PM Netanyahu's Remarks at the Start of the Weekly Cabinet Meeting

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem October 24, 2010. Netanyahu urged the Palestinians on Sunday not to take unilateral steps towards statehood, saying Israel was working closely with Washington on ways to restart peace talks. (Getty Images / REUTERS/Sebastian Scheiner/Pool )

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE) --- Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks at the start of the Cabinet meeting today:

"We are holding intensive contacts with the American administration in order to restart the diplomatic process.  Our goal is not just to resume the process, but to advance it in such a way that it cannot be halted in a few weeks or months, and will enter into approximately one year of continuous negotiations on the fundamental problems, in order to try and reach a framework agreement ahead of a peace settlement.

In these negotiations, we will – of course – uphold the vital interests of the State of Israel, with security first and foremost.  We expect the Palestinians to honor their commitment to hold direct negotiations.  I think that any attempt to bypass them by appealing to international bodies is unrealistic and will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process.

Peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations and I hope that we will fully return to this track soon."

Netanyahu warns Palestine against unilateral steps

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem October 24, 2010. Netanyahu urged the Palestinians on Sunday not to take unilateral steps towards statehood, saying Israel was working closely with Washington on ways to restart peace talks. (Getty Images / REUTERS/Sebastian Scheiner/Pool )

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / RIA NOVOSTI) --- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned Palestinian government against attempts to replace the direct Israeli-Palestinian talks with unilateral actions.

Palestinians have sounded ideas of alternative ways of settling the Middle East conflict in circumvention of Israel amid stagnation of the direct negotiations.

Direct talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed on September 2 in Washington, after an almost two-year hiatus but are on the verge of breaking down over the issue of Israeli construction in the occupied West Bank.

"We expect that the Palestinians will fulfill their obligation to carry on direct talks. I believe that any attempt to bypass the talks turning to various international organizations is unrealistic and could not give an additional impulse to the diplomatic process," Netanyahu told a governmental meeting on Sunday.
The Israeli prime minister said he seeks for a solution which would allow Israel and Palestine to reset the negotiation process and expressed hope that such a solution would be found soon.

"Our goal is not only to resume the [negotiation] process but to create such conditions in which it [the negotiation process] will not ground to a halt after several weeks or months, but will continue as ceaseless dialogue during about a year," Netanyahu said.

"Only direct talks may lead to peace and, I hope, we will soon return to it."


TEL AVIV, October 24 (RIA Novosti)

Hamas and Fatah declare start of negotiations

The rival parties are scheduled to meet next week to discuss ending their current dispute; news comes after arrests in West Bank, Gaza Strip.

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / Jpost) ---  Hamas announced on Sunday that it has reached an agreement with Fatah to hold a meeting next week to discuss ways of ending their dispute.

The announcement came as tensions between the two rival parties continued to mount following the arrest of Hamas and Fatah supporters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Moreover, the war of words between the two sides continues to escalate despite the talk about a possible reconciliation.

Hamas and Fatah representatives were scheduled to meet in Damascus last week in another bid to end the crisis.

However, the meeting was canceled following a heated altercation between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Syrian President Bashar Assad during the recent Arab summit in Libya.

Abbas’s aides accused Assad of “humiliating” the PA president by accusing him of succumbing to Israeli and American pressure to return to the negotiating table with Israel and abandoning the armed struggle option.

The two sides have yet to agree on the venue of next week’s meeting.

However, Salah Bardaweel, a Hamas legislator and spokesman in the Gaza Strip, said he did not rule out the possibility that the meeting would still be held in the Syrian capital.

Bardaweel denied claims that the political platforms of Hamas and Fatah were identical.

“Fatah leaders should not waste their time searching for similarities in the political platforms of Hamas and Fatah,” he said. “The only thing we could have in common is not recognizing Israel’s existence.”

The Hamas official said that even if his movement accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, it won’t relinquish its claim to historic Palestine, “from the sea to the river.”

Bardaweel was commenting on remarks made by Osama Qawasmeh, a Fatah spokesman in the West Bank, who claimed over the weekend that Hamas too recognized Israel’s right to exist.

Qawasmeh claimed that Hamas was ready to recognize Israel’s existence if a Palestinian state were to be established in the entire West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem.

Azzam Ahmed, head of the Fatah delegation to the talks with Hamas, said that the talks would focus on an Egyptian proposal that was presented to the two parties last year to end the conflict. Ahmed said that Fatah and Hamas have yet to agree on a number of points in the proposal, including holding new elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, reconstructing the Palestinian security forces and the release of prisoners held by both sides.

The Fatah representative denied that an Israeli or American “veto” was preventing his faction from signing a deal with Hamas. “Fatah’s will is stronger than any American veto,” he said. “That’s why we already accepted the Egyptian reconciliation plan. Also, we won’t allow Israel to intervene in the internal affairs of the Palestinians.”

In a related development, Hamas accused Fatah-controlled security forces in the West Bank of arresting “Islamic scholar” Majed Hassan less than two weeks after he was released from Israeli prison.

Hassan, a resident of Ramallah, served three years in an Israeli prison and was released on October 7. Since then he had been summoned three times for interrogation by different branches of the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. On Sunday he was summoned for the third time and arrested in a PA prison in Ramallah.

President Obama in trouble

Photo: Pete Souza, White House

Op-ed: As elections loom, US president losing support of once- sympathetic voters

Part 1 of analysis

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / Ynet) --- After the US president licks the wounds suffered in the Congress elections campaign, he will prepare to head to the Far East.

Recently, he called off his plan to visit the Golden Temple in Punjab, India, officially pleading “logistical problems.” However, according to reports (which have been denied,) the president is in fact concerned about donning the white robe customarily worn in the temple.

The unofficial reason for calling off the visit is the wish to avoid another photo to be used by Obama’s rivals as proof that he is in fact Muslim.

If these reports are accurate, this story perfectly expresses the turnaround in the president’s status since November 2008. Obama entered the White House with immense confidence, delivering strategic speeches in Turkey and in Egypt where he expressed his wishes to improve ties between the US and the Muslim world. Yet Obama in November 2010 no longer possesses the self-confidence that turned him from a junior senator to the leader of the world’s greatest power. Right now, he is hiding in the bunker.


On top of the smearing on racial on religious grounds, the president is facing genuine distress in the face of the Congress elections. The beaten up president and his party members have known for months now that the battle for a Congress majority is a lost cause. The House majority, as well as the post of House speaker, will fall into the hands of the conservatives. The big question is whether the Democrats will be able to maintain their control in Senate.

Can’t count on young voter

In the last elections campaigns, it was possible to point to a political gender-based gap. While men tended to vote Republican, women tended to vote Democrat. Yet the recent polls show that the female vote is also shifting to the Right. Some 52% of women still support the Democrats, yet this marks a sharp drop in the face of the masculine zeal to topple the Left, and Obama knows it. Hence, his West Coast trip is dedicated to meetings with women and efforts to boost two female Democrats who had been serving in Senate for 18 years now.

Yet it’s not only the women who are abandoning the Democrats. Americans who are 50 years of age and above are concerned that Democratic policies will undermine their future old-age allowances. Young Americans are also making it difficult for Obama. The 30-and-below group that brought him to power two years ago is known as an elusive constituency, and it is doubtful whether young voters will be heading to the polling stations en masse in nine days.

Yet Obama’s greatest problem is the independent voters. These are the people who titled the balance in 2008 and elected Obama, who promised them change. Now, the president is paying the price for that promise, which to begin with created an exaggerated bar, turning him into a leader that is no different than his predecessors; a leader who makes promises but cannot deliver the goods.

Yitzhak Benhorin is Ynet’s Washington correspondent. Part 2 of analysis to be published Sunday night

More Deaths Reported in Haiti's Cholera Epidemic

Women cover their mouths and noses as they wait for their children suffering cholera symptoms to be treated at the hospital in Grande-Saline, Haiti, Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010. A spreading cholera outbreak in rural Haiti threatened to outpace aid groups as they stepped up efforts Saturday hoping to keep the disease from reaching the camps of earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince.

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / VOA) --- The cholera death toll continues to rise in the Caribbean island nation of Haiti.

Health authorities say 253 people have been killed with more than 3,000 infected with the cholera bacteria.

Concern has grown that the disease could spread to the squalid, unsanitary camps near Port-au-Prince, home to hundreds of thousands of survivors of last January's earthquake, after five cases of cholera were detected in the capital.

But the chief Haitian health official (Gabriel Thimote) said Sunday that the rate of reported cases is diminishing and it appears that the cholera outbreak could be contained.

