The Palestinian prime minister demanded that Israel allow Yasser Arafat to move freely, but Israel's premier, urging Europe to cut off contacts with the embattled Palestinian leader, charged that Arafat is trying to sabotage peace moves.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in London on Sunday, the first stop on a trip to Europe. In talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday, Sharon was expected to call on Britain to join an Israeli-US boycott of Arafat.
"Arafat should be removed from any position of influence," Sharon told the US Fox News Network, blaming Arafat for nearly three years of Mideast violence.
PHOTO: AFP
Arafat reluctantly appointed Abbas as premier in April, bending to intense international pressure to share power. Much of the pressure came from the US. The Bush administration planned to invite Abbas to Washington to bolster his prestige, but during his first week in office, Abbas made it clear he would not travel unless Arafat had freedom of movement.
Arafat has been confined to his office building in the West Bank town of Ramallah for the past year and a half, watching as Israeli forces knocked down almost all the buildings in the city block-sized compound. Israel's policy now is that Arafat is free to leave, but Israel will not guarantee that he would be allowed to return.
Sharon insisted that Arafat must be sidelined. "The problem that we have is with some of the European countries that still support and back him," Sharon told Fox News Sunday, "and by that, they are postponing the possibility to reach peace here."
At a Sunday meeting in Ramallah, Abbas and visiting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov appealed to Israel to release Yasser Arafat from his virtual house arrest.
Ivanov said it was important to maintain relations with Arafat, and "these restrictions imposed on his movement are unacceptable." European nations reject the Israeli-US boycott of Arafat.
Meanwhile, other issues endangered a unilateral truce called by the main Palestinian groups on June 29, temporarily ending attacks against Israelis. Islamic groups threatened to scrap the ceasefire if Abbas' forces continue confiscating weapons and Israeli officials said an Israeli taxi driver who disappeared Friday was apparently kidnapped by Palestinian militants, in violation of the truce and the peace plan.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS