World RoundUp June 1
- Source: The Global Times
- [07:40 June 01 2009]
- Comments
Israel won't obey US on settlements
Israel will not agree to US demands to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, a minister close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday.
“I want to say in a crystal clear manner that the current Israeli government will not accept in any fashion that legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria be frozen,” said Transport Minister Yisrael Katz, using the Israeli term for the West Bank. “The government will defend the vital interests of the state of Israel.”
On the same day, Netanyahu vowed in a cabinet meeting that there would be no let-up in Israel's much-criticised blockade of Gaza, warning that the ceasefire with the territory's Hamas rulers remained fragile.
248 insurgents killed in Afghan
A series of Afghan army operations to clean up insurgent hotspots ahead of August elections has resulted in 248 militants being killed along with 17 soldiers, the defense ministry said yesterday.
The operations were rolled out in five eastern and southern provinces 10 days ago and are continuing, ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters.
The multinational NATO-led force has secured thousands of extra soldiers for the August 20 polling day.
Egypt put peace over nuclear-free Iran
A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more important to Egypt than confronting Iran's nuclear program, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's spokesman Suleiman Awad said yesterday.
The government hopes US President Barack Obama will address in his speech from Cairo Thursday the “essence of the Islamic world's relations with the US ... and that is peace in the Middle East,” Awad said.
Egypt, the most populous Arab country, with a mostly Sunni Muslim population, has repeatedly accused Iran of trying to control the region.
Europe desperate to bring out voters
European leaders yesterday stepped up a desperate battle to persuade people to vote for the EU parliament this week, but the campaign has opened up new political divisions across the continent.
With polls indicating a record-low turnout for the June 4-7 election, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a joint plea to voters, saying a strong parliament is essential to combating the economic crisis.
But, in many countries, the EU vote will be a test of the national governments in power, with far-right and left-wing parties expected to benefit from protest votes and low turnouts in some member states.
Cuba agrees to resume talks with US
Cuba has agreed to resume talks with the US on migration and direct mail, a US official said yesterday, as a US-Cuban thaw gathers pace under President Barack Obama's administration.
The announcement came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared to attend Tuesday's Organization of American States general assembly in Honduras, where Washington and its southern neighbors have been caught in a row over the pace of normalization with Cuba.
The Cuban government informed Washington on Saturday that it “would like to resume migration talks .... (and) engage in talks on direct-mail service,” the senior State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
Agencies