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George Mitchell, the new US peace envoy, will fly into Israel today as the Obama administration signals its determination to tackle the Middle East conflict.

The veteran senator, who helped Northern Ireland end its protracted conflict, previously recommended that Israel halt settlement growth in the occupied territories and that Palestinians crack down on militant when he headed a 2001 task force to investigate the reasons for the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada.

The main purpose of his first trip will be to explore the new complexities of the conflict, in particular the split of the Palestinian camp into the hard-line Islamist Hamas regime in Gaza and the more moderate Fatah administration in the West Bank.

After the latest war in Gaza, Hamas said it would consider a year-long truce with Israel, but Gazans hold out little hope for the talks and many are desperately trying to sell property in areas likely to be in the front line of Israel’s next assault.

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Ayman Taha, a Hamas negotiator, said after discussions in Egypt that Israel must lift its blockade of the impoverished territory if it wanted to avoid renewed Palestinian rocket fire into its southern towns.

"Hamas listened to the Israeli proposal presented by [Israeli envoy] Amos Gilad and with it a proposal for a ceasefire for a year and a half, but Hamas presented a counterproposal of one year only," he said. Israel refuses to open the borders as long as there are Hamas members – whom it considers terrorists – on the other side.

Various proposals are under discussion in Cairo, including motions to introduce Egyptian, EU or Turkish monitors to supervise crossings and try to inhibit Hamas smuggling in more armaments.

But the negotiations are hobbled by the fact that Israel and Hamas refuse to talk to each other, while the two main Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah, are still squabbling over who will is the legitimate government and who will ultimately take control of the estimated $2 billion reconstruction money needed to tackle the massive damage of Israel’s three-week onslaught.

A senior European envoy inspecting the damage today expressed the EU’s deepening exasperation at continually footing the bill for the seemingly intractable dispute between the two foes. "At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas," said Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. "I intentionally say this here - Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such.

Obama seeks to repair damage in Middle East diplomacy drive Americans are not your enemy, president tells Arabic tv network as us envoy sets out on eight days of talks

Barack Obama, interviewed in Washington by the Dubai-based al-Arabiya cable network Photograph: Al-Arabiya/AP

Barack Obama has sought to mend America's ties with the Muslim world, declaring: "Americans are not your enemy."

In a signal of his desire to repair the diplomatic damage of the George Bush era, Obama chose to give his first formal television interview since becoming US president to the Arabic cable TV network al-Arabiya. In it, he said the US sometimes made mistakes, but stressed that his administration would adopt a more open diplomatic approach than his predecessor's.

Obama renewed his pledge to make an address in the capital of a major Muslim country, pointed out that he had lived in Indonesia for several years while growing up, and said his travels through Muslim states had convinced him that, regardless of faith, people had certain common hopes and dreams.

"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect," Obama said in the interview, recorded yesterday.

To Iran – which Bush declared part of an "axis of evil" – Obama repeated his offer of friendship, saying that he would set out a policy towards Tehran in the next few months.

Susan Rice, the new US ambassador to the United Nations, yesterday pledged "vigorous" and "direct" nuclear diplomacy with Iran but warned pressure would increase if Tehran refused to halt uranium enrichment.

The five permanent members of the UN security council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – and Germany have offered Tehran economic and energy incentives in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment programme, which the west sees as a cover to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. But Tehran is pressing on with the programme, which it says is geared toward electricity generation.

The president reiterated the US commitment to Israel as an ally, and to its right to defend itself. But he suggested Israel had hard choices to make, and that his administration would press harder for it to make them.

"We cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what is best for them," he said. "They are going to have to make some decisions. But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realise that the path they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people."

Obama added: "There are Israelis who recognise that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."

Obama stopped short of giving a timetable, but he said he was certain progress could be made.

Russia 'suspends Kaliningrad missile plan'

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

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Russia has halted a plan to retaliate against a proposed US missile defence shield by stationing its own missiles near Europe's borders, a Russian news agency quoted the military as saying today.

The suspension of plans to deploy tactical missiles in the Western outpost of Kaliningrad, if confirmed, would show Russia is extending an olive branch to President Barack Obama after rocky relations under his predecessor.

"If true, this would of course be a very positive step," a spokeswoman quoted the US envoy to NATO, Kurt Volker, as saying in reference to the Russian report.

Obama spoke to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by telephone on Monday, their first contact since the US inauguration, and the two men agreed to stop the "drift" in their countries' relations, the White House said yesterday.

Medvedev had said in November he was ordering the deployment of Iskander missile systems to Kaliningrad, which borders European Union members Poland and Lithuania, in response to Washington's plan for a missile shield in Europe.

"The implementation of these plans has been halted in connection with the fact that the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy" elements of its missile defence shield in eastern Europe, Interfax quoted an unnamed official in the Russian military's general staff as saying.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Russian military that the Iskander deployment was being suspended.

