Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Cairo on yesterday for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on US efforts to revive stalled Middle East peace negotiations.
Netanyahu was expected to discuss negotiations to swap hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who has been held in the Gaza Strip for three-and-a-half years.
Egypt and Germany have been mediating those talks. Israel has relayed its response to the latest swap proposal to Gaza’s militant Hamas leaders. Hamas has not yet delivered its response.
PHOTO: REUTERS
But the talks were overshadowed by Israel’s announcement that it had invited tenders for the construction of hundreds of new homes for Jewish settlers in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, which drew an angry rebuke from Egypt.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said that continued settlement construction by Israel in the occupied territories was “torpedoing the efforts being made to relaunch negotiations aimed at establishing a Palestinian state.”
“Such behavior raises questions about the serious willingness of Israel to reach a definitive agreement and leads one to believe that Israel is trying to welch on its obligations for a just and lasting peace,” he said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.
The Israeli government plans to build 700 homes in three Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, defying requests from the international community and the Palestinian Authority to halt construction.
All three neighborhoods are considered illegal settlements under international law, although Israel does not accept this definition.
Israel announced a 10-month partial freeze on settlement activity last month, in response to international pressure, a move that Netanyahu described as a “far-reaching and painful step.”
However, the freeze does not include East Jerusalem, which was captured in the 1967 war, along with the West Bank and Gaza.
“From day one, we made a clear distinction between the West Bank and Jerusalem,” said Mark Regev, the Israeli government spokesman. “Jerusalem is our capital and will remain as such.”
Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations with Israel until it adheres to a complete halt on all settlement activity.
“We condemn this in the strongest possible terms,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. “We ask Israel, ‘if this is your moratorium, what is actual settlement activity?’”
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