So far the disease has largely been confined to the Artibonite region in central Haiti where the first cases were reported last week.

International humanitarian agencies are distributing water purification tablets, hygiene kits and medical supplies to the affected areas of the country in an effort to contain the outbreak.

Cholera, a bacterial infection, is typically spread by contaminated water and food.  The disease is treatable but without treatment, it can kill within hours.

Haiti cholera toll tops 250, but seen stabilizing

Relatives of Haitians suffering from cholera wait for news outside a local hospital in the town of Saint Marc October 22, 2010. (Reuters / St-Felix Evens)

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / Reuters) - A cholera epidemic in Haiti has killed more than 250 people, the government said on Sunday, but it added the outbreak which has sickened more than 3,000 may be stabilizing with fewer deaths and new cases reported over the last 24 hours.

"We have registered a diminishing in numbers of deaths and of hospitalized people in the most critical areas ... The tendency is that it is stabilizing, without being able to say that we have reached a peak," Gabriel Thimote, director-general of Haiti's Health Department, told a news conference.

The accumulated deaths since the cholera outbreak began around a week ago in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation stood at 253, while total cases were 3,015, mostly in central rural regions straddling the Artibonite river.

Thimote said that whereas previously the hospital in Saint-Marc in the Artibonite region was recording deaths by dozens, it had registered only one on Saturday.

The epidemic is the second emergency to strike the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere this year. A catastrophic January 12 quake killed up to 300,000 people in Haiti, which is only a two-hour flight from the United States.

Scientific papers published by seismology experts in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday said the January earthquake may have been caused by an unseen fault and pressure could be building for another quake.

Despite the reports of a stabilizing trend in the cholera outbreak, foreign aid agencies were preparing for a possible worst-case scenario of the epidemic spreading across the country, including the densely populated capital.

U.N. peacekeepers were erecting cholera treatment centers -- structures large enough to treat 150 cases each -- in the main outbreak region of Artibonite, in the overcrowded capital Port-au-Prince and in the Center province.

The detection of five "imported" cases in Port-au-Prince, involving patients who had traveled south to the city from the central outbreak zone, has raised fears of the virulent diarrheal disease spreading in the capital.

Experts see Port-au-Prince's sprawling, squalid slums and tent and tarpaulin camps housing some 1.3 million homeless quake survivors as vulnerable to the cholera, which is transmitted through contaminated water and food.

"We are planning for the worst-case scenario here ... we have to be ready for this," United Nations humanitarian spokeswoman in Haiti Imogen Wall told Reuters. The 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is helping to put up the cholera treatment centers.

The Pan American Health Organization, the regional office of the World Health Organization, said cholera cases had been confirmed in Haiti's Artibonite and Center provinces and in the Oest province, where the capital is located.

Suspected cases have also been detected in Nord and Sud provinces.

Israel slams 'political attacks' by Catholic bishops

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon


October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / FRANCE 24 / AFP) - Israel on Sunday slammed critical remarks made by Middle East Catholic bishops after a meeting chaired by Pope Benedict XVI as "political attacks" on the Jewish state.

"We express our disappointment that this important synod has become a forum for political attacks on Israel in the best history of Arab propaganda," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a statement.
"The synod was hijacked by an anti-Israel majority," he added.

Bishops and patriarchs from across the Middle East on Saturday called on the international community to end the occupation of Arab lands in an official statement following a two-week synod held at the Vatican.
"Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable," the synod said.

Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, head of the commission which drew up the statement, went one step further, saying: "The theme of the Promised Land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the expatriation of the Palestinians."

"For Christians, one can no longer talk of the land promised to the Jewish people," the Lebanese-born head of the Greek Melkite Church in the United States said, because the "promise" was "abolished by the presence of Christ."

Ayalon said he was "especially appalled" at those remarks.

"We call on the Vatican to (distance) themselves from Archbishop Bustros's comments, which are a libel against the Jewish people and the state of Israel and should not be construed as the Vatican's official position."

Most religious Jews believe the land of Israel was given to them by God, and Jewish settlers often cite biblical justifications for holding onto the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories seized in the 1967 Six-Day War.

But foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said scripture had never been used by any Israeli government to justify the occupation or settlement of territory.

