Two polls yesterday showed rightist Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and the centrist Kadima party’s Tzipi Livni running almost neck-and-neck if a national election is held to replace Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Police investigators arrived at Olmert’s residence yesterday to question him again on corruption charges.
Yesterday was the latest round of police questioning on suspicions Olmert improperly accepted funds from a US businessman.
Another case involves alleged violations in funding trips abroad.
The policemen pulled up in a white jeep. They were expected to spend two hours with Olmert.
Beset by the burgeoning allegations and with dismal approval ratings, Olmert announced Wednesday that he will resign once his party picks a new leader in September.
The announcement set the stage for a leadership battle in Olmert’s Kadima Party and possibly for national elections.
All three of Israel’s main newspapers showed Foreign Minister Livni with a solid lead in the race to take over from Olmert in the Sept. 17 Kadima leadership election.
Surveys have consistently shown that Netanyahu’s Likud party would win an early parliamentary election against Kadima, but two of the three opinion polls published yesterday showed a close race if Livni headed Kadima.
Mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth showed that Netanyahu’s Likud would get 30 seats compared to 29 for Livni’s Kadima. Left-leaning Haaretz had Livni netting 26 seats, ahead of Netanyahu’s 25.
Daily Maariv put Netanyahu clearly ahead, showing that if elections were to be held today, Likud would sweep 33 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament with Livni at the head of Kadima taking only 20 seats.
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
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