Condoleezza Rice began her first visit as secretary of state to the heart of the Middle East conflict yesterday with Israelis and Palestinians already set on a new course of dialogue after four years of violence.
Both sides will hold a summit in Egypt tomorrow on reviving a US-backed peace "road map," making the mission of Washington's top diplomat less of an arm-twisting exercise and more of an affirmation of change after Yasser Arafat's death.
Criticized for too little involvement in Middle East peace efforts in his first term, US President George W. Bush sent Rice to the region to back up his pledge to press harder for an end to the conflict.
But she will not attend the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and signalled she preferred to see Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas make progress as free of foreign mediation as possible.
"I hope we would all get into a mind-set that says if the parties are able to continue to move on their own, that's the very best outcome," Rice told reporters on the way to Ankara during an eight-day tour of Europe and the Middle East.
Rice planned to hold talks with Sharon in Jerusalem yesterday and see Abbas, whose election last month to succeed Arafat stirred international optimism, in the West Bank the next day.
She pledged to discuss ways for the sides to coordinate security and defuse crises when they "inevitably" occur.
One crisis was averted yesterday when negotiators hammering out terms for the summit agreed to defer a decision on how many Palestinian prisoners Israel will release as a goodwill gesture.
Under the deal, a joint Israeli-Palestinian committee will review the release roster after tomorrow's talks in what a Palestinian official called "a positive step forward."
Earlier yesterday, Rice attempted to reassure nervous Turkish leaders that Washington won't allow Iraqi Kurds to form a breakaway state.
Anti-US sentiments have been strong in Turkey since the start of the war in neighboring Iraq.
Rice met yesterday with Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. She saw Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday.
Turks worry the war in Iraq could lead to the disintegration of the country and the creation of a Kurdish state in the northern areas. That could embolden Kurds in southeastern Turkey, where the Turkish army has been battling Kurdish rebels since 1984.
Meanwhile, in an interview broadcast yesterday, Rice also reiterated US concerns about plans by the EU to lift a ban on arms sales to China , warning that such a move could upset the military balance in the region.
Washington and Brussels held different views on the maintenance of the embargo, imposed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Rice told BBC television.
"Friends sometimes disagree, we have to be able to do that and try to work our way through," she said in an interview recorded on Friday, when she was in London.
"We have concerns about the lifting of the embargo because we have deep concerns about the military balance in East Asia," Rice said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique