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News, September 2007

 

 

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Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 

Hamas must back down from Gaza coup, Hawatimah and Qaddoumi agree 

Date: 04 / 09 / 2007 Time: 15:12

Bethlehem - Ma'an – 

Secretary General in exile of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Nayif Hawatimah met on Tuesday with Farouq Qaddoumi, head of the political department of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

Both agreed that Hamas must back down from its coup in the Gaza Strip.

The two Palestinian leaders in-exile stated that comprehensive inter-factional dialogue must be established without the exclusion of any faction. They also emphasized that the Palestinian political system must be restructured according to the system of proportional representation including the Palestinian National Council.

Qaddoumi and Hawatimah also stated their rejection to partial and incomplete solutions such as the establishment of an interim Palestinian state without clear borders. They also called for an international peace conference in the Middle East comprising all sides of the conflict, affirming that US president George W. Bush's 'international meeting' will not lead to comprehensive political solutions.

 

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Note to Translators:

The Arabic definite article, Al (or its variant, El) should be written with a hyphen separating it from the noun it is associated with, for example Al-Aqsa. If a hyphen is not used, as in Al Aqsa, it confuses non-Arabic readers. They may think that it is an abbreviation of the name Albert, as many Americans do.

The Arabic definite article Al (or El) should be written as such, whether it is Shamsiyah or Qamariyah in pronunciation, simply because we are dealing with the written form of the language, not the spoken one. Using the Shamsiyah so many forms in writing is inaccurate and confusing to non-Arabic readers, to say the least.

Only standard (fasih) pronunciation of Arabic names should be used. Non-standard ('ammi)  should be avoided avoided. Example: Names like Abu Sunainah, Abu Rudainah, and Abu Shebak are written by some translators in the non-standard forms of Abu Snainah, Abu Rdainah, and Abu Shbak.

The standard pronunciation of the vowel at the end of names is (a), not (e), particularly if it is followed by (h), like in the cases of Haniyah and Rudainah, not Haniyeh and Rudaineh.

The standard pronunciation of vowels in the following names is (ai), not (ei) as written by  some translators: Hussain, not Hussein and Hassanain, not Hassanein. This is the same long vowel pronounced in the English words "rain" and "brain."

 


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