New Page 1

Obama firm on Dalai Lama
meeting despite China warning

US President Barack Obama intends to go ahead with plans to meet the Dalai Lama despite warnings from China not to, a White House spokesman has said.
Mr Obama told China's leaders last year in Beijing that he would meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader, White House spokesman Bill Burton said.
China has warned that ties with the US would be undermined if the meeting takes place.

No date has been set but it is expected to take place later this month.
"The president told China's leaders during his trip last year that he would meet with the Dalai Lama and he intends to do so," White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters.
"The Dalai Lama is an internationally respected religious and cultural leader and the president will meet with him in that capacity," he said.
The comments came after Communist Party official Zhu Weiqun said such a meeting would "threaten trust and co-operation" between Beijing and Washington.
Relations between the world's largest and third-largest economies have already been strained by trade disputes, US arms sales to Taiwan and a row over internet censorship.
China, which took over Tibet in 1950, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist and tries to isolate the spiritual leader by asking foreign leaders not to see him.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and has been living in India since then.
Mr Obama declined to see the Dalai Lama last year when he visited the US, saying he would meet him later.
A White House spokesman said last month that the two men intended to meet when the Tibetan monk visited Washington later in February.
"If the US leader chooses to meet with the Dalai Lama at this time, it will certainly threaten trust and co-operation between China and the United States," said Mr Zhu, executive deputy minister of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department.

Hamas: Talks on Shalit and prisoner swap stopped

Leading Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar has said talks on swapping Palestinian prisoners for the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit have collapsed.
Late last year a German-mediated deal emerged in which hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be exchanged for Gilad Shalit.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Zahar blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the talks' failure.
Gilad Shalit was captured in a raid by Palestinian militants in 2006.
Speaking on the BBC's Hardtalk program, Mr Zahar maintained Prime Minister Netanyahu pushed for stricter conditions for the release of several high-profile Palestinian prisoners.
"As regarding negotiations, as of now the process has failed. The main cause, well known to everybody, well known to the mediator, that after the interference of the political element, after the appearance of Netanyahu personally, there was a big regression and retraction. For this reason negotiations have now stopped," he said.
Mr Zahar, one of the founders of Hamas, said the prospect for future talks looked uncertain.
"We are looking to set free our people and also to give a chance for the family of the Israeli soldier to live as a human being also. We demanded a considerable number of prisoners, but the Israeli side, after hundreds of rounds of talks, reached backward too much."
Sgt Shalit, 23, was captured in a raid into southern Israel by Palestinian militants from Gaza, in 2006.
Hamas want hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, including senior militant leaders that Israel holds responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israeli citizens, to be freed in exchange for Sgt Shalit's release.
Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in jail on security grounds - a major bone of contention with the Palestinians.

Israeli minister warns of new war with Hezbollah

TEL AVIV - Israel is heading toward a new war with Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah, a cabinet minister warned Saturday in remarks carried by military radio and the Ynet news website.

"We are heading toward a new confrontation in the north but I don't know when it will happen, just as we did not know when the second Lebanon war would erupt," said Yossi Peled, a minister without portfolio and a reserve army general.
He was referring to the devastating war Israel fought with Hezbollah in 2006, which killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
However, Israeli flights over Lebanon occur on an almost daily basis and are in breach of UN Security Council resolution 1710, which in August 2006 ended the war.
Hezbollah is part of a new coalition government formed in November by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
"Although Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, the latter has no influence on it," Peled said.
"Unlike many others (officials) I consider that peace is not a goal in itself but only a means to guarantee our existence," said Peled.
But in a statement issued on Saturday after Peled made his comments, hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that "Israel does not wish at all to have a confrontation with Lebanon."
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel on Friday against launching a new war against Lebanon.
Nasrallah said that Israel was again beating the drums of war to try to restore its military's reputation as an invincible regional force.
Hezbollah, originally a resistance group formed to counter an Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, had forced the Israeli military out of Lebanon in 2000. Israel, however, continues to occupy the Lebanese Shabaa Farms.

Blair due at Iraq war inquiry next week

LONDON - Former prime minister Tony Blair will give long-awaited testimony to Britain's Iraq war inquiry at the end of next week on January 29, officials said Monday.

