Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, weakened by his power struggle with Yasser Arafat, addressed parliament yesterday in a quest for support and told lawmakers he would not launch a crackdown on militants.
In an angry demonstration outside the parliament building, about 200 activists in Arafat's Fatah movement promised to defend the veteran Palestinian leader, and seven masked men from the crowd broke down a door to the building and smashed windows. Unarmed guards eventually forced the men out.
Just before the session, Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli in a shooting ambush near the West Bank town of Jenin. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, an armed group linked to Arafat's ruling Fatah movement claimed responsibility.
In his speech, Abbas was to sum up his first 100 days in office, a period marked by somewhat reduced violence but also disappointment over a lack of movement in implementing the US-backed "road map" peace plan.
Abbas was expected to present a cease-fire by militant groups as his major achievements. The truce was declared June 29, but collapsed in mid-August. Abbas told lawmakers he would continue talks with militants rather than launching a campaign to disarm and dismantle their groups.
"This government does not deal with the opposition groups with the policing mentality, but the mentality of dialogue," he said.
The parliament speaker, Ahmed Qureia, has temporarily blocked a confidence vote Abbas had sought following his address. Qureia said parliament shouldn't be dragged into the struggle between Abbas and Arafat, who have been arguing over job definition and control over security forces.
However, a vote might be held next week, if mediation efforts fail. The US-backed Abbas, who has minimal support among Palestinians, could be toppled, dealing a heavy blow to efforts to end three years of violence and move toward Palestinian statehood.
In Washington, meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell reacted harshly to a comment attributed to Arafat that the road map is dead because of what the Palestinian leader described as Israeli aggression. Powell said that Arafat "has not been playing a helpful role."
"If he wanted to play a helpful role he would be supporting Prime Minister Abbas, not frustrating his efforts," Powell said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS