Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed with top aides Saturday on "real" reforms in the ruling Fatah movement and to continue a crackdown on armed Palestinian gangs hampering efforts to restore stability to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Abbas emerged from the closing session of three days of meetings of the 16-member Fatah Central Committee -- the first in more than 5 years -- to reiterate that Palestinians were "completely prepared" to take over control of Gaza following Israel's imminent pullout.
A Palestinian takeover will be "quiet, clean and respectful," Abbas told reporters before he embarked on a North African tour that will include stops in Mauritania and Libya.
He said the Fatah members also discussed appointing a vice president but no names were mentioned.
The Fatah meeting took place in Jordan so the largest possible number of committee members could attend, including exiled leaders who refuse to deal with Israel.
Nabil Shaath, a minister of information in the Palestinian Authority, said they agreed on "real reforms, to review the past and to establish new institutions." He said elections would be held in the ruling Fatah faction to allow the "young generation" to take part in the decision making.
He declined to discuss details on the planned reforms but said Palestinians may resort to a law which will scrutinize officials' private finances.
"The law of `where did you get this from,' will be implemented retroactively," he said. He did not say when the law will be enforced but stressed that his government was keen to "uproot corruption."
Separately, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said there was consensus on "regulating armament."
He did not elaborate. Shaath told a news conference later that the reference was to armed Palestinian gangs "who use weapons, not to defend the country, but for blackmailing and killing."
Armed gangs, some affiliated with the mainstream Fatah, rule the streets of the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian security forces lost control of their streets during four years of Palestinian-Israeli violence.
Shaath said Fatah leaders established a committee to "consolidate dialogue" with different factions, including militant groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
"We welcomed the participation of the Palestinian factions in a coalition government to unify the efforts after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza," he said.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday, Abbas office confirmed that the Palestinian leader has asked Hamas militants to join his Cabinet to improve prospects of a peaceful takeover of Gaza following Israel's withdrawal. Hamas' West Bank leader, Hassan Yousef, said the group was considering the offer.
He said Fatah leaders also have overcome differences between the Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Liberation Organization's political office, headed by Farouk Kaddoumi.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS