Jennie Matthew
Matthews is an AFP New York correspondent. Previously in Pakistan/Afghanistan, Sudan and Middle East
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/ 8 March 2005

Israel blames Syria for suicide attack

Israel insisted on Monday that Syria is to blame for a Tel Aviv suicide attack as a car packed with explosives was discovered in the West Bank, casting a shadow over efforts to forge peace in the Middle East. Israeli intelligence briefed European Union ambassadors on its alleged involvement in Friday’s bombing.

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/ 11 November 2004

Arafat orphans look back on blissful childhood

For the dozens of Palestinian orphans that Yasser Arafat adopted, brought up and indulged, his demise in a Paris hospital was a very personal torment, as they look back on a blissful childhood. Without ever signing official adoption papers, the veteran leader took personal charge of about 66 children, most of them left parentless after the massacres of the Palestinian camps of Tall Zaatar, and Sabra and Chatilla.

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/ 11 February 2004

Scenes of horror at Iraqi hospital

In the children’s ward at the Samawa hospital in Iraq, the stench of dried sweat and raw waste is almost unbearable. Mothers, dressed head to foot in black robes, sit cross-legged on the floor or beds, cradling children as many drift slowly into death. ”We have nothing. Most children die, especially in winter,” said a junior doctor.