To read these news stories in full, click on their title. It is a link to the original article. THANKS!
By Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah
Still reeling from the Israeli massacres in the occupied Gaza Strip, Palestinians have lately had little to celebrate. So the strong start to intra-Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo last week provided a glimmer of hope.
An end to the schism between the resistance and the elected but internationally-boycotted Hamas government on the one hand, and the Western-backed Fatah faction on the other, seemed within reach. But the good feeling came to a sudden end after what looked like a coordinated assault by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, European Union High Representative Javier Solana, and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas whose term as president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) expired on 9 January.
Just hours after blaming Hamas and other terror groups for the lack of peace in the region, visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled that while it may recognize the source of the obstruction, that won’t stop the Obama Administration from pushing for the rapid creation of a Palestinian Arab state.
Clinton told reporters in Jerusalem that she and President Barack Obama plan to be “vigorously engaged” in bringing about the birth of “Palestine,” adding that “there is no time to waste.”
March 4, 2009
“Iran’s top authority said on Wednesday U.S. President Barack Obama was pursuing the same ‘wrong path’ as George W. Bush in supporting Israel and described the Jewish state as a ‘cancerous tumor.’
The comments by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…
By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 47 mins ago
MOSCOW – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would cut natural gas to Ukraine if it wasn’t paid by Saturday, a threat that revived worries about supply cuts to Europe.
Ukraine’s national gas company told The Associated Press that payment would come by the end of Thursday. Russia’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, said that Naftogaz has paid $310 million for gas it received in February, but owes another $50 million.
Ukraine’s ability to pay has been undermined by a severe economic crisis. Clouding the situation, Ukraine’s national security service searched the offices of the gas company, Naftogaz, on Wednesday in a raid seen as part of a political fight between the president and prime minister that could hinder payments to Russia.
Putin said on television that the raid “is a source of extreme concern.”
Foreign ministers of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) member countries are meeting Thursday in Brussels. Relations with Russia and strategies for Afghanistan top the agenda.
The meetings are informal, without a final communiqué at the end of the day. But the top issues on the table – Russia and Afghanistan – are considered crucial for cooperation within the alliance and how it moves forward in the 21st Century.
A senior U.S. official spoke of a meeting of the minds on dealing with Russia. The NATO ministers are expected to approve a resumption of high-level contacts, within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council.
SEOUL: North Korea warned Thursday it might shoot down South Korean commercial airliners flying near its territory during U.S.-South Korean military drills next week, ratcheting up threats against its neighbor.
“Security cannot be guaranteed for South Korean civil airplanes flying through the territorial air of our side and its vicinity … while the military exercises are under way,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted a statement from a government official as saying.
CANBERRA (Reuters) – South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak warned on Thursday of the danger of a North Asia arms race after China announced another double-digit rise in annual military spending.
Lee, speaking during a visit to Australia, said a near-15 percent lift in China’s military spending this year, announced on Wednesday, could influence the defensive strategies of other countries like Japan and South Korea.
March 5 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Warren Buffett’s plan to help the United Nations create a safe supply of enriched uranium is foundering because countries fear it will restrict their development of nuclear technology, officials and diplomats say.
Resistance among some emerging-market countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-member board of governors is threatening to derail a $150 million plan that includes a $50 million pledge from Buffett and the rest from donors including the U.S. and the European Union, according to two UN officials and two diplomats with firsthand knowledge of the talks.
A nuclear-fuel bank, monitored by the Vienna-based IAEA, has been under discussion for decades as a way to assure supplies of reactor-grade uranium. The agency has promoted the establishment of a nuclear-fuel bank to dissuade countries such as Iran from setting up uranium programs that could be used to increase enrichment to the level required for atomic weapons…
The pace of the upgrade in Israeli-EU relations depends on the next government’s plans and outlook toward the peace process, Czech Ambassador Michael Zantovsky said at a press briefing on Tuesday.
Zantovsky, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the decision made by the EU last year to upgrade relations with Israel remained intact. While EU officials said in January, during Operation Cast Lead, that the upgrade talks had been put on hold until there was a more “favorable atmosphere” – defined as the opening of the crossings to Gaza, economic development there and an effort to promote dialogue – Zantovsky said the upgrade was not “officially frozen or suspended, and some of the work is going on.”
A month before Obama travels to London for a summit of the Group of 20 major developed and emerging economies, the United States andBritain are grappling with turmoil in their banking sectors caused by toxic mortgage securities.
The bad debt has crippled lending and added to fears in global stock markets about a worsening recession.
Obama told reporters during his Oval Office meeting with Brown that he was “absolutely confident” his administration’s plans to shore up the banking system would yield results…
“One of the things that Prime Minister Brown and I talked about is how can we coordinate so that all the G20 countries, all the major countries around the world, in a coordinated fashion, are stimulating their economies?”
Obama and Brown both called for common principles to bolster the financial regulatory structure.
On Afghanistan, where the security situation has been deteriorating, Obama said he would be making a “series of announcements” on the subject before a NATO summit to take place on April 3-4 in Strasbourgafter the G20 gathering.
http://www.eyeontheun.org/
March 3, 2009
(JTA) — The European Jewish Congress called on the European Union to boycott an upcoming United Nations anti-racism conference.
Calling the language and tone of the Durban II Draft Outcome Document “completely unacceptable for an official U.N. document,” Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, the umbrella organization for Jewish communities in Europe, said Monday “Now is the time for E.U. countries and leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to take the lead on issues of human rights and racism in the U.N. and to make a strong and clear stand against the Durban Review Conference.”
Kantor continued, “Durban II, as it currently stands, is an affront to all those seeking to ensure human rights and the eradication of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. We applaud the United States for refusing to participate in this kangaroo court against Israel.”
Barack Obama just added double-dealing to his foreign policy repertoire. On Friday, administration officials led many Jewish leaders to believe that it had decided to boycott the United Nation’s “anti-racism” conference known as Durban II. At the same time, however, human rights organizations were being led to believe that the administration was not pulling out and was looking for a way to “re-engage.”
Durban II, scheduled for Geneva in April, is the U.N.’s attempt at a rerun of the 2001 global anti-Semitic hate fest held in Durban, South Africa.
The Obama administration is set to propose resuming U.S.-Russian arms control talks that could begin in a matter of months, along with other initiatives intended to strengthen strained relations between Washington and Moscow, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, March 3).
President Barack Obama intends to offer the proposals to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in April at their first meeting. Among the proposals are re-establishing the NATO-Russia Council, increasing economic cooperation, and reviewing the U.S. plan to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe.
The Kremlin has been an outspoken opponent of the Bush administration effort to place missile shield bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, characterizing the initiative as a threat to Russian strategic security.
