Bentrokan Meletus di Kompleks Masjid Al-Aqsa

Jerusalem (ANTARA News) - Bentrokan singkat meletus antara warga Palestina dan polisi Israel Kamis di dalam kompleks Masjid Al-Aqsa yang sensitif di kota tua Jerusalem tanpa menimbulkan korban, kata saksi.
Bentrokan itu terjadi ketika polisi Israel tiba untuk membubarjan beberapa puluh jemaah Muslim, termasuk warga Arab Israel dan warga Palestina dari Jerusalem Timur, yang datang untuk mengambil bagian dalam pembersihan bagian kompleks tersebut.
Dalam bentrokan singkat yang terjadi, beberapa orang dipukul dan dua orang ditahan oleh polisi, kata saksi.
Insiden itu terjadi di tengah ketegangan antara pihak berwenang Waqf yang bertanggungjawab atas tempat suci Muslim itu dan pihak berwenang Israel karena ubin dari sebagian kompleks tersebut, yang dihormati oleh orang Yahudi dan Muslim.
Kompleks itu dikenal sebagai Al Haram Al-Sharif bagi umat Islam dan tempat tersuci ketiga Islam setelah Makkah dan Madinah.
Umat Yahudi menunjuk tempat yang sama sebagai Temple Mount, tempat Kuil Yahudi Kedua yang diratakan dengan tanah oleh tentara Roma pada tahun 70 Masehi dan tempat tersuci Judaisme, demikian AFP.

Europe cargo rocket lifts off

An unmanned rocket has blasted-off from French Guiana in what is Europe's first mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), space officials said.
The automated transfer vehicle, or ATV, weighs nearly 20-tonnes and is the size of a double-decker bus.
It entered space aboard an Ariane rocket on Sunday morning.
The rocket lifted off at 1:03am (0403 GMT) from Europe's spaceport in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America.
Jean-Jacques Dourdain, director-general of the European Space Agency (ESA), said: "We are embarking on a real voyage."
After being placed in orbit, the ATV will use its solar panels and find its way to the International Space Station to dock with it.
It will deliver seven and a half tonnes of food, water, pressurised air, fuel and personal items to the ISS crew.
After six months or so, the craft will detach from the ISS, taking with it rubbish accumulated during the station's mission.
This first module has been dubbed Jules Verne in honour of the visionary 19th-century French science fiction writer.
It is the first ATV that Europe has committed to the ISS programme.
The ESA, which has four more cargo ships planned, has so far spent $2bn on the programme.
Deployment of the ATV has been put off for about four years because of delays in assembling the ISS after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in February 2003.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, hailed the successful launch as a "major European contribution" to the ISS's functioning.
In a joint statement Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, and Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the European affairs minister, said it was a "result of European co-operation in strategic top technology".

Chavez threatens to cut off US oil

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States if the oil company Exxon Mobil wins court judgments to freeze billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.
"If you end up freezing [Venezuelan assets] and it harms us, we're going to harm you,'" Chavez said on his weekly radio and television show.
"Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr Bush, Mr Danger," he said.
"I speak to the US empire, because that's the master: continue and you will see that we won't send one drop of oil to the empire of the United States," he added.
Earlier on Sunday Chavez accused Exxon Mobil of wanting to damage his country after it won temporary court orders to freeze $12 billion of the nation's energy assets.
The ruling was the first victory for the world's largest oil company in their battle for compensation over last year's nationalisation of one of their Venezuelan projects.
"You have a multinational, imperialist company trying to damage our flagship company," Chavez said.