http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=17707
Jordanian PM proposes peace in Palestine as the solution to all Middle East tensions
Date: 01 / 12 / 2006 Time: 18:34
Ma'an - The Jordanian prime minister, Marouf Bakhit, assured on Friday that solving the Palestinian issue is the key to stability in the Middle East region.

At the 'Forum of the Future' in Ash-Shuna on the Jordanian banks of the Dead Sea, which was attended by foreign ministers from the eight largest industrial countries, as well as from other Arab, Islamic and European states, Bakhit explained that the absence of a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict weakens the moderate forces and strengthens the position of advocates of violence, hatred and extremism.

He said, "The region is overloaded with tensions and crises which will negatively affect the ambitious initiatives and priorities of our countries and peoples and slow efforts to resolve these crises."

According to the Jordanian prime minister, the tensions in Iraq, Lebanon and other countries, and the rise in terror, are a consequence of the Palestinian issue and so a solution to this issue will greatly assist in achieving stability in the region. In other words, a just solution to the Palestinian problem will eliminate the pretexts used by terrorists for their violent acts.

In the same regard, the British foreign minister, Margaret Beckett, said, "Regional partnership and education of the youth is the basis for dealing with the international troubles."

Other senior politicians and diplomats who attended the forum included US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, the Omani foreign minister, German Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Sudanese foreign minister, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Afghanistan's ambassador to Cairo Muhammad Rahim, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, along with many representatives from the Jordanian government.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23016/1/
PLO executive Committee call on the Palestinian P.M to resign
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Saturday, 02 December 2006, 01:28

The Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization demanded on Friday the resignation of the Palestinian Prime Minister from the Hamas party, Ismail Haniyya, to step down before talks on National Unity Government are resumed.

The Committee, headed by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, held a meeting in Ramallah and said that president Abbas, as the head of the Palestinian Authority, should announce the details of all internal talks regarding the formation of the government “in order to inform the people and the Arab brothers on the real obstacle that obstructed the talks”.

Also, the committee accused Hamas of stalling the talks by having preconditions that its representatives keep presenting. “The demands of Hamas will not create any diversity in the government, they want to control all vital positions”, the committee stated in its press release.

The committee also added that the Hamas formula of the government will not be able to lift the siege “since it is not committed to the Palestinian legitimacy, the Arab peace initiative and the international legitimacy as the cores of its conduct”.

The committee called on Abbas to ask the government to resign in preparation for assigning a new figure to head the government, and carry the needed political and organizational talks in accordance to the basic law of the Palestinian Authority.

After the Executive Committee meeting, president Abbas headed to Ramallah.

Meanwhile, Hamas slammed the decisions of the Committee and considered them an an act of mutiny against the government, and the “choice of the Palestinian people”.

Dr. Ismail Radwan, Hamas spokesperson, said that these decisions will lead to huge conflicts that could inflame the situation, and said that the committee should have stressed on talks rather than “waving with the presidents' power”.

Radwan added that this committee met in order to overrule the choice of the people, and that it “does not represent all of the Palestinians”.

He also said that the committee subdued to “American and Zionist pressures” in addition to pressures from the Quartet.

Radwan held the committee responsible for adding tension to the area, and held Fateh responsible for the failure of national unity talks.

He also said that Hamas gave several concessions, and was ready to give away some of the ministries, “but Fateh backtracked on what we agreed upon”.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23013/1/
Settlers hurl stones at an UNRWA bus in Jerusalem
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC - Friday, 01 December 2006, 20:57

Friday evening, a group of setter youth hurled stones at an UNRWA bus as it was driving in a Jewish street in Jerusalem; damage no the vehicle was reported, no injuries.

The agency said that 54 employees of the Jerusalem headquarters on the UNRWA were heading back to their houses in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The employees work at the UNRWA Sheikh Jarrah office in Jerusalem.

An UNRWA employee from Beit Sahour town, near Bethlehem, told the IMEMC that the bus was driving in Road Nr. 1, which is a Jewish area, and heading towards Sheikh Jarrah.

“Some Jewish children, not more than 13 or 14 hurled stones at the bus”, the employee stated, “one of the side windows of the bus was broken”.

The Israeli police arrived at the scene and said they they “would probe the incident”.

The employee also said that an UNRWA team also arrived at the scene and took pictures of the attacked bus.

The driver of the bus, Daoud Abu Teir, from Jerusalem, was asked to head to the Jerusalem Police Headquarters to file a complaint.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/01/world/main2221645.shtml
Spy Death: The Plot Thickens
LONDON, Dec. 1, 2006
(CBS/AP) The wife of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko and a contact he met in a London sushi bar both tested positive for traces of a radioactive substance following the former intelligence officer's death, friends and officials said Friday.

Scaramella was exposed to a much lower level of radioactive substance than Litvinenko, doctors treating him said.

London's University College Hospital confirmed Scaramella had been hospitalized after tests confirmed he had been exposed to polonium-210, the rare substance found in Litvinenko's body before he died Nov. 23. Scaramella had shown "no symptoms of radiation poisoning," hospital spokesman Keith Paterson said.

Scaramella had met with Litvinenko at the Itsu sushi restaurant on Nov. 1, the day the ex-Russian spy believed he was given the poison that eventually killed him. Scaramella is under treatment at the same hospital Litvinenko was treated at, CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports.

Litvinenko's wife, Marina, showed no ill effects after she was confirmed as having shown traces of the same substance, the ex-spy's friend Alex Goldfarb said Friday.

"She is very slightly contaminated," Goldfarb told The Associated Press. "There are no dangerous levels, no treatment, no hospitalization."

Meanwhile, in East Sussex, in southern England, police and health officials evacuated and later reopened the Ashdown Park Hotel and Country Club — where Scaramella had been staying — after testing for signs of the substance. No test results were released.

"Police said they found nothing of any concern," said Graeme Bateman, the managing director of the hotel.

Home Secretary John Reid said one adult — a Litvinenko family member — had tested positive for signs of polonium-210, the rare substance found in the former spy's body. He did not elaborate.

The member of Litvinenko's family who had tested positive had been exposed to a "very small" long-term health risk, government health agency chief Pat Troop said.

"It is important to remember that Mr. Litvinenko's family experienced the closest contact with him during his illness and despite these results the level of exposure, this adult family member received is a tiny fraction of the lethal dose received by Mr. Litvinenko himself," Troop said.

Troop also declined to identify the family member.

Litvinenko's wife and his father, Walter, kept a vigil at his hospital bedside before he died.

Scaramella was admitted to University College Hospital surrounded by police, who are holding him in protective custody.

Over lunch at the sushi restaurant on Nov. 1, Scaramella told Litvinenko about an e-mail he received from a source naming the killers of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down on Oct. 7 at her Moscow apartment building. The e-mail reportedly said that he and Litvinenko — a friend of the reporter — were also on the hit list.

Three pathologists, meanwhile, completed Litvinenko's autopsy at the Royal London Hospital's forensic science facility Friday, coroner Dr. Andrew Reid said.

Wearing protective suits — with space suit-style helmets — one pathologist was representing the government, a second acted on behalf of Litvinenko's wife, while the third was an independent specialist attending in case a criminal prosecution takes place. When the autopsy is complete, Litvinenko's body will be sealed in a special coffin before it is buried to keep the radiation from spreading, Roth reports.

Results of the autopsy may not be available for several days while tests are carried out, police said.

The 43-year-old former KGB agent's funeral will be held soon after the autopsy, Goldfarb said.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett met her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Amman, Jordan, and repeated London's request for co-operation from the Russian authorities in the investigation of Litvinenko's death.

In a deathbed accusation, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning, a charge Putin strongly denied.

Lavrov restated earlier assurances that Moscow would cooperate fully, Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

"The prime minister has said there will be no diplomatic or political bar to that police investigation," Blair's spokesman said.

Russian news agencies reported that Lavrov said Moscow was ready to answer any questions from Britain about the death, if specific questions are asked by British authorities.

"When the questions are formulated and sent through the existing channels, we will consider them thoroughly," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in Jordan. "Now the ball is on the English side, and everything depends on the British investigators."

Reid said Thursday the police investigation into Litvinenko's death has so far found traces of radiation at 12 locations.

Among the sites were two British Airways airliners that had traveled between London and Moscow. A third BA plane that was grounded in Moscow was to be flown back to London to undergo examination on Friday.

Also Friday, in a letter released by human rights activists, a former Russian security officer — now jailed — said he had warned Litvinenko about a government-sponsored death squad that intended to kill him and other Kremlin opponents.

"Back in 2002, I warned Alexander Litvinenko that they set up a special team to kill him," the former security services officer, Mikhail Trepashkin, wrote in the letter dated Nov. 23 — the day of Litvinenko's death.

The letter was released by rights activists in Yekaterinburg, the center of the Ural Mountains province where he is serving his four-year sentence. Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed.

A spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service, the KGB successor agency known by its Russian acronym FSB, refused to comment on Trepashkin's claim.

Trepashkin was arrested in October 2003 and convicted on charges of divulging state secrets while investigating allegations of FSB involvement in a series of deadly apartment bombings that killed about 300 people in Moscow and two other cities in 1999. The government blamed the explosions on Chechnya-based rebels, but Litvinenko and other Kremlin critics alleged they were staged by authorities as a pretext for launching the current Chechen war.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-01-lebanon_x.htm?csp=24
Hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah supporters protest Lebanese government
Updated 12/1/2006 6:06 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Subscribe to stories like this

By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
BEIRUT — Hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian demonstrators converged on downtown Beirut today to demand that the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora resign.
The demonstrators — many joining in chants of "Siniora out; we want a free government" — congregated outside heavily protected government office buildings in a show of force orchestrated by Hezbollah.

Many vowed to stay or keep coming back until the Siniora government was toppled, and as darkness descended on the capital many appeared ready to stay the night.

"I call on the prime minister and his ministers to quit," Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun told the cheering crowds.

MORE COVERAGE: Latest from local media | Video

Aoun and his supporters in a divided Christian community joined with Shiite Muslims from the militant political group Hezbollah and the Amal political party to fill block after block of the downtown area and present a picture of a flag-waving sea of people.

Hezbollah supporters — many of whom traveled to the capital from their stronghold in southern Lebanon and wore the black-checkered scarves or yellow political party colors — easily outnumbered others in the anti-government crowd.

Abbas Hijazi, 48, is one of them. He said he walked the 20-plus miles from his town of Majdal Silim south of here to join in the demonstration.

"I'm here because I want a new, independent Lebanon," said Hijazi, a retired army officer who is a Hezbollah sympathizer. "My house was partially damaged by the Israelis. The government didn't do enough to protect us."

Now, he says, the government isn't doing enough to help rebuild the country. Only Hezbollah has been there to help.

Siniora has characterized the anti-government movement as akin to a coup and said his anti-Syrian cabinet would not resign in the face of street demonstrations like Friday's. "We will not allow the coup against the democratic system," he pledged in a broadcast to the nation Thursday night.

The demonstrators, estimated at between 200,000 and 800,000 by military and police respectively, were peaceful and even festive. Hezbollah, which draws support from Syria and Iran, had predicted 1 million people would turn out.

Hundreds of armed Lebanese Army military police and regular troops, backed by armored vehicles and yards upon yards of barbed wire, kept the demonstrators away from Siniora's office and funneled them through streets where they could more easily be controlled.

In addition, Hezbollah dispatched several thousand, badge-wearing "men of discipline" to help maintain peace and control the crowds.

Many Lebanese fear that the demonstrations could turn violent and spark a civil war similar to the one that gripped the nation from 1975-1991.

Lebanon's current political crisis has grown since the 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel last summer.

Hezbollah criticized Siniora's government, whose majority comprises Sunni Muslims and Christians, for failing to back Hezbollah during the war by sending in Lebanese Army troops. It has also demanded greater representation in the government, with enough votes to veto government action.

Last month, six Hezbollah and opposition ministers resigned from the government in protest.

Anti-Syrian proponents of the government counter, however, that the resignations were designed to derail the government decision to allow an international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last year. U.N. investigators have accused Syrian and Lebanese security officials of the murder.

Hariri's assassination sparked massive protests in Beirut, similar to today's demonstration. Syria denied involvement in the assassination but was forced to pull its troops out of the country after 30 years of occupation amid U.S. and other pressure from the West. It also ushered in the Siniora government.

Tensions between the anti-Syrian government and the anti-government movement rose even more when anti-Syrian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, scion of the Christian Phalange party, was assassinated on Nov. 21.

Many demonstrators said while they wanted to topple the Siniora government, they also didn't want Syria back occupying Lebanon.

"I don't want Syria back, but I don't think Syria wants to come back," said Sanaa Abboud, 27, a member of the small Christian Al Marada Party, which also joined in the demonstration.

Abboud says she will continue to protest until Siniora's government steps aside.

"I'll stay a week or two," she said. "But I don't think it will be that long. I think the government will fall in four days."

Contributing: The Associated Press