The Yediot Ahronot daily yesterday quoted unidentified sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying he might evacuate additional West Bank settlements after the summer withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, while connecting major settlement blocs to Israel.
The newspaper said Sharon is likely to take action in the next few months if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas doesn't last long enough in his position to carry out a final peace deal with Israel, prompting Israel to act unilaterally to decide its final borders.
Sharon's office denied the report, and said diplomatic moves after the pullout would be conducted within the context of the internationally backed "road map" peace plan.
The plan, which the US introduced in June 2003, quickly stalled because neither side carried out the initial phase. Israel was to halt settlement activity and Palestinians were to dismantle violent groups responsible for attacking Israelis.
Yediot said the isolated settlements that would be evacuated are located in Palestinian population centers in the northern West Bank and the southern Mount Hebron region.
In tandem, the newspaper said, Israel would expand major settlement blocs near Israel's borders to create a contiguous stretch of Israeli-controlled territory.
Sharon, who plans to dismantle all 21 Gaza settlements and four isolated ones in the northern West Bank this summer, is already planning to fill in the gap separating the largest settlement bloc, Maaleh Adumim, from Jerusalem. The plan has outraged Palestinians who see the eastern sector of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
SWEEPING REFORM
Abbas on Thursday ordered a sweeping reform of splintered Palestinian security services, a step toward meeting a key US and Israeli demand.
Abbas declared that more than a dozen security agencies are to be combined into three branches under a single command, handing the reins to his tough-minded interior minister, Nasser Yousef.
The timing of Abbas' move may be linked to his upcoming trip to the US, which has been pressing him to take measures to rein in militants.
Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Shaath said this week that Abbas wants his Washington talks to concentrate on Palestinian demands, not on US and Israeli demands on him. The consolidation order follows efforts to co-opt militants into security forces.
In another step that should win praise in Washington, Abbas has already fired two top security commanders -- Ismail Jaber in the West Bank and Abdel Razek Majaidie, both associated with late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and mentioned frequently in corruption allegations.
WEAPONS
Meanwhile, a Jewish settler leader in the Gaza Strip yesterday said settlers would comply with a Israeli Defense Ministry order to return army-issue weapons to the military, defusing a potentially serious problem ahead of the evacuation.
The comment by Avner Shimoni, head of the Gaza Coast Settlers Council, followed Thursday's announcement that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz had instructed the military to work with settlers on a voluntary handover of weapons just before the pullout.
The decision by the Defense Ministry on weapons confiscation reflected growing concern that extremists might resort to violence during the evacuation. Most opponents of the pullout have said they will confine their resistance to non-violent measures, but fears persist that a small minority could resort to live fire.
The Defense Ministry said the confiscation order applied to army-issue weapons in all settlements slated for evacuation. Private weapons were not to be affected, it said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS