Media Monitors Network (MMN)

"The road carves out its path like a long silver snake, slithering through virgin mountainsides, turning olive groves into concrete slabs It’s guarded by armed border police squatting on rocky outposts, positioned every 25 meters along the route. Bulldozers roar, churning up savage clouds of red dust, while earthmovers delve into volcanic like ditches that herald the beginning of a 25ft high razor fence. A young donkey with a foal in tow hesitates before the ditch unable to proceed further and obviously confused its familiar journey no longer possible. There is no path for man or beast. Large tracts of fertile land stand marooned, and forcibly abandoned, their owners denied access. Patches of old tattered green canvas once a carpet for the olives lie scattered here and there, together with remnants of perhaps what was once the scene of a picnic celebration. Olives trees harvested for centuries, their upturned roots now bared to the sky, plants and herbs long used in traditional Palestinian cuisine wither in the dry grass. Aside from the presence of Israeli police and Palestinian labourers there is not a villager in sight."

"What we have here is a race for the highest office in the land between two warmongers, Bush and Kerry."

"Civil libertarians have been very critical of the PATRIOT Act, believing that the balance between liberty and power has tipped too far toward the latter. But, with an election around the corner, the American people can have the final say on this question. Well, not quite."

"One interesting aspect of Pakistan’s military rule is that the Army implements the democracy in its own terms. They pick and choose the bureaucrats, the landlords cum politician and even the judges of the highest civil courts who would show faith on army as a supreme power in the country and abide to follow the democracy on the direction of the military."

"The Israeli National Security Council is rapidly progressing with its detailed plans for disengagement. Various professional committees in Israel are working almost around the clock preparing every aspect of the disengagement. Almost everything possible to do to ensure success of the disengagement is taking place – except the most important thing – coordinating and negotiating with the Palestinians, without this, the plan is doomed to fail and we will all continue to pay the price."