Jerusalem, June 24
Israel agreed today to transfer several hundred million dollars to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's emergency government, a measure designed to undercut Hamas Islamists controlling Gaza.

The money, some of the Palestinian tax revenues withheld by Israel since Hamas won election in 2006, is part of an initial package of benefits to bolster Abbas that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely to announce at a summit in Egypt tomorrow.

Israel wants to isolate Hamas economically, diplomatically and militarily in the Gaza Strip, where the Islamist group seized control more than a week ago, while allowing funds to flow to Abbas's emergency administration in the West Bank.

''Is Israel releasing the money for free? No. It is in return for Abbas destroying Hamas and the resistance,'' Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

An Israeli government official said Olmert's cabinet approved the transfer of about 350 million dollars, short of the 700 million dollars the Palestinians say Israel is holding. Israel says courts have frozen some of the funds to cover Palestinian debts.

The money slated for release will be given to Abbas's government in stages, the official said, once a mechanism is in place to ensure it does not reach Hamas in Gaza.

''The Israelis should release all our money. These are Palestinian, not Israeli, funds,'' Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide, told Reuters after the cabinet decision.

It was not immediately clear if the Israeli government also approved proposals to ease travel restrictions for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where Abbas's Fatah holds sway.

''We will attempt in a sober and cautious manner to take advantage of the opportunities created as a result of the recent events in the Gaza Strip, in order to build a diplomatic process with the Palestinians,'' Olmert told reporters.

Freeing up the tax revenues, he said, would ''gradually help the new Palestinian government, one that is not a Hamas government''.

Jerusalem, June 24
Israel has rejected a US proposal to negotiate a permanent settlement plan with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, a media report here said.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert turned down the proposal put up by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during his recent visit to Washington, fearing that failure on the part of Abbas to sell the agreement would lead to demands of more concessions from Israel, daily Ha’artz reported.

Olmert believes that Israel might then be pressured to make the Palestinian leaders’ task easier, it said.

The US Secretary of State views that merely reaching such an agreement in principle would provide the Palestinians with a “political horizon” and hope, thereby encouraging them to fight terror and to establish governing institutions in preparation for an independent state, the report said. Foreign minister Tsipi Livni is said to share Rice's approach. — PTI

A day after receiving consent from the joint coordination committee (JCC) of eight-party alliance the interim government of Nepal on Sunday decided to hold the much-awaited Constituent Assembly (CA) election on November 22.

The council of ministers at a meeting held at Prime Minister’s Office in Singha Durbar on Sunday fixed the date for polls that would elect 497-constituent assembly members through semi-proportional electoral system.

“At the cabinet meeting PM Girija Prasad Koirala proposed November 22, 2007 as the poll date; all cabinet members agreed to it,” said minister for information and communication Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who is also the government spokesperson.

According to the recently endorsed Constituent Assembly Member Election Act, of the total 497 seats, 240 will be elected through the first-past-the-post, 240 from the parallel system and 17 others will be nominated by the Prime Minister according to the cabinet decision.

This assembly will formulate a new constitution for the first time in the history of Nepal and decide the fate of 239-year-old monarchy in the country.

The polls were deferred due to lack of sufficient time for preparation and lack of favorable environment for elections.

The eight parties have already agreed that the fate of monarchy would be decided by the first meeting of CA, even though they have incorporated a provision in the interim constitution that a two-thirds majority of the interim parliament could remove the king if he was found to be involved in any activity aimed at foiling the CA polls.

Karachi, June 24
At least 228 people have been killed and over 250 injured in the devastation unleashed by heavy rains and high-speed winds that lashed Pakistan's southern city of Karachi.

Emergency was declared in hospitals in the Sindh capital following torrential rains that began last evening with authorities canceling the leaves of doctors and para-medical staff, health minister of Sindh province Syed Sardar Ahmed, said today.

The death toll has risen to 228, the minister told mediapersons, adding at least 50 people were killed due to collapsing of billboards while many others died in roof and wall collapses.

The gale-force winds snapped power lines, plunging the city into darkness. Angry residents took to streets in many areas, which went without electricity for as much as 18 hours with some 35 grid stations breaking down.

Protesters stoned vehicles and burnt tyres and cars on the roads, police said. “The people are frustrated with the prolonged power breakdown and we have deployed police mobiles in many areas to contain the violence and riots,” city police chief Azhar Farooqi said.

“We had taken measures but we didn’t expect the rains and winds to be so devastating,” Syed added.

Rescue official Rizwan Edhi of the Edhi trust said about 200 bodies had been brought to morgues in various parts of the city since last evening. — PTI

London, June 24
Shriti Vadera, an Oxford-educated NRI, is tipped to head the policy directorate of the British PM when Gordon Brown replaces Tony Blair on Wednesday.

The post would make her, who is a special adviser to Chancellor Gordon Brown and a member of the Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers, one of the most powerful women in Britain.

The 44-year-old former banker has a fearsome reputation among civil servants for her trenchant manner, The Sunday Telegraph observed today. — PTI

London, June 24
NRI actress Parminder Nagra, who shot to fame in Gurinder Chadha's debut film Bend It Like Beckham will be conferred with a doctorate by the University of Leicester next month.

Nagra will receive the Doctor of Letters degree from the university which will also honour its former Chancellor, Sir Michael Atiyah, with its highest honour. Leicester-born Nagra currently stars in the highly popular television hospital drama ER. Among others she played roles in television serials Casualty, Holby City, Goodness Gracious Me, Judge John Deed and Channel 4's production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. — PTI