Far-right Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday dismissed peace efforts with Syria led by interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "The concessions made by the Olmert-Livni government to the Syrians do not and will not obligate a government that I shall head," Netanyahu, a former prime minister, told Israeli public radio.
The indirect negotiations, mediated by the Turkish government, have been suspended pending Israeli parliamentary elections scheduled for February. No agreement has been reached, and therefore no concessions have been made, and Syria has never asked Israel to make concessions, only to heed international law by evacuating occupied territory.
Netanyahu, of the Likud party, leads opinion polls ahead of the February 10 elections that will determine who will replace Olmert. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is his main competitor.
Olmert heads to Ankara on Monday to discuss the Syrian negotiations, launched in May, with Turkish officials.
He stressed on Thursday that "a peace accord with Syria is in the realm of the possible." He said the talks "have proven that there is a substantial chance to advance toward a peace agreement and they pave the way to direct negotiations."
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Lord i pray that bibi would somehow be able to take control, and set aside the long olmert nightmare as a story to scare children.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/20/2008 10:26 Comments ||
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The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday unanimously agreed to extend for two months the mandate of the U.N. panel probing the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. The 15-member council decided to extend the mandate, which expires late this month, until next February 28 on a request by the head of the Beirut-based commission, Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare.
Last month, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said in a report that the international tribunal that will try the suspected assassins of Lebanese former prime minister in The Hague could begin work on March 1.
In his briefing to the council Wednesday, Bellemare said he sought the two-month extension of his mandate "to allow the Commission to continue to function until the day the Tribunal starts to operate."
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
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An Ethiopian housemaid lies bandaged in a government hospital after falling from a 12th floor balcony. She says her Lebanese employer pushed her off. "Madam asked me to hang the clothes. Then she came and pushed me from behind," the 25-year-old woman told Reuters. Too frightened to let her name be published, she said her employer had frequently threatened and abused her.
"Madam would tell me, 'I will spill hot oil on you', so I hid the oil. She would take a knife and threaten to kill me. She would beat me with shoes, pull my hair to the floor," the injured woman said, her face still bruised a month later.
According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), nearly every week one of an estimated 200,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon dies. Suicide, falling while trying to escape their employer and untreated illness are the main causes of death. The employers are rarely prosecuted.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Did HRW trouble themselves to find the demographics of the perpetrators? Christian, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Animist? I wonder who they might be? /s
#2
No. Because they are like our own 'information' ministries which play 'Name That Party'. Professional courtesy of amoralists [it's about power, not about principles]
#4
Looking at the basic demographics in Lebanon, the annual death rate per 1000 is about 7. So, you would expect about 1,400 to die out of a representative group of 200,000 each year, which is roughly 27 per week....
If the HRW figures are correct, migrant domestic workers in lebanon are incredibly safe.
#6
If a Greek Orthodox does any of these things, is it any less of a crime? The important thing is that the government fails to prosecute these types of crimes.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/20/2008 11:18 Comments ||
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#7
i think tipper was asking if the laborers were greek orthodox not the ones doing the killing
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Beirut on Friday for a mass protest organized by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement against Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip. Streets in the southern suburbs were cordoned off as demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and yellow Hezbollah flags poured into the Hezbollah stronghold as loudspeakers blasted out a speech by its chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
"We are responsible, like all Arabs and Muslims, to completely liberate Palestine, from the river to the sea," Hezbollah's deputy head Naim Kassem told the crowd. "The Palestinian cause is a just cause," he said from a platform on a main road in the area.
" We are responsible, like all Arabs and Muslims, to completely liberate Palestine, from the river to the sea, "
Hezbollah deputy head Naim Kassem
Hezbollah boy scouts and women in black chadors carried two huge Palestinian flags while Hezbollah security personnel marched carrying photographs of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's Islamic republic.
Some protesters chanted "Death to Israel! Death to America!" as others carried placards reading "No peace if it leads to humanitarian catastrophe" and "May God protect our leader Nasrallah."
"Demonstrations aren't enough. Military action is required to eliminate Israel," said Mosbah Karout, 42, in Beirut from south Lebanon for the event.
Similar smaller demonstrations were held in cities in the south, north and in the Bekaa Valley, east of the capital.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Beirut on Friday for a mass protest organized by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement against Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip. Streets in the southern suburbs were cordoned off as demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and yellow Hezbollah flags poured into the Hezbollah stronghold as loudspeakers blasted out a speech by its chief, Hassan Nasrallah. 
