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Irish activist detained by Israeli soldiers

WEST BANK – Irish activist Tommy Donnellan was injured and detained by Israeli soldiers yesterday while filming the weekly protest against the West Bank wall at Bil'in village, writes Michael Jansen.

“The Israelis had used gas indiscriminately to disperse the protest. Although it was winding down, there were some [Palestinian] stone throwers. But instead of going for them they went for me,” said Mr Donnellan (63), a Galway resident.

“I was filming with a zoom lens when four or five Israeli soldiers rushed me and snatched away my gas mask violently. A metal bit on the strap took off the top of my left ear.”

He also received a three- inch gash on his right leg.

Mr Donnellan was arrested and taken behind a shed, where he said he was held for two hours and “was treated in a polite and civilised way”.

The focus of the demonstration was the connection of Irish cement firm CRH with the construction of a wall that has cut Bil’in off from agricultural land – the main source of income for the village.

CRH owns 25 per cent of Israel’s only cement company, (Mashav) Nesher Cement.

Founder of Stalin museum killed

MOSCOW – A Russian businessman who set up a museum dedicated to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was electrocuted and bludgeoned to death yesterday, according to media reports.

Vasily Bukhtiyenko set up the Stalin museum in 2005 in Volgograd, previously called Stalingrad, about 910km (565 miles) southeast of Moscow.

“He was resting at a tennis court. That is where the murder happened,” the state-run RIA Novosti

news agency quoted a spokeswoman for regional investigators as saying.

Police said a motive for the attack was unclear at present. – (Reuters)