The issue is likely to be on the agenda if, as expected, Medvedev and Obama meet on April 2 on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in London.

"It (the suspension of missile deployment) is a signal to Obama of Moscow's goodwill," Yevgeny Volk, an analyst in Moscow with the Heritage Foundation think tank, told Reuters.

"In response they want a decision not to deploy the missile defence shield in eastern Europe."

Some observers believe the Kremlin may be softening its assertive foreign policy style because the economic slowdown - which has seen the rouble lose about a quarter of its value since July - has dented its confidence.

Us policy shift

The administration of former US President George W. Bush angered the Kremlin with its push to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.

It said the system was needed to protect from potential missile strikes by what it called "rogue states" - specifically Iran and North Korea.

The White House has not announced any change of policy on the missile shield, but a nominee for a top Pentagon post in the Obama administration said this month the plan would be reviewed as part of a regular broad look at policy.

Russia has argued that the proposed system would threaten its own national security and was further evidence - along with the eastward expansion of the NATO alliance - of Western military influence encroaching near its borders.

The threat of deploying the Iskander missiles was largely symbolic because, military analysts said, Russia does not have enough operational missile systems to station in Kaliningrad.

The row over the shield has helped drive diplomatic ties between Moscow and Washington to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War.

But Russian officials have said they are encouraged by early signals from the Obama administration and hopeful of a fresh start in their relations.

Since taking office, Obama has sent strong signals that he will try to repair foreign ties that were damaged under the Bush presidency.

In an acknowledgement of Washington's rocky relations with the Muslim world, Obama gave his first formal television interview as president to the Dubai-based Al Arabiya station and said the United States was willing to talk to Iran.

From Times Online

January 28, 2009

Chief Rabbinate of Israel cuts ties with Vatican over Holocaust bishop

Gledhill, Religion Correspondent and Richard Owen in Rome

In a measure of Jewish anger around the world at the decision to reinstate the four bishops of the Society of St Pius X, the Chief Rabbinate has written to the office of Pope Benedict XVI condemning Bishop Richard Williamson's comments as "odious" and "outrageous". The letter was leaked to the Jerusalem Post.

Jewish leaders in the UK have also protested at the lifting of the excommunicatons on Bishop Williamson and three other bishops.

Bishop Williamson, who was educated at Winchester and Cambridge and converted to Catholicism as a young man, has in the past endorsed the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He told Swedish television that no Jews died in gas chambers, and that up to 300,000 died in the Holocaust. Historians generally accept that six million Jews died in Nazi concentration camps.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the Chief Rabbinate also cancelled a meeting scheduled for March 2-4 in Rome with the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.

In a letter to the commission's chairman, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Chief Rabbinate Director-General, Oded Weiner, wrote that "without a public apology and recanting, it will be difficult to continue the dialogue".

Meanwhile, the Pope moved today to calm tensions when he uses his weekly audience to reaffirm his "full and unquestionable solidarity with Jews" and said that the attempt to exterminate Jews in the Holocaust should remain a warning for all people.

Activists threaten to close Heathrow

By Alan Jones, Press Association Friday, 16 January 2009

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Activists behind an annual climate change camp today threatened to close down Heathrow in an early sign of direct action aimed at stopping a controversial third runway being built.

Leaders of the annual event will meet later this month to discuss future demonstration, including some which they warned would be aimed at shutting the airport down completely.

The development came as a group calling itself the Climate Suffragettes smashed glass doors at the London offices of the Department for Transport (DfT)in protest at the Government's go-ahead for Heathrow's expansion.

One of the activists behind the annual climate camp pledged: "We will be the spanner in the works of third runway construction."

The group pointed out that at the 2007 camp, which was held near Heathrow, about 2,000 people decided not to shut the airport itself, but target BAA's offices.

Sally Wintour, who took part in the 2007 camp, said: "Gordon Brown is prioritising the profit margins of BAA and the aviation industry over the climate and the local community of Sipson.

"We invite anyone in the UK who has lain awake and worried about climate change and their children's future to come down and join us in using direct action to prevent this ecological and social catastrophe from unfolding."

A so-called "flashmob" will be held at Heathrow at midday tomorrow by a range of anti-aviation expansion groups and more action is being planned.

The Climate Suffragettes said three women wearing red sashes hurled bricks at the doors of DfT's Westminster building at 4am.

The bricks were wrapped in notes that read: "No third runway, the Suffra-jets are back," they said.

A spokeswoman for the group, which compares itself with the 20th century campaigners for votes for women, said: "The Government has opened the floodgates for radical action."

Conservative leader David Cameron today issued a clear warning to industry not to invest money and energy in the proposed third runway at Heathrow, as he reaffirmed his party's commitment to scrap the project if it won power.

Some observers have suggested that the green light given by Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon yesterday represented a guarantee that it would go ahead, as the scheme would be too far advanced by the time of the next election for an incoming Tory administration to halt it.