Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged US President George W. Bush to re-engage in the Mideast peace process in his second term, and a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Min-ister Ariel Sharon called Bush's re-election a victory for a "relentless fight against terrorism."
Arafat, undergoing medical tests in Paris for an unidentified ailment, welcomed Bush's re-election in a statement issued by a senior aide, Mohammed Rashid, at his headquarters in Ramallah.
"President Bush has shown a clear will to solve the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution," Arafat said, referring to plan to create a Palestinian state.
Arafat said he hoped Bush "will be more engaged in solving this conflict and that the US administration would be engaged at the highest levels to achieve this goal."
Bush's strong support for Sharon's policies during his first term endeared him to the Israeli government, but created friction with Palestinian officials.
The Palestinians charged him with unfairly favoring Israel, and resented his decision to boycott Arafat for allegedly supporting militant activities.
Bush's win is a victory "to the American people who decided to choose democracy, hope and a relentless fight against terrorism," Sharon's top adviser Raanan Gissin said.
"It's an even bigger victory for the people of the Middle East, where there will be another four years of a president determined to bring the people of this forsaken region a ray of hope, freedom and ... democracy," he said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said a decision by Bush to step up efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians would serve America's own interests in the region.
"We hope that the American administration will be more engaged in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and specifically the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which represents the center of tension and instability in the area," he said. "We will cooperate with the American administration to achieve this goal."
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
‘NO WORKABLE SOLUTION’: An official said Pakistan engaged in the spirit of peace, but Kabul continued its ‘unabated support to terrorists opposed to Pakistan’ Pakistan yesterday said that negotiations for a lasting truce with Afghanistan had “failed to bring about a workable solution,” warning that it would take steps to protect its people. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been holding negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, aimed at securing peace after the South Asian neighbors’ deadliest border clashes in years. The violence, which killed more than 70 people and wounded hundreds, erupted following explosions in Kabul on Oct. 9 that the Taliban authorities blamed on Pakistan. “Regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances, kept deviating from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses,” Pakistani Minister of
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
RSS