amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/GnRKSeKI-GL12QyBPgB2_F1XqKY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/GnRKSeKI-GL12QyBPgB2_F1XqKY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/vmpswH8-mXc" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/62108?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Zimbabwe+moves+to+tackle+cash+shortage+as+soldiers+riotch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Zimbabwe%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Chris+McGrealc7=2008_12_04c8=1128359c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Zimbabwec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FZimbabwe" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Zimbabwe government has greatly increased the amount of money people can withdraw from banks from today in an attempt to quell unrest, including riots and looting by soldiers this week, over a cash shortage caused by hyperinflation. /ppThe central bank has raised the withdrawal limit from the equivalent of 18p a day to about pound;33 a week following protests in which scores of troops angry at waiting in long bank queues targeted shops in th capital, Harare, that will only accept payment in US dollars and black market money changers dealing on the streets. /ppThe anger among soldiers and other Zimbabweans is in part because of the difficulty of using the national currency to buy anything but a few locally produced vegetables and bread after the US dollar was made legal tender. /ppThe central bank is also issuing new Zimbabwe dollar banknotes today worth Z$50m (pound;17) and Z$100m to keep pace with inflation officially put at 231,000,000 percent in July but which economists now estimate runs in to the billions./ppRiot police yesterday arrested trade union leaders and broke up a protest over limits on cash withdrawals. The union leaders were detained as they led a march of a few dozen people to deliver a petition to the central bank demanding an end to the restrictions. /ppThe demonstrators carried placards reading "No to cash limits" and "We are tired of sleeping at the banks" - many people spend hours queuing each day just to get enough money to cover transport and a few basic foodstuffs./ppThe police yesterday also broke up a protest by doctors and nurses trying to deliver a petition to the health ministry in Harare objecting to the lack of medical supplies and the closure of some large government hospitals. /ppThe collapsing health service is grappling with the extra burden of cholera. The UN said yesterday that it had confirmed 565 deaths from cholera among 12,546 reported cases but medical charities say the real toll is at least double. /ppOne-third of the deaths were in Harare, where water has been cut off for days because of a lack of chemicals to treat the supply./ppThe government said it will punish troops involved in the protests but some of Robert Mugabe's critics suspect the demonstrations may have been orchestrated to justify a further crackdown on his opponents and possibly the introduction of a state of emergency. /ppThe former home affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa, who has joined a breakaway faction from Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, told the IRIN news service that the protests may not be what they seem. /pp"I do hope the demonstrations by the soldiers are genuine and that it is not a ruse to come up with an excuse to crack down on the people, or even worse," he said. "You can't rule out what they [the government] might do. They have so many problems ... such as cholera and money shortages. They want to rule a country where they have total control over the people."/ppSuspicion is rife because the government has sought to retain the backing of the army by ensuring that banks regularly delivered cash to the barracks. /ppHowever, the troops still have much to be disgruntled about. The central bank is issuing the new banknotes today as the national currency continues its interminable decline. A new Zimbabwe dollar was launched in August after 10 zeros were wiped off the currency because banks and shops could no longer handle the numbers./ppBut the new dollar has plummeted just as fast, falling from about Z$10 to the pound in early August to Z$3m today for cash. Twenty-seven new currency denominations have been introduced in Zimbabwe this year alone./ppThe government caught up with reality by legalising the use of US dollars and other hard currency in September. Dollars and South African rand were already in use in what amounted to underground supermarkets selling imports. Now the transactions are legal, it is almost impossible to buy anything in Zimbabwe dollars./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/zimbabwe"Zimbabwe/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/9v-rkuzkooZ4O2uXuEkN2RsAna4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/9v-rkuzkooZ4O2uXuEkN2RsAna4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/83656?