Israel rejects EU call for Palestinian state deadline

13 July 2009

JERUSALEM - Israel on Monday rejected a European Union call for the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline even if Israel and Palestinians fail to agree on a peace deal.

“A peace agreement can come only following direct negotiations and cannot be imposed,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told public radio.

Lieberman was commenting on a speech by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in London on Saturday in which he called for the international community to set a deadline for recognizing the state of Palestine.

“The mediator has to set the timetable,” Solana said, according to a transcript of his speech. “If the parties are not able to stick to it, then a solution backed by the international community should ... be put on the table.

“After a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution. This should include all the parameters of borders, refugees, Jerusalem and security arrangements,” he said.

“It would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN, and set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of other remaining territorial disputes and legitimize the end of claims.”

A spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said UN recognition would be “one option if Israel derails the efforts of US President Barack Obama’s administration and its vision of a two-state solution.”

“Europe, as a member of the international Quartet, must continue in its efforts to apply pressure to Israel to freeze the settlements and stop wasting time,” Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

But the Israeli foreign ministry blasted Solana’s call, which would effectively impose a solution to the decades-old Middle East conflict.

“Any approach that calls for an artificial deadline undermines the prospects of actually reaching a bilateral agreement,” it said in a statement.

Israel has come under increasing pressure from its closest ally Washington to take steps in the stalled peace process, such as freezing all settlement activity on occupied land, but the right-leaning government led by hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to do so.

Israel and the Palestinians revived peace negotiations at an international conference in November 2007, but the talks were put on ice after Israel launched its war against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December.

The Palestinians have said they will not return to the negotiating table unless Israel freezes all settlement activity, one of the main obstacles in the hobbled peace process.

On Sunday, Netanyahu called on Abbas to meet him to restart talks. “I say to the leader of the Palestinian Authority, let’s meet to reach a political and economic peace,” he said at Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu has said he will not allow new settlements to be built but will permit construction in annexed east Jerusalem and existing settlement blocs that Israel intends to keep in any future peace deal.

The premier has spoken on the phone with Abbas since being sworn into office on March 31, but he has yet to meet the Palestinian leader.

Nabucco pipeline finds backers

ISTANBUL, Turkey, July 13 (UPI) -- Russia's hold on the European natural gas market is being challenged by a consortium of interests intent on building a pipeline from Turkey to central Europe.

Officials from six countries are meeting in Turkey to sign an agreement to construct a pipeline that would run from Turkey to Austria, crossing through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, CNN reported Monday.

The $11 billion project called Nabucco has U.S. support and would challenge the proposed South Stream pipeline Russia intends to build under the Black Sea connecting Russia with Italy.

The Nabucco pipeline would rely on natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 field, CNN said. Officials said natural gas from Turkmenistan and Iraq may also find its way through the pipeline.

Interest in the Nabucco project received a boost last winter, when a dispute between Russia and Ukraine resulted in a supply line shutdown that left many in Europe scrambling for alternative fuel sources.

Pakistan's displaced families begin to return home

by S.H. Khan

JALOZAI CAMP, Pakistan (AFP) – Only a fraction of nearly two million Pakistanis displaced in an onslaught against the Taliban went home on Monday, the first day of an organized return even though many are still fearful about security.

Pakistani offensives against Islamists in the northwest have forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes since last year -- the vast majority seeking refuge with relatives and in schools, and the rest packed into sweltering camps.

The latest assault was launched in April under US pressure to flush out Islamists that Washington branded an existential threat, but Pakistan said last week the military had "eliminated" extremists in and around the Swat valley.

The government laid on buses and trucks to return displaced families on Monday, the first day of large-scale organized returns, but only a fraction of the families earmarked for voluntary return actually left the camps.

Azam Khan, a senior official in the government's emergency response unit said 192 families out of an estimated 2,680 left three camps on Monday.

"We expect an increase in coming days," Khan told reporters at Charsadda, where 22 out of a planned 247 families left for the northwest Swat district.

Dozens of displaced people blocked a road outside one Charsadda camp vowing not to return until they received ATM bank cards on which they can draw 25,000 rupees (300 dollars) of financial aid to rebuild their lives.

Crops were left to rot during the two-month offensive and the local economy has been shattered by a two-year uprising to enforce sharia law in Swat.

"Some people did not receive their ATM cash cards and they refused to go until they got this card," said Khan.

At Jazolai, where about 4,000 families have been sheltering in a camp near the town of Nowshera, 50-year-old Shireenzada said he was unsure whether peace had returned to his home town of Barikot in Swat.

"I'm going back home voluntarily and nobody forced me to leave... But I'm really uncertain and don't know if peace has actually returned to my area," he told AFP as he and 10 of his relatives stepped into a bus.

Pakistan launched the offensive in the northwest districts of Buner, Lower Dir and Swat after armed Islamist militants advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad last April in defiance of a peace deal.

Pakistan says more than 1,700 militants were killed but official death tolls are impossible to confirm independently and many suspect that the Taliban simply melted away into the mountains as after past operations.

The government says it has worked hard to restore electricity and running water in main towns since the fighting but analysts warn that much needs to be done to sustain the returnees.

"They will start living a normal life if the environment is secure and their fundamental needs are addressed. Secure environment means army, police and civil administration," said independent analyst Imtiaz Gul.

AFP reporters said they saw just over 200 people leaving Jalozai and the nearby camp of Charsadda but officials swept aside concerns.

"Twenty-four buses reached Swat. These are full of displaced people," Bashir Ahmad Bilour, a senior provincial cabinet minister told reporters.

"We hope the situation will improve in the coming days and that people will come back with the passage of time," he said.

Government officials say services are up and running, that soldiers will remain in the area and every effort will be made to protect civilians.

"The number of police stations will be doubled in the affected areas -- 7,000 community police will be employed," Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the North West Frontier Province chief minister, told returnees at Charsadda.

But Shamsher Ali, a 55-year-old shopkeeper, also said he was worried after previous military operations failed to crush the Taliban.

"The army promised us twice before that they cleared the area but then Taliban came again and again to Swat. Perhaps this time the Taliban will come again to Swat," he said.

Death toll at 3 in ambushes near mine in Indonesia

By IRWAN FIRDAUS, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia – A policeman's body was found at the bottom of a ravine near the Indonesian operations of U.S. mining conglomerate Freeport on Monday, raising the death toll from a series of weekend ambushes in restive Papua province to three.

A 29-year-old Australian mining expert and a security guard also were killed and seven others wounded in three weekend shootings within a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) radius near the Grasberg mining complex, police said.

It was the worst violence in the militarized zone since two American schoolteachers and an Indonesian colleague were murdered in 2002.

A police patrol came under heavy fire Saturday on an island just off Papua's northern coast hours after suspected separatists were detained, said local police spokesman Nurhabri, who uses a single name.

Indonesian authorities have blamed the Free Papua Movement for the latest attacks, but police say they recovered bullet casings of standard military and police grade from the scene, casting doubt on that claim.

The policeman was reported missing Sunday after a gunfight broke out with assailants in hills surrounding the Grasberg mining complex and may have fallen to his death while seeking cover, said Papua police chief Bagus Ekodanto.

About 120 police reinforcements were called in from the capital, Jakarta, to help hunt for the attackers in the dense jungle, he said. Additional forces were also deployed around Freeport's sprawling facility in the Papuan highlands, and employees were warned to be alert.

The escalation of tension in Papua, a resource-rich but impoverished region on the western half of New Guinea island, is an unwelcome development for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected just last week to a second five-year-term. It also raised questions about the military capabilities of Papua's secessionist movement, which until recent months had shown few signs of life.

The Grasberg mine is one of the world's largest single producers of both copper and gold. The rebels see PT Freeport as a symbol of Jakarta's rule and a reminder that foreign investment in the area has failed to lift their standard of living.

The Australian mining expert was shot and killed on Saturday while traveling in a vehicle in the same area where the three schoolteachers were killed in an ambush in 2002.

Yorris Raweyai, a Papuan lawmaker in the national parliament, dismissed claims that the separatist movement, known by its Indonesian acronym OPM, was responsible for the deaths.

"We know the OPM has been labeled as a troublemaker in Papua for four decades," he said. "But we also know that they have no guns and fight for their struggle peacefully."

No arrests have been made in connection with the ambushes despite a massive security operation, police said.

Indonesia's House Speaker Agung Laksono called for a comprehensive probe into the attacks to determine the motive and put the perpetrators on trial.

The mine, which employs roughly 20,000 mostly local workers and is one of Indonesia's largest taxpayers, is majority owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. of Phoenix, Arizona, which posted revenue of nearly $18 billion in 2008. The Indonesian government holds a minority stake in the Grasberg mine.

The low-level insurgency for an independent Papua has been a source of clashes with government troops since the region was transferred from Dutch to Indonesian rule in the 1960s. West Papua was taken over through a stage-managed vote by community leaders called the "Act of Free Choice," which has been widely dismissed by international scholars as a sham.

Since then, about 100,000 Papuans — the equivalent of a sixth of the current population — have died in military operations in the resource-rich mountain area.

The Indonesian government does not allow foreign media to freely report in Papua, where it has tens of thousands of troops. The site of Saturday's shooting was inaccessible to local reporters.

Fresh aftershock hits China quake region: USGS

BEIJING (AFP) – A fresh aftershock jolted China's southwest Monday, three days after an earthquake in the same area killed one person, injured hundreds and directly affected two million people, state media said.

The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 4.9 quake struck a minute after midnight (1601 GMT) and was centered 95 kilometres (60 miles) east northeast of the tourist city of Dali in Yao'an county, a mountainous area of remote Yunnan province.

The quake was recorded at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, it said.

Official news agency Xinhua said there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries from the aftershock, which lasted about 10 seconds.

More than to 250,000 people in several counties in Yunnan were displaced after a 5.7-magnitude quake struck Yao'an on Thursday evening.

Authorities have recorded one fatality -- a 50-year-old woman who was buried in the debris of collapsed houses and died later in hospital from serious blood loss, according to Xinhua.

The quake, which was centered on a relatively sparsely populated area 98 kilometres (61 miles) northeast of Dali, saw more than 30,000 houses collapse, Xinhua said early Monday, updating the previous figure of 18,000.

Another 625,000 were damaged, it said.

Up to 367 people were injured, including 31 critically, the report said.

Xinhua said that by Sunday rescuers had finished relocating 255,000 people considered to be in danger to tents, makeshift houses or homes of relatives.

The operation involved over 1,000 soldiers and policemen, including about 300 from neighboring Sichuan province, who helped residents to safety, Xinhua said in a previous report.

Last year in Sichuan, nearly 87,000 people were left dead or missing when a 8.0-magnitude earthquake shook the province in China's mountainous southwest.

The deadliest earthquake to strike China in over 30 years flattened entire cities and towns, destroying schools, hospitals, homes, buildings and factories in nearly 50,000 villages.

Quake strikes eastern Indonesia: seismologists

JAKARTA (AFP) – A strong 6.4-magnitude quake struck Indonesia's remote eastern Sumba island on Monday, the geophysics agency said.

The quake struck at 7:52 pm (1052 GMT) with an epicentre 107 kilometres (67 miles) northwest of the main island town of Waingapu, the Jakarta Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

It was measured at a depth of 86 kilometres.

The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 6.1.

Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the earthquake-triggered Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 that killed more than 220,000 people, including over 168,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province and Nias island.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.

Nearly 700 homes as well as office buildings, schools and health clinics were damaged when a 7.2-magnitude quake struck the remote Talaud Islands in North Sulawesi province in February.

Two shot dead in renewed unrest in China's Xinjiang

By David Gray

URUMQI, China (Reuters) – Chinese police shot dead two people on Monday in renewed unrest in the far northwestern region of Xinjiang, state media said, after at least 184 people died in riots last week.

The official Xinhua news agency said the two people killed in the regional capital Urumqi were Uighur. Police were trying to stop them attacking another Uighur when the security forces opened fire, the report said. Another Uighur was injured.

"An initial investigation found that the three people were attacking the fourth person with clubs and knives at 2:55 p.m. near the People's Hospital at Jiefang Nanlu," Xinhua said. "Police on patrol fired warning shots before shooting at the three suspects."

Of the official death toll from the July 5 riots, 137 were Han Chinese, who form the majority of China's 1.3 billion population, and 46 were Uighur, a Muslim people native to Xinjiang and culturally tied to Central Asia and Turkey.

Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi that day after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China. Han Chinese in Urumqi launched revenge attacks later in the week.

State media said earlier in the day that demonstrations against Chinese consulates in Europe and the United States showed that ethnic riots were orchestrated.

Demonstrators threw eggs, Molotov cocktails and stones at several Chinese embassies and consulates, including in Ankara, Oslo, Munich and the Netherlands, Xinhua news agency said.

"Supporters of the East Turkestan separatists started well-orchestrated and sometimes violent attacks on Chinese embassies and consulates in several countries soon after the riots occurred," Xinhua said.

"The attacks against China's diplomatic missions and the Urumqi riots seemed to be well-organized."

While security forces blanketed the city, more and more businesses are reopening.

"In general, things are slowly getting back to normal. I think the situation is getting better and under control," said one Han resident. But some Uighur residents remained wary.

A Uighur security guard, who declined to give his name, said that while he did not support the violence, he understood people's frustration.

"Look around you -- 90 percent of all the businesses are owned by the Han," he said, standing in Urumqi's main bazaar.

"All I can do is get a job as a security guard," complained the university graduate. "The Han here can't even speak Uighur."

Beijing cannot afford to lose its grip on Xinjiang, a vast desert territory that borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

In another sign the government is not going to relax its grip in Urumqi anytime soon, Xinhua said police will take in for questioning anyone who cannot produce an identity card or driving license.

People are also banned from "shouting slogans, posting banners, distributing leaflets or gathering for lectures in city streets or public venues," the report cited a police notice as saying.

"Police will immediately disperse gatherings and confiscate the propaganda materials and take away key members for interrogation according to law," Xinhua added.

China has blamed Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uighur businesswoman, for instigating the unrest.

Xinhua also blamed the World Uighur Congress, an umbrella group for organizations of exiled or overseas Uighurs, for the demonstrations at the embassies.

Deadly riots in Lhasa in March 2008, and a subsequent Chinese crackdown across the Tibetan plateau, also spurred a series of demonstrations at Chinese embassies in countries with significant exiled Tibetan populations.