The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Pressure on Syria's Assad to implement peace deal
- PLO to pursue statehood despite Israeli measures
- Obama tops Forbes most powerful list, Putin No. 2
| Pressure on Syria's Assad to implement peace deal Posted: CAIRO (Reuters) - Syria is under pressure from its Arab neighbours to end months of bloodshed, after agreeing to a plan to pull its military out of cities, release political prisoners and hold talks with the opposition.
"We are happy to have reached this agreement and we will be even happier when it is implemented immediately," said Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani of Qatar, which leads an Arab League committee behind the plan agreed in Cairo on Wednesday. President Bashar al-Assad has deployed his army and security forces to crush protests inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world. He has said they are battling Islamist militants and armed gangs. The United Nations says 3,000 people have been killed in the bloodshed. Syria's opposition have dismissed Assad's offer of dialogue as insincere. Outside the Arab League's Cairo headquarters on Wednesday a group of protesters called for Assad to step down. The United States reiterated its call for the Syrian president to quit. "Our position remains that President Assad has lost his legitimacy to rule and should step down," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. Qatar's Sheikh Hamad said Syria had agreed to a complete halt to violence, the release of prisoners, removing the military presence from cities and residential areas and allowing the Arab League and media access for reporting. He told a news conference the League would continue contacts between the Syrian government and the opposition "in preparation for a national dialogue within two weeks". A League statement said: "The Arab committee (overseeing the plan) is responsible for submitting periodic reports to the ministerial council of the Arab League on the progress of carrying out the plan." "BUYING TIME" Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told Al Arabiya in a telephone interview that the talks between the Syrian government and the opposition would be held in Cairo. "The regime is trying to buy time. Its calls for reform and dialogue are false and deceiving," the opposition council said on Wednesday. It wants the League to take steps that include suspending Syria's membership in the pan-Arab body and ensuring international protection for civilians. The Arab League has stopped short of suspending Syria, and has shown no sign of backing international military action, as it did against Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. Syrian activists said on Wednesday that security forces shot dead at least 11 villagers at a roadblock near Homs. A YouTube video distributed by anti-Assad activists purportedly showed several bodies, gagged and with their hands tied behind their backs. Another five were killed in Homs. All 11 were Sunnis, who form the majority of Syria's population. Their killing follows reports by an activist in Homs, and on social network pages of Assad supporters, that nine members of the president's minority Alawite sect had been dragged from a bus and killed by gunmen near Homs on Tuesday. Syrian state television showed tens of thousands of people rallying in Syria's eastern city of Raqqa, in the latest in a series of state-organised rallies designed to show Assad enjoys popular support nationwide. Similar demonstrations have taken place in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia and Deir al-Zor. With tight Syrian media restrictions in place, it is hard to verify accounts of violence or gauge the real levels of popular support for Assad or those demanding his removal. (Additional reporting Marwa Awad in Cairo, Dominic Evans and Erika Solomon in Beirut and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Peter Graff) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| PLO to pursue statehood despite Israeli measures Posted: RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel's tough responses to a successful Palestinian bid to join UNESCO -- financial sanctions and a faster settlement drive in the occupied West Bank -- are unlikely to halt a Palestinian quest for recognition as a state at the United Nations.
A senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday that Israel was trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA) through a decision on Tuesday to freeze temporarily transfers of PA funds after it won membership of the U.N. cultural agency. The UNESCO vote marked a success for the Palestinians in their broader thrust for recognition as a sovereign state in the U.N. system -- an initiative opposed by Israel and its main ally the United States. In what the Palestinians saw as a reprisal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet also decided to accelerate the building of Jewish settlements on land where the PA aims to establish an independent state next to Israel. "It is very serious. Israel wants to strive to destroy the role of the Palestinian National Authority," Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), told Voice of Palestine radio. Saeb Erekat, another senior Palestinian official, said in a statement that Israel's latest decisions would "not change our course of action", signalling the Palestinians will push ahead regardless in their U.N. initiative. Israel's decision to step up settlement-building drew expressions of disappointment and concern from Washington and the European Union. "We are deeply disappointed by yesterday's announcement about accelerated housing construction," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding that such "unilateral actions" did not help bridge differences with the Palestinians. The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was "deeply concerned by the latest Israeli decisions" and urged Israel to reverse them. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also said he was "deeply concerned" by Israel's announcement and said funds transfers to the Palestinians must continue "in line with Israel's obligations". Netanyahu, in a speech on Wednesday, said construction in Jerusalem -- whose eastern sector Palestinians want for the capital of a future state -- is Israel's "right and obligation". Israel deems all of Jerusalem, including areas taken in a 1967 war, as its capital, a status not recognised internationally. The revenues Israel has decided to withhold include duties on goods being imported to the Palestinian territories and which amount to around half of the PA's domestic revenue base. In May, Israel temporarily withheld the revenues in response to a reconciliation pact between Abbas and the Hamas movement, which governs the Gaza Strip and is deeply hostile to Israel. That suspension meant the PA was unable to pay salaries to its 150,000 employees on time for the first time since 2007. A PA spokesman said salaries for November were paid on Wednesday despite the Israeli decision. "The (Israeli) decision to deny Palestinians access to their own custom tax revenues is an unlawful punitive measure that Israel has done in the past (2005, 2006, 2007, 2011) and will most likely do again," the PA said in a statement. While Israel may want to punish the Palestinian Authority for its pursuit of statehood at the United Nations, analysts question whether Israel has any interest in the PA's collapse, not least because of its role in policing the West Bank. PA security forces currently cooperate with the Israelis. "This is one point of strength the PA has," said George Giacaman, a political scientist at Birzeit University in the West Bank. MORIBUND PEACE PROCESS The Authority was set up in 1994 as a state-in-waiting at the outset of a peace process which the Palestinians hoped would yield their independence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, which were all captured by Israel in 1967. That process, to the extent it exists at all, is in deep crisis. The last round of direct peace talks broke down around a year ago because of a dispute over Israel's expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem -- construction which Abed Rabbo said aimed to kill any chance of Palestinian independence. Israel said on Tuesday the areas where building would be accelerated would remain in its hands in any future peace deal. "The Palestinians have no one but themselves to blame for the current impasse in the peace talks that stems directly from their refusal to negotiate peace, from their boycotting the negotiations and from their decision to attack Israel in international fora," Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said. UNESCO was the first U.N. agency to admit the Palestinians as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for a full seat at the United Nations on Sept. 23. Israel and the United States both see the Palestinian policy as an attempt to bypass bilateral peace talks. Israel also says that the Palestinians are aiming to delegitimise it. Palestinian analysts say Abbas' resolve to press ahead has only been hardened by the recent success of his rivals in the Islamist Hamas movement, which last month scored points among Palestinians by brokering a prisoner swap with Israel. The U.N. Security Council is expected to decide the fate of the Palestinian application for full membership around Nov. 11. Washington has vowed to use its veto if it comes to a vote. The Palestinians could then ask the General Assembly to upgrade their status to that of "a non-member state", an improvement on their current standing as an "observer entity". They also have plans to apply for full membership of other U.N. agencies, regardless of the course of events in New York. (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Louis Charnonneau at United Nations; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Roger Atwood) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| Obama tops Forbes most powerful list, Putin No. 2 Posted: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barack Obama topped Forbes' list of the world's most powerful people in 2011, as the U.S. leader's clout rose after the deaths of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Obama bumped Chinese President Hu Jintao from the No. 1 spot on the magazine's annual rankings.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained the most powerful woman at No. 4 on the list, as Europe's largest economy continued to wield its influence over the troubled European Union. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running again for president, was No. 2 and Hu came third as he gradually manages the transition of power to others in China. "The U.S. remains, indisputably, the most powerful nation in the world, with the largest, most innovative economy and the deadliest military," Forbes wrote. Obama's approval ratings have fallen at home as he struggles with stubbornly high unemployment and a tepid economy, but his fortunes on the world stage have been quite different. Under orders from Obama, bin Laden, who helped orchestrate the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, was tracked down in Pakistan and killed in May after 10 years in hiding. The United States joined the NATO-led intervention in Libya, which began with air strikes in March and led eventually to Gaddafi's death in October. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates at No. 5 was the first corporate executive on the list, thanks to a malaria vaccine backed by his charitable foundation that recently passed a key clinical trial. "Gates' goal is to eliminate infectious disease as a major cause of death in his lifetime. He may succeed," Forbes wrote. Mark Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old head of social networking site Facebook, shot into ninth position from No. 40 in last year's vote, sandwiched between U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (No. 8), who overseas monetary policy for the world's biggest economy, and British Prime Minister David Cameron at No. 10. "What the CIA failed to do in 60 years, Zuck (Zuckerberg) has done in 7: knowing what 800 million people think, read and listen to," Forbes wrote. The king of the world's largest oil producer Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, came in at No. 6 and Pope Benedict XVI was No. 7. For a full list of the world's most powerful people go to www.forbes.com/power. Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: World Updates To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan