Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged US President George W. Bush to re-engage in the Mideast peace process in his second term, and a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Min-ister Ariel Sharon called Bush's re-election a victory for a "relentless fight against terrorism."
Arafat, undergoing medical tests in Paris for an unidentified ailment, welcomed Bush's re-election in a statement issued by a senior aide, Mohammed Rashid, at his headquarters in Ramallah.
"President Bush has shown a clear will to solve the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution," Arafat said, referring to plan to create a Palestinian state.
Arafat said he hoped Bush "will be more engaged in solving this conflict and that the US administration would be engaged at the highest levels to achieve this goal."
Bush's strong support for Sharon's policies during his first term endeared him to the Israeli government, but created friction with Palestinian officials.
The Palestinians charged him with unfairly favoring Israel, and resented his decision to boycott Arafat for allegedly supporting militant activities.
Bush's win is a victory "to the American people who decided to choose democracy, hope and a relentless fight against terrorism," Sharon's top adviser Raanan Gissin said.
"It's an even bigger victory for the people of the Middle East, where there will be another four years of a president determined to bring the people of this forsaken region a ray of hope, freedom and ... democracy," he said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said a decision by Bush to step up efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians would serve America's own interests in the region.
"We hope that the American administration will be more engaged in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and specifically the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which represents the center of tension and instability in the area," he said. "We will cooperate with the American administration to achieve this goal."
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS