Israeli and Palestinian leaders were meeting in Jerusalem to try to map out a joint program for next month's Middle East peace conference, a day after Israel completed the release of 86 prisoners as a goodwill gesture.
At their meeting yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were expected to take the first concrete steps toward a framework agreement for the international community at the summit next month. The two have been sparring in their previous meetings, but aides said actual work was about to begin.
In apparent internal Palestinian violence on Tuesday, four people were killed when a car exploded near the Hamas marine police headquarters in Gaza City, Hamas and hospital officials said.
The Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said in a statement that three of the dead were members of the militia who were killed on their way to a ``holy mission,'' meaning an attack apparently against Hamas, when Hamas militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their car.
A Web site affiliated with Hamas said the three Fatah militants were on their way to bomb a Hamas installation but the explosives went off prematurely. The fourth man killed was a bystander, the statement said.
Officially, the Hamas rulers of Gaza did not give any details about the incident after backing down from an earlier accusation that Israel was involved. Early yesterday, at least 15 relatives of the three men were arrested by Hamas security forces in their neighborhood east of Gaza City, residents said.
In further violence in Gaza, four Hamas fighters were injured early yesterday near the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel in an explosion the militant group blamed on an Israeli air strike.
The Israeli army denied any involvement in the blast. One of the militants later died of his wounds.
In a gesture meant to bolster Abbas in his struggle with Hamas, Israel sent 29 Palestinians back to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS