US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brokered a deal on Gaza border crossings in marathon talks with Israel and the Palestinians yesterday, scoring a rare breakthrough in Middle East diplomacy.
Rice, who put her own reputation at stake by investing so personally in the negotiations, had postponed her departure to Asia for an APEC meeting, staying in Jerusalem an extra day until she secured an agreement on opening the Gaza-Egypt border.
Access to Gaza is key to strengthening the impoverished strip's economy and giving a boost to chances for peacemaking following Israel's withdrawal from the territory in September after 38 years of occupation.
Bleary-eyed after an almost sleepless night of hard-nosed bargaining, Rice -- on her fourth visit to the region this year -- praised the deal as a "good step forward." It hands the Palestinians control of a border for the first time.
"This agreement is intended to give the Palestinian people the freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives," she told a news conference in Jerusalem before flying out.
Rice said the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the strip's gateway to the outside world, should open on Nov. 25 with the presence of EU security monitors.
Palestinians would also be able to start traveling in bus and truck convoys between Gaza and the occupied West Bank within months, and construction of a Gaza seaport would begin.
Israel had conditioned the opening of Rafah on its ability to monitor goods and people passing through, saying it feared arms smuggling across the border to Palestinian militants. Palestinians had insisted that Israelis not be at Rafah.
An Israeli Defense Ministry source said a compromise was reached whereby a coordination center manned by Palestinians, Israelis and EU observers will be set up at Kerem Shalom, to which video images and data will be transmitted in real time.
Israel, which has kept control of Gaza's borders, air space and sea lanes since its withdrawal, has been under US pressure to reopen the Rafah crossing, mostly closed since September. Sporadic violence despite a ceasefire has dented peace hopes.
US officials had voiced frustration with what they viewed as the failure of both sides to capitalize on the Gaza withdrawal, the first removal of settlements by Israel from land Palestinians want for a state.
In a sign of tensions, President Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech after the Gaza deal was unveiled, accused Israel of trying to avoid peace talks and incite Palestinian civil war by insisting that militants be disarmed before any negotiations on statehood.
During her visit, Rice renewed US pressure on Abbas to act against armed groups. She also pressed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has vowed that Israel will keep large West Bank settlement blocs forever, to freeze settlement expansion.
Both sides had previously agreed to EU observers at Rafah, and differences centred on Israeli monitoring of the crossing.
Israel, fearing militants could take advantage of its lack of presence to smuggle weapons, wanted to monitor movements via a direct, real-time video feed. Palestinians had objected to that as an impingement on their sovereignty but compromised on a joint monitoring operation.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS