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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

World Cup offers besieged Gazans rare escape

There was standing room only at the seaside cafe as World Cup fans escaped the Gaza Strip's dreary confinement for a 90-minute match only briefly interrupted by power cuts. Palestinians have always been avid football fans, but this year's tournament is drawing record crowds to flag-decked cafes with humming generators across impoverished Gaza, where there are few other ways to pass the time. "All the people of Gaza have are the sea and the World Cup," says Abu Mohammed al-Sultan, 44, who set up a projection screen at the beach cafe. "I figured I would combine the two and double my customers." Israel and Egypt have sealed Gaza off from all but basic goods and severely limited travel since the June 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier. The sanctions were tightened when Hamas seized power a year later, and Israel has said the closures and its naval blockade are needed to keep the Islamist movement from importing weapons. Since Israel's deadly seizure last month of an activist aid flotilla, both countries have eased the closures, with Egypt allowing some students and patients to leave and Israel expanding its list of permitted imports. But the enclave of 1.5 million residents, 80 percent of whom rely on foreign aid, remains largely cut off from the world, and the World Cup provides a rare release from the grim boredom of day-to-day life. Gazans organised their own mock World Cup last month in anticipation of the real thing, with 16 local teams posing as national squads and "France" routing "Jordan" to win the championship.

Obama in dilemma over general after show of disrespect

US President Barack Obama faced a dilemma on Tuesday after his commander in Afghanistan showed disdain for the White House, as sacking the general could carry too high a cost at a pivotal moment in the war. General Stanley McChrystal's role as commander was hanging in the balance after a damaging profile in Rolling Stone magazine in which he and his aides openly mock top civilian officials and speak dismissively of Obama himself. Analysts said Obama must decide if he can still trust the general after the disrespectful display, or whether replacing him might derail the war effort amid an overhaul of strategy overseen by McChrystal. The embarrassing episode could not have come at a more sensitive moment in the troubled Afghan war, amid a surge of 30,000 US troops and plans for a make-or-break operation in the southern province of Kandahar. "This is an unfortunate distraction at a critical time," said a senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Although Obama had plenty of grounds to fire McChrystal based on the article, sacking him could jeopardize a delicate timeline that envisages a military push against the Taliban and then the start of a US withdrawal in July 2011, some analysts said.