Israel's vice premier said yesterday killing Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was an option in its threat to "remove" him as an obstacle to peace. \n"Killing [him] is definitely one of the options," Ehud Olmert, a mainstream member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Cabinet, told Israel Radio. \n"We are trying to eliminate all the heads of terror, and Arafat is one of the heads of terror," Olmert said. \nPalestinian chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said in response: "This is the thinking and action of the mafia -- not a government." \nIsrael's security Cabinet decided to "remove" Arafat after two suicide bombings killed 15 Israelis on Tuesday, the latest surge of violence in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood. But it did not say when it would move against him. \nThe vague wording left room for several options, including exiling, isolating or killing Arafat -- a proposal which media reports said hardline Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz raised but Sharon shot down. \nThe Israeli threat sparked an international outcry, with Washington -- Israel's main ally -- joining in a chorus of calls not to expel Arafat, a veteran symbol of Palestinian aspirations for independence. \nTens of thousands of Palestinians rallied on Saturday in support of Arafat, many vowing to sacrifice their lives at his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. \nArafat, effectively confined to the "Muqata" compound for the past 21 months by Israeli army roadblocks and patrols in Ramallah, addressed them via cell phone hookup, proclaiming support for a "peace of the brave." \nWith US backing, Israel blames Arafat for fomenting militant violence -- a charge he denies -- and calls him an obstacle to peace. \nArafat said on Saturday he was still committed to a US-backed "road map" to Palestinian statehood by 2005, a plan that seems dead in the water following the recent bloodshed. \nIsrael's Maariv newspaper reported on Sunday that Avi Dichter, chief of the Shin Bet domestic security service, said in internal discussions it would be better to kill Arafat rather than expel him. \nDichter, the report said, believes Arafat's death would have a short-term effect, touching off protests in the Palestinian territories that would last only several weeks, whereas exile would return him to the world stage and win him sympathy.
The US and the Philippines plan to announce new sites as soon as possible for an expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which gives the Western power access to military bases in the Southeast Asian country. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr last month granted the US access to four military bases, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 EDCA, amid China’s increasing assertiveness regarding the South China Sea and Taiwan. Speaking at the Basa Air Base in Manila, one of the existing EDCA sites, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the defense agreements between the two countries
‘DUAL PURPOSE’: Upgrading the port is essential for the Solomon Islands’ economy and might not be military focused, but ‘it is not about bases, it is about access,’ an analyst said The Solomon Islands has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to a Chinese state company to upgrade an international port in Honiara in a project funded by the Asian Development Bank, a Solomon Islands official said yesterday. China Civil Engineering Construction Co (CCECC) was the only company to submit a bid in the competitive tender, Solomon Islands Ministry of Infrastructure Development official Mike Qaqara said. “This will be upgrading the old international port in Honiara and two domestic wharves in the provinces,” Qaqara said. Responding to concerns that the port could be deepened for Chinese naval access, he said there would be “no expansion.” The Solomon
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS: The US destroyer’s routine operations in the South China Sea would have ‘serious consequences,’ the defense ministry said China yesterday threatened “serious consequences” after the US Navy sailed a destroyer around the disputed Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea for the second day in a row, in a move Beijing claimed was a breach of its sovereignty and security. The warning came amid growing tensions between China and the US in the region, as Washington pushes back at Beijing’s growingly assertive posture in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway it claims virtually in its entirety. On Thursday, after the US sailed the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer near the Paracel Islands, China said its navy and
Seven stories above a shop floor hawking cheap perfume and nylon underwear, Thailand’s “shopping mall gorilla” sits alone in a cage — her home for 30 years despite a reignited row over her captivity. Activists around the world have long campaigned for the primate to be moved from Pata Zoo, on top of a Bangkok mall, with singer Cher and actor Gillian Anderson adding their voices in 2020. However, the family who owns Bua Noi — whose name translates as “little lotus” — have resisted public and government pressure to relinquish the critically endangered animal. The gorilla has lived at Pata for more
RSS