Blair, who controversially backed the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq alongside president George W. Bush, will face a full day of questioning at the Chilcot inquiry, according to an updated schedule on the probe's website.
The former premier has long been expected to be the star witness at the inquiry, which was launched in November after the withdrawal of virtually all of Britain's forces, six years after the invasion.
Last month Blair admitted in a television interview that he would have backed the war even if he knew Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction (WMD), triggering fresh criticism.
Blair, who quit as premier in 2007 and is now the Middle East Quartet's envoy, told the BBC it would "still have been right to remove" Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein because of the threat he posed to the region.
Interest in Blair's appearance at the inquiry is intense: a public ballot was held Monday for public seats at the hearings, and the lucky few will be allowed into either the morning or afternoon sessions, but not both.
Blair stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush over the 2003 invasion, but faced a major backlash in Britain over the decision.
He resigned as prime minister two and a half years ago despite having led his Labor Party to three successive election wins, handing the role to his finance minister Gordon Brown.
An Internet campaign has been launched for Blair to face tough questions about why he took Britain into the unpopular war, amid criticisms the inquiry panel has been too easy on some witnesses.
Also due to appear at the inquiry next week is Peter Goldsmith, the former British attorney general who advised Blair on the legality of the war.
Two key ministers from the time of the Iraq war are due to appear this week: then defense minister Geoff Hoon on Tuesday, and then foreign secretary Jack Straw on Thursday.
Blair's chief of staff at the time, Jonathan Powell, was due to give evidence later Monday.
His former chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell appeared before the inquiry last week, and fiercely denied "sexing up" a dossier which claimed Iraq could launch chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes.
In a defiant appearance, Campbell said that while the controversial document could have been "clearer", he still defended "every single word" of it -- and the invasion itself.
Current Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- who Campbell said was one of the "key ministers" Blair consulted in the run-up to war -- will appear after this year's general election, expected in May.
Brown, who was Blair's finance minister at the time, insisted last week that he has "nothing to hide" over the Iraq war.
Nearly one quarter of Britons want former prime minister Tony Blair to be tried as a war criminal over the Iraq war, according to a poll published on Sunday.
A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times newspaper found that 23 percent of those surveyed think that Blair should face war crimes charges.
The weekly newspaper added that 52 percent believe that Blair deliberately misled the country in the run-up to the 2003 war.
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is viewed by critics as an 'act of aggression' that violated international law.
Subsequent US occupation policies caused the country to descend into almost total chaos, bordering on civil war.
An estimated 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed in Iraq as a direct result of the invasion, while millions more have fled the country.

Turkey, Lebanon slam Israeli 'terrorism'

ANKARA - The prime ministers of Turkey and Lebanon on Monday lashed out at Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace and air strikes in Gaza, warning they were undermining prospects for peace in the region.
"Attacks on Lebanon is terrorism itself... We have to stand shoulder by shoulder against the enemy's plans... We have to stop Israel," visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri told a press conference.
Lebanese anti-aircraft guns opened fire on four Israeli warplanes which were violating its airspace at low altitude on Monday, the military said.
Hariri's counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country's once-flourishing ties with Israel took a sharp downturn last year, said that Turkey "will never stay silent" on Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace.
He slammed the Israeli over flights as "unacceptable action that threatens global peace."
Erdogan also questioned a deadly Israeli air raid on the Gaza Strip Sunday.
"Is the Israeli government in favor of peace or not?... Gaza was bombed again yesterday. Why?... There were no rocket attacks," Erdogan said.
"They (the Israelis) have disproportional capabilities and power and they use them... They do not abide by UN resolutions... They say they will do what they like. We can in no way approve of such an attitude," he said.
Israel's ties with Turkey, a key regional ally, were poisoned by its massive offensive on Gaza last year, which prompted an unprecedented barrage of criticism from Erdogan's government.
In October, Turkey excluded Israel from joint military drills and said ties would continue to suffer unless Israel ends "the humanitarian tragedy" in Gaza and revives peace talks with the Palestinians.
Erdogan also renewed criticism of pro-Israeli powers on Monday for pressuring Iran on its nuclear activities while tolerating Israel, considered the region's sole if undeclared nuclear power.
"We are against the development of nuclear weapons by any country in the region," he said.
"Israel has nuclear weapons... Those who are cautioning Iran must also caution Israel," he said.
"If we fail to display a fair attitude in this region, the problems will hit not only the region, but will spread elsewhere as well. The unrest of the Middle East is the unrest of the world," he said.
Hariri hailed Turkey's improving ties with Arab countries and increased activism in peace efforts in the Middle East.
The two premiers witnessed the signing of an accord on visa-free travel between their countries and other deals envisaging cooperation in the military, agriculture and transport realms.