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Zimbabwe+tackles+cash+shortage+amid+riots+and+lootingch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Zimbabwe%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Chris+McGrealc7=2008_12_03c8=1128153c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Zimbabwec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FZimbabwe" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Zimbabwe government is set to greatly increase the amount of money people can withdraw from banks from tomorrow in an attempt to quell growing unrest, including riots and looting by soldiers this week, over a drastic cash shortage caused by hyperinflation. /ppThe central bank has raised the withdrawal limit from the equivalent of just 18p a day to about £33 a week following the protests in which scores of troops apparently angry at waiting in long bank queues targeted shops in Harare that will only accept payment in US dollars and blackmarket money changers openly dealing on the streets. /ppThe growing anger among soldiers and other Zimbabweans is due in part to the increasing difficulty of using the national currency to buy anything but a few locally produced vegetables and bread after the US dollar was made legal tender. /ppThe central bank is also issuing new Zimbabwe dollar bank notes tomorrow worth Z$50m (£17) and Z$100m to keep pace with inflation officially put at 231m% in July but which economists now estimate runs in to the billions./ppRiot police today arrested trade union leaders and broke up a small protest over the limits on cash withdrawals. The union leaders were detained as they led a march of a few dozen people to deliver a petition to the central bank demanding an end to the restrictions. /ppThe demonstrators carried placards reading "No to cash limits" and "We are tired of sleeping at the banks" because many people spend hours queuing every day just to get enough money to cover transport and a few basic foodstuffs./ppThe police today also broke up a protest by doctors and nurses attempting to deliver a petition to the health ministry in Harare objecting to the lack of medical supplies and the closure of some large government hospitals. /pp"We are forced to work without basic health institutional needs like drugs, adequate water and sanitation, safe clothing gear, medical equipment and basic support services," the letter said./ppThe collapsing health service is now grappling with the additional burden of cholera. The UN said today that it had confirmed 565 deaths from cholera among 12,546 reported cases but medical charities say the real toll is at least double. /ppOne-third of the deaths were in the capital, Harare, where water has been cut off for days because of a lack of chemicals to treat the supply./ppThe government said it will punish troops involved in the protests but some of Mugabe's critics suspect the demonstrations may have been orchestrated to justify a further crackdown on his opponents and possibly the introduction of a state of emergency. /ppThe former home affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa, who has joined a breakaway faction from Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, told the IRIN news service that the protests may not be what they seem. /pp"I do hope the demonstrations by the soldiers are genuine, and that it is not a ruse to come up with an excuse to crack down against the people, or even worse," he said. /pp"You can't rule out what they [the government] might do. They have so many problems ... such as cholera and money shortages. They want to rule a country where they have total control over the people. Anything is possible - they face so many problems that I don't rule out any move to contain the situation."/ppSuspicion is rife because the government has sought to retain the backing of the army by ensuring that banks regularly delivered cash to the barracks. However, the troops still have much to be disgruntled about. /ppThe central bank is issuing the new bank notes tomorrow as the national currency continues its interminable decline. A new Zimbabwe dollar was launched in August after 10 zeros were wiped off the currency because banks and shops could no longer handle the numbers./ppBut the new dollar has plummeted just as fast, falling from about Z$10 to the pound in early August to Z$3m today for cash. Twenty-seven new currency denominations have been introduced in Zimbabwe this year alone./ppThe rioting soldiers told bystanders they were angry that what little money they have can be used for little more than paying for transport and buying a few of the sparse locally produced goods. /ppThe government caught up with reality by legalising the use of US dollars and other hard currency in September. Dollars and South African rand were already in widespread use in what amounted to underground supermarkets selling imports. Now the transactions are legal, it is almost impossible to buy anything in Zimbabwe dollars. /ppThe Spar in Ballantyne Park, in northern Harare, is used by middle-class Zimbabweans and their domestic workers. It prices almost everything in US dollars and will accept payments only in the American currency, rand or sterling. /ppChange is given in bread rolls because of a shortage of small foreign notes. Only locally produced vegetables, eggs and bread can be paid for in Zimbabwe dollars./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/zimbabwe"Zimbabwe/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YFRFX4MaPuMkawLl7pW8MdNKws4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YFRFX4MaPuMkawLl7pW8MdNKws4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p