He also pointed out that Israel's Christian population had grown since the establishment of the Jewish state, while in much of the rest of the Middle East Christians have fled in large numbers because of war, instability and economic hardship.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, meanwhile, welcomed the synod's call for a two-state solution and blamed Israel for the emigration of Christians from the occupied territories.

"The international community must uphold its moral and legal responsibility to put a speedy end to the illegal Israeli occupation," he said.

The United States convinced Israel and the Palestinians to renew direct peace negotiations in early September but the talks ground to a halt later that month when a 10-month partial Israeli moratorium on settlements expired.

Pope Benedict: Mideast peace is possible, urgently needed

Pope Benedict XVI leaves a procession by 180 members of the clergy from the Middle East in St.Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on October 24, 2010. The Holy father urged all sides in the Middle East not to give up on peace and appealed for religious freedom to be respected as he wrapped up a two-week synod of bishops from the middle eastern region. (FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)

October 24, 2010 VATICAN CITY (KATAKAMI / CENTREDAILY.COM) — Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday called for greater religious freedom in the Middle East and said that peace there is possible, urgently needed and the best remedy to the exodus of Christians from the region.

Bishops attend a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of the conclusion of the synod of bishops from the Middle East in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010.

Benedict celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday to mark the end of a two-week meeting of Mideast bishops, called to discuss the future of embattled Christians in the largely Muslim region.
He called freedom of religion "one of the fundamental human rights, which each state should always respect" and said the issue should be the subject of dialogue with Muslims.

The pontiff said that, while freedom of worship exists in many Mideast countries, the space given to the actual freedom to practice "is many times very limited." Expanding this space, he said, is necessary to guarantee "true freedom to live and profess one's faith."

The exodus of the faithful from the birthplace of Christianity has been a major theme of the meeting, which gathered about 185 bishops from Latin and Eastern rite Catholic churches across the region and from the diaspora. In addition, two imams and a rabbi were invited to address the synod.
The Catholic church has long been a minority in the Middle East but its presence is shrinking further as a result of conflict, discrimination and economic problems.

Benedict said many Christians living in the Middle East are in discomfort either because of poor economic conditions or because of the "discouragement, the state of tension and sometimes of fear" they live in.
"Peace is possible. Peace is urgent," Benedict said in his homily. "Peace is also the best remedy to avoid the emigration from the Middle East."

In their final communique issued Saturday, the bishops demanded that Israel accept U.N. resolutions calling for an end to its "occupation" of Arab lands, and told Israel it shouldn't use the Bible to justify "injustices" against the Palestinians.

While the bishops condemned terrorism and anti-Semitism, they laid much of the blame for the conflict squarely on Israel. They listed the "occupation" of Palestinian lands, Israel's separation barrier with the West Bank, its military checkpoints, political prisoners, demolition of homes and disturbance of Palestinians' socio-economic lives as factors that have made life increasingly difficult for Palestinians.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman criticized the bishops' statement that Israel shouldn't use the Bible to justify "injustices" against the Palestinians.

"This has never been a policy of any government in Israel so this position sounds particularly hollow," Yigal Palmor said Sunday. "Let he who has never sinned cast the fist stone."

Palmor also said Israel is the only Mideast country whose Christian population is growing, and called on Christians not to flee the region. "Israel views their presence in the Middle East as a blessing and regrets their decline in Arab countries," he said.

According to statistics he provided, there were some 151,700 Christians in Israel last year, compared with 132,000 in 1999 and 107,000 two decades ago.

Also Sunday, Benedict announced that the 2012 synod would be dedicated to the theme of evangelization. The pontiff has recently created a new Vatican office - the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization - to revive Christianity in Europe, part of his efforts to counter secular trends in traditionally Christian countries.

WikiLeaks release of Pentagon's secret war files may jeopardize Iraq security

WikiLeaks.org founder Julian Assange

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / RIA NOVOSTI) --- The Pentagon's secret Iraq war reports released by the WikiLeaks website and evidencing the Iraqi authorities' role in tortures and civilian deaths may have serious consequences for security in Iraq, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source said on Sunday.

"The release of these documents is undermining people's trust in security forces. This trust is ever more diminishing, especially in areas populated by Sunnis," the source who declined to give his name told RIA Novosti, adding that the release of the Pentagon's classified files might jeopardize the process of reconciliation between Iraqi communities.

Was the U.S. military operation in Iraq a success?

 

WikiLeaks released late on Friday 391,832 secret reports called the Iraq War Logs that "document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army."

The reports detail at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, including over 66,000 civilian deaths, more than the United States has previously acknowledged, and also describe the cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.

"The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period," WikiLeaks said in a statement.

The Pentagon has repeatedly insisted that the release of secret documents threatens the lives of U.S. troops.


BAGHDAD, October 24 (RIA Novosti)

IDF chief backs up soldiers accounts before Turkel Committee

FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010 file photo, Israel's military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi sits before testifying in front of a state-appointed inquiry commission into the Israeli naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, in Jerusalem. The Israeli commission looking into a deadly raid on a pro-Palestinian flotilla last May has summoned Ashkenazi to testify for a second time Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010. (Getty Images / AP Photo/Gali Tibbon, Pool, File)

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / JERUSALEM POST) --- IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi appeared a second time in front of the Turkel Commission on Sunday to continue his testimony regarding the Mavi Marmara affair. He took great pains during his time before the committee to reiterate previous statement's that the naval commandos who boarded the ship took extraordinary measures to minimize the violence on the ship and that the blame for the fighting that broke out on the ship rested squarely on the activists' shoulders.

"The soldiers [upon reaching the ship] did not immediately open fire and even placed themselves at great risk. One [of the activists] tried to choke a soldier, who then threw a stun grenade to escape from the situation."

Ashkenazi repeatedly emphasized that the soldiers acted in a measured manner and only hurt those whose behavior necessitated physical force. "There was no demonstration of peace activists [on the Mavi Marmara]. Peace activist do not know how to operate a weapon or to operate with gas masks and bulletproof vests in the middle of the night," Ashkenazi said.

Also on Sunday, the Turkel Commission announced that it would welcomed testimony from any passenger who was on the Mavi Marmara on the night of May 31, 2010 and who has relevant information that could shed light on the incident.

In September, Ashkenazi warned that any resistance on board flotillas bound for Gaza could lead to more casualties.

Speaking at a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Ashkenazi said "this is a challenge for the IDF and for Israel."

"If we see large ships bound for Gaza and force is used then we do not dismiss the possibility of casualties," he said.

IDF Chief to Gaza flotilla probe: Israeli commandos fired 308 bullets aboard Mavi Marmara

Israel's chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi speaks during a large military exercise at the Shizafon Armored Corps Training Base in the Arava desert, north of the city of Eilat, southern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010. (Getty Images / AP Photos/Dan Balilty)

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / HAARETZ) --- Ashkenazi testifies before Turkel Commission, defends IDF decision to rappel commandos onto deck of Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship where 9 activists were killed.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi once again on Sunday defended Israel's decision to rappel Israeli commandos onto the deck of a Gaza-bound aid ship on May 31, where ensuing clashes resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish activists. 

Testifying before an investigations committee probing the deadly events, Ashkenazi said that Israeli commandos had fired 308 live bullets aboard the ship to repel passengers who attacked them with lethal weapons, including a snatched Uzi machine pistol. 

In a sometimes testy second round of testimony before the state-appointed inquest, the Lieutenant-General insisted the navy's killing of nine Turks on the converted cruise ship Mavi Marmara had been unavoidable. 

The Mavi Marmara was one of several boats, laden with supplies, aiming to violate Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip. Israel informed the organizers of the flotilla that the ships would not be allowed to reach the Gaza shores, and soldiers boarded all the ships to compel them to change course. 

Ashkenazi told the six-member Turkel Commission on Sunday that navy commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara were equipped with riot-dispersal gear, but quickly switched to live fire to confront armed passengers because "if they had not done this, there would have been more casualties." 

Ankara, which wants compensation and an apology from Israel, has dismissed the Turkel panel as too lacking in scope. 

The probe commission has solicited testimony from Mavi Marmara passengers - many of whom insist the commandos' onslaught was unprovoked - and signaled it may probe Israel's navy deeper. 

Ashkenazi said 308 live rounds were fired by the troops. A top aide to the general told Reuters 70 of these were aimed to cause injury, while the rest were warning shots. 

That appeared consistent with Turkish forensic findings that the nine dead activists were shot a total of 30 times, and there were gunshot wounds among another 24 passengers who were hurt. 

"Those who are asking questions [about tactics] should propose an alternative solution," Ashkenazi said.
Ashkenazi said passengers grabbed three Glock handguns and an Uzi machine pistol from commandos whom they overpowered. The troops had been dropped from helicopters onto the crowded ship as it ploughed through Mediterranean high seas at night. 

"We have testimony of one activist running at them [commandos] and firing with a mini-Uzi, and them shooting him," he said. "They hit those who were clearly involved in the attack on them, and not those who were not." 

Mavi Marmara activists have said any guns taken from the troops were disposed of, rather than used.
Ashkenazi said commandos had fired some 350 beanbag rounds and non-lethal paintballs, all according to "protocol." The navy opted against rubber bullets - a mainstay of Israel's tactics against Palestinian demonstrations on land - because of a lethal risk within the Mavi Marmara's confines, Ahkenazi added.
Ashkenazi, who is scheduled to retire early next year, made clear that he had returned to testify in order to spare scrutiny from subordinates, including the admiral in charge of the navy. 

Bristling at Turkish and other foreign fury over the Mavi Marmara raid yet wary of international war crimes suits, Israel set up the Turkel Commission to help prepare its submission for a separate probe under United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. 

Ashkenazi, a career infantryman, said the commission had received "word for word" accounts from marines, including two who were shot and wounded upon boarding. 

Commission members asked Ashkenazi if lowering soldiers into a crowd on the ship's deck was wise. He said there was no better way to stop the ship. "If we had a special trick to stop the flotilla, we would have used it. We maintain intimate cooperation with other armies, and we haven't heard of another solution."
Endorsing the commandos' recollection, Ashkenazi said they were combat veterans who "know when they are being shot at." 

But he also seemed to make allowances for the haze of melee. 

"I won't take issue with a soldier who might confuse a slingshot, and the whizz its missile makes as it flies past, with a pistol, during night-time," he said.

India ready to seal nuclear deal with Japan: PM Manmohan Singh

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said Japan's high technology and India's "fast-extending market," if combined, can bring about "mutually beneficial growth opportunities" for both countries.

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / FRANCE24 / AFP) - India is ready to seal a civilian nuclear deal and boost trade ties with Japan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, as New Delhi looks to prove its friendship in the wake of Tokyo's bitter territorial spat with Beijing.

"I am confident that we will be able to conclude an agreement (on a civilian nuclear deal), which will be a win-win proposition for both of us," Singh told a group of Japanese media, before heading to Tokyo to meet his counterpart Naoto Kan on a three-day trip starting Sunday.

Singh said India would like Tokyo to be its partner in nuclear energy, noting that Japan has "one of the highest and most advanced nuclear technologies."

Japan and India launched talks in June on signing an atomic civilian cooperation agreement that will allow Tokyo to export nuclear power generation technology to energy-hungry India.

But Japan, which was hit by World War II US atomic bombings, has warned India that conducting any new nuclear tests would force a halt to any civilian nuclear cooperation with the South Asian giant, as India has developed nuclear arms without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"With regards to tests, we have unilaterally declared a moratorium on explosive testing and we have no intention" of revising that commitment, Singh said in an interview broadcast by NHK.

Singh and Kan were Monday expected to declare the completion of talks on an economic partnership agreement (EPA), which Singh said would open up the fast-growing Indian market to Japanese firms.
"I attach great importance to the potential of the economic cooperation," Singh said. The EPA "will boost our trade and economic ties many-fold."

Japan's expertise in technology and India's "fast-extending market", if combined, can bring about "mutually beneficial growth opportunities" for both countries, Singh said, as quoted by Jiji Press.

Japan has long tried to enhance ties with emerging economies but its relations with China, Asia's other population giant, hit rock bottom in a row following Japan's arrest of a Chinese trawlerman last month in disputed waters.

Beijing reacted angrily to the arrest, cancelling all high level talks and civilian programmes as well as suspending exports of rare earth minerals crucial for Japan's high-tech industries.

India has seized on this blocking of exports as a chance to step into a gap, with Singh saying New Delhi and Tokyo can cooperate on the production of rare earth minerals in India.

"This should be an added incentive for many countries which have a potential to produce rare earths to take advantage of that opportunity," Singh said.

But he added that "It's our sincere hope" that any Japan-China disputes involving maritime activities or maritime boundaries will be "resolved peacefully through diplomatic channels."

Despite frequent diplomatic rows, China has replaced the United States as Japan's top trading partner in recent years, while India only ranks as Japan's 28th biggest trade partner.

India holds three percent of global reserves of rare earth minerals, accounting for two percent of global production, while China accounts for 36 percent of global reserves and 97 percent of global production.
State monopoly Indian Rare Earths Ltd. (IREL) hopes to "attract Japanese businesses to the refining and processing fields to help boost our price competitiveness," the business daily Nikkei reported, quoting an unnamed senior IREL official.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves for three-nation Asia tour

(FILE) Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

October 24, 2010 New Delhi (KATAKAMI / IBNLIVE.IN) : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday left for a three-nation tour of Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam to bolster economic ties with partners in East Asia and strengthen India's presence in the region.

The first stop of the weeklong trip is Tokyo, where the prime minister will spend three days for the annual summit meeting with Japan. From the Japanese capital, Manmohan Singh will move to Kuala Lumpur and then to Hanoi, where he will attend the 8th India-Asean and the 5th East Asia Summit.

"The Indian economy is getting increasingly integrated with those of its East Asian partners. PM's three nation tour is organically defined by this process," said Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Friday.

With strengthening economic ties underpinning the weeklong trip, India is expected to announce the conclusion of negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Japan, the bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperaton Agreement (CECA) with Malaysia and deliberate on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia (CEPEA) at the 16-nation East Asia summit in Vietnam.

The third leg in Hanoi will see the prime minister hold several bilateral meetings with Asian leaders, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

The Prime Minister returns home October 30 evening.

U.K. PM David Cameron bans Baroness Warsi from attending Islamic conference

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron leaves Downing Street to attend parliament in London October 20, 2010. (Getty Images / REUTERS/Toby Melville )

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / HINDUSTAN  TIMES) --- British Premier David Cameron has banned Conservative party Chair, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, from attending a major Islamic meet where a number of pro-al-Qaeda speakers are also due to appear, igniting a bitter internal row over how the government tackles Islamist extremism.

Warsi, Britain's first woman Muslim Cabinet Minister, was told by the Prime Minister to cancel her Sunday's appearance at the Global Peace and Unity Event billed as the largest multicultural gathering in Europe, according to The Observer. 

 

The London-based conference is aimed at improving community relations, yet critics have pointed out that a number of speakers who are due to appear have justified suicide attacks and promoted al-Qaeda, homophobia and terrorism.

An influential voice among the international Muslim community, Warsi believes that confronting extremists at public events is a more effective way to tackle fundamentalism than a refusal to engage with them.

The report quoted a government source saying "She had hoped to attend, but there is a conflict of opinion on how extremists should be dealt with and the Prime Minister, supported by Home Secretary Theresa May, were adamant no Tories should attend."

According to the report, Andrew Stunell, the Liberal Democrat Communities Minister, will deliver an aggressive speech against those who espouse fundamentalism.

"He will make clear that the coalition government will not tolerate extremism, hatred and intolerance in any form," a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government, said.

The conference has been organised by Britain's most popular Muslim television station, the Islam Channel, which earlier this year was accused by a Muslim think-tank, the Quilliam foundation, of promoting extremist groups.

Canada to provide Haiti $1 mln to help fight cholera outbreak

Cholera outbreak in Haiti

October 24, 2010 (KATAKAMI / RIA NOVOSTI) --- Canada will grant Haiti $1 million to help the Caribbean country fight a cholera outbreak, The Toronto Star reported on Sunday, citing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Harper said the money would also go to prevent further outbreaks of water-borne disease.

Haitian health officials confirmed the first cases of cholera in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, on Saturday, saying that five people had become infected in the main outbreak area of Artibonite, to the north of Port-au-Prince, and were isolated after falling ill.

The cholera outbreak has sparked fears that the epidemic could grip thousands sheltered in refugee camps in the capital.

At least 208 people have died on the island since the outbreak of cholera nine months after a devastating January 12 earthquake killed more than 220,000 people in Haiti.

Officials have warned that the death toll from the epidemic, the first in half-century, could rise further as more than 2,000 cholera infections have been registered on the island.

A state of emergency has been declared in the epidemic-hit Artibonite. Medics and aide groups are working 24 hours to prevent the further spread of the disease.

Cholera is a bacterial infection that spreads through contaminated water, causing causes severe diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration and death within hours.

MOSCOW, October 24 (RIA Novosti)