US plans for Mideast peace deal in two years

TEL AVIV - Washington is pushing a plan to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that foresees reaching a final deal in two years and agreeing on permanent borders in nine months, a daily said Monday.

Under the plan, the Israelis and Palestinians will immediately start final status talks that were suspended during the Israeli war on Gaza a year ago, Israel's Maariv newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
The paper said that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was expected to press Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to agree to the plan during a meeting later Monday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
There were no immediate comments on the report from Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian or US officials.
The Palestinians have demanded a full freeze on illegal Israeli settlement activity on occupied territories before resuming negotiations.
Under the US plan, the two sides will first discuss the issue of permanent borders, with a deadline of nine months for reaching an agreement, Maariv said.
The idea is to have an agreement on borders before the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on new illegal settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, so Israel will start to build again only in those settlements that will be inside its borders under the final status agreement, it said.
Underlying the discussions will be the principle of a land swap that has figured prominently in past peace negotiations -- Israel will keep its major settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank and the Palestinians will get land inside Israel in return.
"After reaching an agreement on borders, the sides will move on to discuss the other core issues: (occupied) Jerusalem and (Palestinian) refugees," Maariv said.
To entice both sides to agree to the deal, Washington is preparing letters of guarantee.
The Palestinians will get a letter guaranteeing that the two-year deadline will be final, with no delay. "If no agreement is reached, the Palestinians will request US backing for their demand to receive an area equal in size to the territory under Arab rule prior to 1967," Maariv said.
The Israelis will receive a note ratifying a letter that former US president George W. Bush wrote to then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon in 2004, in which he said that a final status agreement will be based on the principle of land swaps that will allow Israel to keep its major illegal settlement blocs.
Arab diplomats in Cairo said last week that US President Barack Obama's administration was drafting letters of guarantee, but did not provide details.

UN chief, HRW slam Israeli blockade of Gaza

JERUSALEM - Human Rights Watch on Saturday accused Israel and Hamas of failing to take punitive action against members of their own forces accused of atrocities during Israel’s war on Gaza a year ago.

The New York-based rights group also criticized the Israeli blockade which “created massive humanitarian need and prevented the reconstruction of schools and homes” in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
“Both Israel and Hamas have failed to punish those responsible for serious violations during the fighting,” Fred Abrahams, HRW senior emergencies researcher, said in a statement on the eve of the first anniversary of the Gaza war.
“Some rocket attacks continue and the Israeli blockade of Gaza has prevented basic reconstruction. The only things getting built in Gaza are desperation and despair,” he was quoted as saying.
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of “drone-launched missile attacks that killed 29 civilians, the killing of 11 civilians holding white flags, and the use of white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas.”
It said the Jewish state’s forces also destroyed many unjustified targets including farms, factories and much of Gaza’s water and sanitation network, with most of it still unrepaired.
The democratically-elected movement Hamas and other armed Palestinian resistance groups were accused of firing hundreds of rockets into populated areas of Israel, and using the 22-day war as an excuse to kill and torture political rivals.
“Israel has so far punished only one soldier, a sergeant, for wartime abuse, sentencing him to seven and a half months in prison for stealing a credit card,” said the statement.
“Human Rights Watch does not know of any investigations by Hamas authorities in Gaza into laws-of-war or human rights violations during the fighting.”
Some 1,400 Palestinians (mainly civilians) and 13 Israelis were killed during the conflict, which was brought to an end by a January 18 ceasefire.
Last week 16 rights groups including Amnesty International and Oxfam issued a joint statement saying the world has “betrayed” civilians in the Gaza Strip by failing to end the Israeli blockade of the enclave.
Gaza is still considered under illegal Israeli occupation.

Beirut blast kills at least two people

BEIRUT - At least two people were killed late Saturday in a mysterious blast that shook southern Beirut, a security official said.
"At least two people have been killed and a number of others injured in an explosion in the southern suburbs" of Beirut, the official said.
"The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined," the official added.
The two people killed were both Hamas members, a spokesman for the democratically-elected Palestinian movement told Al-Arabiya television on Sunday.
"The explosion in the southern suburbs resulted in the martyrdom of two members of Hamas and wounded three other people," the spokesman, Ayman Taha, said.
He added that "the circumstances of the explosion are unclear and it is too early to name the party" responsible for it.
Lebanon's official National News Agency said that the blast was caused by bombs placed under the car of a possible Hamas member, while Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station said it occurred in a Hamas office.

Hariri ends landmark Syria visit

DAMASCUS
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri called on Sunday for a renewal of ties with Syria to the benefit of both states at the end of a fence-mending visit to his country's former powerbroker.

