As the administration of US President George W. Bush enters its final weeks, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was due in New York yesterday in a bid to keep Middle East peace talks on track and turn up the heat on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
During talks at the UN, Rice will also discuss how to tackle a surge in piracy off Somalia’s coast, check Iran’s nuclear ambitions and deal with the fallout from the terrorist attacks in India, officials said.
Her two-day visit to the heart of world diplomacy highlights many of the daunting challenges Bush’s administration will hand over to US president-elect Barack Obama when the White House switches occupants on Jan. 20.
Palestinian-Israeli peace remains a priority for the Bush team, which hoped the parties could clinch a deal within a year when it revived the negotiations in Annapolis, Maryland in November last year, after a seven-year hiatus.
But it is now settling for just keeping the process going as Rice met yesterday with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair was also due at the talks as the quartet’s envoy.
The US, the UN, Russia and the EU make up the Middle East quartet, which has endorsed a roadmap for a Palestinian state to coexist peacefully alongside a secure Israel.
Speaking to reporters on his way to Afghanistan late on Sunday, Bush said that he saw “a way forward now” to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute.
“The big sea change in the Middle East on this issue is that by far the majority of people recognize that the only way to peace is two states,” Bush said. “And in 2001, that was not the case.”
He noted that in 2001, most of the Israeli political class believed that a greater Israel was the only way to have security and the Palestinian Authority could not deliver peace.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of