Israel is pressing foreign donors to finance the construction of a web of roads through the occupied territories -- made necessary by the building of the vast "security" barrier and Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The Israeli government seeks foreign funding to upgrade the back roads that Palestinians are forced to use -- after being banned from routes used by Jewish settlers. It also wants funding to build new roads which take account of the barrier and its settlements. The plan envisages roads that would run parallel to each other -- one for Jews, the other for Arabs.
European donors have recoiled from the proposal, in part because they are concerned that funding the new roads will breach July's International Court of Justice ruling against support for construction of the barrier. The court said it should be torn down because it breaches the Geneva conventions.
But diplomats say the US may be more willing to pay, given Washington's tacit endorsement of the barrier and support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's latest plan to expand West Bank settlements while withdrawing settlers from Gaza.
Officials say the request was made last month at meetings with the World Bank after foreign pressure to ease up on the movement of Palestinians.
Israel said it was interested in "improving the transportation infrastructure to enable uninterrupted movement across the West Bank" but that it would require "extensive and complex construction with international assistance."
Some donors are also worried about the creation of a separate road network for Arabs that one Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, has described as a form of apartheid.
B'Tselem says Israel bars from, or restricts Palestinians on, more than 700km of roads in the West Bank.
"By unlawfully discriminating against Palestinians, the Forbidden Roads Regime is reminiscent of the apartheid system that existed in South Africa. The regime violates fundamental principles of international law that are binding on Israel," the report says.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
RSS