Israel and Egypt held a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday as the Jewish state prepares for indirect talks with the Palestinians that could set the stalled peace process back on track.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went straight into talks with regional broker Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after arriving in Egypt’s Red Sea resort. Their talks were to focus on the launch expected within days of US-brokered indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a process suspended since the Gaza War from December 2008 to January last year.
Netanyahu’s visit comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity two days after the Arab League came out in support of the so-called “proximity talks.” The Israeli prime minister was accompanied in Sharm el-Sheikh by National Security Committee Chairman Uzi Arad and Industry and Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer.
The indirect talks were set to start last month, but were scuttled after Israel announced it would build 1,600 new homes in an east Jerusalem settlement. The Arab League on Saturday gave its green light for the talks to go ahead after the Palestinians received US assurances that the construction would be shelved, an official of the pan-Arab organization said.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu, who insists on unconditional direct talks with the Palestinians, was to ask Mubarak to pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to “go forward.”
Mubarak, a strong backer of Abbas, has supported the Palestinian demand for a complete settlement freeze in occupied Palestinian territories and east Jerusalem before direct talks can resume.
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS