Skip to main content

The fifth anniversary of Arafat's death

Thursday, November 12, 2009 RAMALLAH: Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered Wednesday to honour their iconic leader Yasser Arafat, with president Mahmud Abbas due to address the rally amid a brewing political crisis.The fifth anniversary of Arafat's death finds Palestinians more divided than ever and his successor Abbas pondering resignation because of stalled US-led peace efforts that have failed to bring about an independent Palestinian state.A crowd waving Palestinian flags and banners of Abbas's Fatah party crammed the government compound that contains Arafat's tomb to honour the man who catapulted the Palestinians' struggle onto the world stage and led them through nearly four decades of armed struggle and sputtering peace talks.A senior Palestinian security official estimated that more than 100,000 people had gathered in and around the Muqataa presidential compound, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority and the site of Arafat's mausoleum.Abbas was to address the crowd amid grim predictions by his aides that he may resign as president, perhaps leading to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority established by Arafat during the Oslo peace process in the 1990s."The moment of truth has come and we have to be frank with the Palestinian people that we have not been able to reach a two-state solution through 18 years of negotiation," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told said."We have become convinced that Israel does not want a Palestinian state on lands it occupied in 1967," he said, referring to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the Six Day War.Abbas resigning would throw the divided Palestinians into new legal and political limbo.According to Palestinian Basic Law, to become effective Abbas's resignation has to be approved by two thirds of the Palestinian parliament. But the chamber has not convened since 2006 and it is unclear whether it would do so if he quits.If the resignation is approved, the speaker of parliament, Aziz Dweik of the rival Islamist Hamas movement, would assume the presidency until new elections are held within 60 days.But aides have indicated in recent days that if Abbas steps down the entire Palestinian Authority could collapse, which would spell the end of the already defunct Oslo process and leave nearly four million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank once again dependent on Israel for basic services.The Palestinians have said they will not resume peace talks with Israel without a complete freeze of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, a demand initially backed by Washington.But Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to freeze settlements, and in recent weeks Washington has backed down, calling on both sides to return to the negotiating table without preconditions.Erakat said the two-state solution would only be possible at this point if there were "unprecedented international movement" towards pressuring Israel because "the situation has reached the point of no return."The presence of nearly a half million Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem has long been seen by the Palestinians as a major obstacle to the establishment of a viable independent state.Despite the fact that the international community, including the United States, views all settlements as illegal, the number of settlers has more than doubled since the start of the Oslo process in 1993.Arafat, who died aged 75 in a French hospital on November 11, 2004, remains a beloved symbol of unity and resistance to Israel for the Palestinians, who have been riven by factional fighting in recent years.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Snake bite deaths

Monday, July 06, 2009 COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government recorded some 33,000 snake bites in 2008, with most of the victims coming from remote villages.The Department of Government Information said in a statement that most of the snake bite cases could be fatal if neglected.The statement said snake bites are often neglected in Sri Lanka as victims do not seek treatment at hospitals where advanced medication is available. Instead, the victims rush to traditional type of treatment which could be a risk, reports Xinhua.Snake bites death at domestic level, outside hospitals, go unrecorded, said the statement.Most victims of snake bite are from the rural and remote villages where there is no electricity after dusk.Statistics show that Sri Lanka has over 90 species of snake with around 10 species possessing venom capable of killing a human being.In Sri Lanka the annual death rate due to snake bite envenoming is one of the highest in the world being 6 in 100,000 population.

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...