Habib Toumi

George Mitchell ... Time to say farewell?

 Special US Mideast envoy George Mitchell has requested to resign in frustration with the biased favour towards Israel by some US officials within the State Department, Hadith An-Nass, a Nazareth-based daily, reported on Friday.

The newspaper, quoting an unnamed Arab political source, said that Mitchell’s request was partly based on the way the US administration has been handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

His decision also stemmed from his own failure to advance the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the paper said, adding that the White House turned down the request.

Peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis were halted more than a year ago over the war in the Gaza Strip and have not resumed.

Jamal Sulaiman

Algerians are pushing for the replacement of a Syrian star in a television series based on a book written by an Algerian novelist about the liberation war in the North African country.

 The Algerians said that Syrian actor Jamal Sulaiman had flagrantly sided with the Egyptians during the bitter standoff between the two countries last November and that he repeatedly insulted the North Africans.

“He never missed an occasion to criticize the Algerians and to demand that they apologise to the Egyptians for their alleged attacks on their fans during the do-or-die march in Sudan,” Algerian bloggers and Facebook users said. “For his repeated assaults on Algerians and on their collective conscience, he is not qualified to play the role of Khalid, a hero in the struggle for Algeria’s independence in the Memory of the Body, the book written by Ahlam Mostaghanmi,” they said. continue reading…