It was Hariri's first trip to Damascus since the 2005 assassination of his father, ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri -- a killing that he and his US-backed allies in Beirut blamed on Syria.
Regional commentators, including Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, have hailed the visit as an ice-breaker and step toward healing decades of turbulent ties between the two neighbors.
"We want privileged, sincere and honest relations ... in the interest of both countries and both peoples," the 39-year-old premier told a news conference in Damascus at the end of the landmark two-day visit.
"We want to build ties with Syria based on positive points," he added, describing his visit during which he had three rounds of private talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a "historic".
Syria dominated its tiny neighbor for nearly three decades until April 2005 when it pulled out its troops from Lebanon under international and regional pressure, two months after the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.
The two neighbors established diplomatic ties for the first time last year, with Syria opening an embassy in Beirut, while Lebanon opened its mission in Damascus in March.
The US- and Western-backed Hariri said his unity government, which includes members of the Syria- and Iran-backed Hezbollah coalition, wanted to take measures with Damascus to develop these ties.
Assad is also "very attached to sincere relations based on common understanding" between the two countries and spoke "positively" of problems that still need to be resolved, Hariri said.
Foremost is a plan to demarcate the porous border between the two neighbors, he said.
Hariri, whose US- and Saudi-backed coalition clinched victory in a general election over the Hezbollah-led alliance in June, said Saudi Arabia "played an important role" in paving the way for his visit to Syria.
But Hariri stressed that he did not discuss with Assad a UN-led inquiry into his father's murder nor the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that has been set up to try the suspected killers.
"The tribunal is doing its work and this is what everybody wishes," he said.
A UN inquiry said it had evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services at the time were linked to the killing, but no charges have been brought.
Earlier this month, a Syrian court asked 25 prominent Lebanese, including individuals close to Saad Hariri, to appear for questioning over the murder.
Hariri and his US- and Western-backed allies have in the past blamed Syria for the murder and for a string of subsequent political assassinations in Lebanon. Damascus has denied any involvement.
Commentators and ordinary Syrians, meanwhile, hailed Hariri's visit to Syria.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said late Saturday that the visit helped make the "atmosphere comfortable" between the two countries, his office said in a statement.
Also on Saturday, Syrian presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told reporters: "There is no doubt that the ice has been broken between the two sides."
For Khaled Amayri, a former Syrian soldier who served in Lebanon said: "Hariri's visit is a sign of the depth of relations between Syria and Lebanon that go a long way back."
Syria's official Al-Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath Party, said in a front-page headline on Sunday: "Three positive, honest, friendly hours ... break the ice and end the negative phase of the past."
Samir Musalma, editor-in-chief of the government newspaper Tishrin, agreed. "The past phase has been painful ... but that does not mean we cannot move on," Musalma said.

CIA backed PA in torturing Hamas prisoners

LONDON - New allegations have surfaced on US collaboration with the Palestinian Authority in repressing opposition groups, The Guardian of London recently reported.
The British daily reported that Palestinian security forces have allegedly tortured Hamas supporters with the support of the CIA.
Anonymous Western diplomats' said the CIA appears to be supervising the Palestinian security forces’ activities.
The US-PA cooperation emerged out of the Oslo accords in the early 1990s.
In 2006, the Bush administration and the Palestinian Authority tried to overthrow the Hamas-led government after Hamas won Palestinian national elections.

Lebanon cabinet lands parliament's vote of confidence

BEIRUT, - Lebanon's parliament on Thursday granted Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government its vote of confidence by an overwhelming majority.
Hariri's 30-member government landed 122 out of a possible 128 votes after three days of debate over the cabinet's policy statement, most notably on a clause that deals with weapons held by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
The vote also came prior to Hariri's upcoming visit to Syria, a major backer of Hezbollah, for which no firm date has yet been set.
Christian MPs and ministers of the Hariri-led parliamentary majority voiced discontent over the clause, which states the right of "Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance" to liberate all Lebanese territory.
But they nonetheless granted the cabinet their votes on Thursday.
Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006, is commonly referred to as the resistance in Lebanon.
But Hezbollah, which has two ministers in cabinet, regularly states its weapons are not open to discussion.
It argues its arms are necessary to protect the country against any future aggression by Israel, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.
Hariri's US- and Western-backed alliance defeated a Hezbollah-led opposition supported by Syria and Iran in a June vote.
But his national unity government did not see the light until nearly five months later due to tense ties between the two alliances' regional backers and disagreement on the distribution of portfolios with his political rivals.