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Israeli PM endorses Palestinian statehood
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv on Sunday. — Reuters
Ayatollah orders probe into vote-rigging claims
An Iranian demonstrator shows a placard against Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a demonstration outside the UN office in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. — Reuters |
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Taliban could spread into India, Persian Gulf: Pak
ISI link to ULFA arms haul confirmed
Plot to kidnap diplomats foiled
Woman sentenced in treason case
IAF plans combat missiles for Jaguar
Maoists enforce shutdown in Nepal
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Israeli PM endorses Palestinian statehood
Tel Aviv, June 15 In a policy speech that came a week after US President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the “Palestinian state” would have to be demilitarised and recognise Israel as a state of the Jewish people. “Israel cannot agree to a Palestinian state unless it gets guarantees it is demilitarised,” he said. “I call on you, our Palestinian neighbours, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” the Israeli premier said. The hardliner Israeli premier has resisted agreeing to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict all through his political career and his veiled acceptance was couched under several other conditions, including refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel and keeping united Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish state. With all these conditions, Israel “will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarised Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said. The address at Bar Ilan university, considered the bastion of Israeli right, came in the wake of Obama’s insistence that Israel impose a complete freeze on West Bank settlement construction and recognise the two-state solution. The White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an “important step forward” while the European Union described it as “a step in the right direction”. However, the Palestinians were skeptic and angry. “Netanyahu’s remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions,” said Nabil Abu Rdeineh, a close aide to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. Reacting angrily to Netanyahu’s assertions that Palestinian refugees will not be allowed to settle in Israel and undivided Jerusalem will stay its capital, Rdeineh said, “this will not lead to complete and just peace”. Political analysts said the move was aimed at pleasing the US. The mass-circulated Yediot Aharonot said “Netanyahu’s speech was meant for one pair of ears... the ears of (US President) Barack Obama.” — PTI
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Ayatollah orders probe into vote-rigging claims
Tehran, June 15 The government declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner in a landslide victory. Mousavi wrote an appeal yesterday to the Guardian Council, a powerful 12-member body that’s a pillar of Iran’s theocracy. Mousavi also met with Khamenei yesterday. Meanwhile, a planned rally in Tehran today by Mousavi’s supporters had been postponed, according to a headline which briefly appeared on his website. It said the rally, called to protest against the official result of presidential election, had been delayed after the Interior Ministry did not give permission for it to go ahead. “In the wake of a lack of permit from the Interior Ministry the demonstration on Monday by supporters of Mousavi has been postponed,” the headline on the website said. It was not possible to see the full text of the statement, and the headline was later removed from the site. The headline said Mousavi was strongly protesting against the decision of the Interior Ministry not to allow the rally. — Agencies
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Taliban could spread into India, Persian Gulf: Pak
Islamabad, June 15 Pakistan would need up to $2.5 billion in emergency aid and for long-term reconstruction of the Swat Valley and the neighbouring region, once the fighting between government troops and militants, now in its final stage, ended, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview with the Financial Times. Pakistan has earmarked Rs 50 billion ($625 million) in its annual budget to help the displaced people in Swat. Western diplomats have warned that a failure to quickly help the victims of Swat could provoke unrest in parts of the country. "They (Islamic militants) have a global agenda, they have a regional agenda (and) they are not confined to Pakistan. They could go to the (Persian) Gulf, they could go to India, they can go anywhere," Qureshi said. "There is a collective interest and there has to be a collective realisation that this is not Pakistan's problem. It's a larger problem." The US has begun lobbying the governments of oil-rich countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) to be more generous in helping Pakistan deal with the fallout of the offensive in the Swat Valley. The GCC share close business and military ties with Pakistan and is home to a large expatriate Pakistani community. Qureshi said the US efforts for GCC aid were only meant to "complement" Pakistan's own recent contacts with the GCC countries for help. "They (the US) are trying to help in whatever way they can, but Pakistan has independent relations (with the GCC)," he added. A GCC diplomat in Islamabad told the Financial Times that Pakistan needed to "revive closer relations" with the region "which have been neglected in the war on terror". "Pakistan has an important role in our region but that role has to be built up very slowly through further effort," the diplomat said. — IANS
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ISI link to ULFA arms haul confirmed
Dhaka, June 15 The former director of Bangladesh’s intelligence agency and a key suspect in the country’s biggest ever arms haul case has confirmed that the ISI was involved in the aborted smuggling of weapons believed to be destined to ULFA hideouts in northeast India, a media report said today. — PTI
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Plot to kidnap diplomats foiled
Islamabad, June 15 Malik said security around the federal capital had been tightened and it would soon be improved with fast track acquisition of specialised scanners, which can detect explosives from a distance. — PTI
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Woman sentenced in treason case
Jenin, West Bank, June 15 Taghrid Abu Taybeh, 22, from Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, pleaded guilty to charges of treason and contact with the enemy, a court statement said. —
PTI
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IAF plans combat missiles for Jaguar
Paris, June 15 The Request for Proposal (RFP) for the acquisition of over 100 of these close combat missiles has been sent to five missile manufacturers including the Raytheon Corporation from United States, Israeli Raphael and European missile consortium MBDA. "We have received the RFP from the Indian Defence Ministry for close combat air-to-air missiles for the Jaguar fighter aircraft," Raytheon Vice-President Dennis J Carroll said here. — PTI
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Maoists enforce shutdown in Nepal
Kathmandu, June 15 Transport services were halted, schools and colleges shut down and markets closed as the Maoists organised protest rallies in different parts of the city demanding probe into the “killing” and action against the guilty. Rajendra Phuyal, a district committee member of the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League, was found in critical condition in Dharmasthali area of Kathmandu district on June 11 and was declared dead at a hospital. The Maoists, who suspect that Phuyal was killed, are demanding a probe into the incident. The situation was tense in Balaju and Maharajgunj areas yesterday as Maoist cadres, who burnt tyres and blocked roads, clashed with the police. Today as well, they blocked roads at several places to enforce a strike and stoned half a dozen vehicles defying the shutdown, the police said. A 12-year-old boy from Kalaiya district of southern Nepal, who was brought here after he fell seriously ill, was escorted to the hospital by Armed Police Force personnel as roads were blocked due to the strike. Meanwhile, two youths who helped rescue a kidnapped schoolgirl on the outskirts of the capital, said they feared for their own lives after it was revealed that the mastermind of the kidnapping was a cadre with the Maoists’ youth wing. — PTI
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Under pressure from the Obama administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for the first time endorsed a two-state solution in the Middle East, drawing praise from the West but flak from Palestinians who rejected the offer citing the tough conditions attached.
Tehran, June 15
Kathmandu, June 15
