Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' steadfast refusal on Wednesday to have any dealings with Hamas, despite pressure for a compromise solution to resolve the border crisis, has left the radical movement scrambling for some other way to maintain its influence on the frontier.
Abbas was in Cairo at the invitation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in effort to solve the week-old crisis at the border where Hamas militants had punched holes in the border in effort to end the long blockade of the Gaza Strip and force the region to recognize its importance.
Despite pressure from Egypt to work with the militant organization in which he is in engaged in a deadly rivalry, Abbas categorically refused unless Hamas recognized the 2005 international border agreement and repudiated the summer coup that brought it to power in Gaza.
"There will be no talks with Hamas unless they comply with the conditions we have put forward to back off their coup, to recognize international legitimacy and to accept new early elections," he said after the meeting.
Abbas left Cairo shortly afterward, making it clear he had no intention of meeting the Hamas officials who were also in town to talk with the Egyptians.
"Since Hamas cannot adapt to the regional and international reality, it cannot be in charge of the crossing," said Hassan Asfour, a former Palestinian minister, now a political analyst in Cairo. "It is simple, all parties, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Europeans and the Americans ... everybody is against that."
Meanwhile, Israeli newspapers forecast Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's survival yesterday after a report criticized the army and his government's conduct during a 2006 war in Lebanon but offered him a political reprieve.
"The exoneration and the failure" was how mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth described the outcome of the final report in a banner headline, with one columnist saying that Olmert could "breathe a sigh of relief."
The government-appointed Winograd Commission said political and army leaders had committed "serious failings" during the war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. But it did not blame Olmert personally and endorsed key decisions he made.
Olmert's rivals had positioned themselves for a resignation that could have triggered an election.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
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Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
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