NEWS,30.06.2013

Kazakhstan trade trip test for Cameron

British prime minister David Cameron flew into Kazakhstan on Sunday to help inaugurate the world's costliest oil project and seal new business deals, but faced immediate pressure to denounce the country's poor human rights record.
Cameron's visit, the first by a serving British prime minister, is seen by the Central Asian government as a coup it hopes will cement its status as a rising economic power and confer a degree of legitimacy from the West it has long sought.
It comes just days before the 73rd birthday of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the former Soviet republic with a tight grip for over two decades.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair's consultancy firm already advises Nazarbayev, a former Communist party apparatchik who tolerates no dissent or opposition.
"We are very honoured and privileged to have such attention on the part of two prime ministers - Tony Blair and David Cameron," Kazakh foreign minister Erlan Idrissov told reporters in a phone call before the visit.
"We cherish and enjoy the support of developed countries."
Cameron, who is accompanied by a British business delegation, is expected to oversee the signing of about a dozen contracts involving British firms and to cut the ribbon on infrastructure elements of the Kashagan offshore oilfield.
Royal Dutch Shell has a 16.81% stake in the facility, which is in the Kazakh segment of the Caspian Sea. Nazarbayev said last week consortium members had so far invested $48bn, making it the most expensive oil venture in the world.
It is due to produce its first oil in September.
Cameron is also hoping to persuade Kazakhstan to expand transit rights for British military forces relocating equipment from Afghanistan between now and a planned withdrawal next year. Nazarbayev has already granted overflight rights, but Cameron is looking for land transit rights too.
As Britain's trade with the euro zone suffers because of the currency bloc's debt woes, it is looking further afield to forge business links with countries that have enjoyed rapid economic growth in recent years.
Tempting target
With a $200 billion economy, the largest in Central Asia, and deep oil and gas reserves, Kazakhstan is a tempting target. Britain is already among the top three sources of foreign direct investment, according to Kazakh officials.
Since its 1991 independence, officials said British firms have invested about $20bn in their economy, part of a total $170 billion ploughed into Kazakhstan since then. But more high profile trade links carry political risks.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Cameron had a duty to use his trip to denounce human rights abuses.
"We are very concerned about the serious and deteriorating human rights situation there in recent years, including credible allegations of torture, the imprisonment of government critics, (and) tight controls over the media and freedom of expression and association," it said in a letter on Friday.
Cameron told reporters in Islamabad on Sunday he never shied away from having difficult conversations on such trips.
"In all the relationships we have there's never anything off the table and we raise and discuss all these issues, and that will be the case with Kazakhstan as well," he said.
"It is important to make this visit. It's very much something I chose and wanted to do."
Kazakhstan was a key market for British firms, he added, saying that other European leaders had visited and it was "high time" a British prime minister did too.
In another awkward twist for Cameron, the London-based daughter of a jailed former Kazakh businessman, Mukhtar Dzhakishev, has urged him to raise her father's case when he meets Nazarbayev.
But it is the case of Vladimir Kozlov, a jailed opposition leader, that activists most want Cameron to mention.
An outspoken critic of Nazarbayev, Kozlov was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in October for colluding with a fugitive billionaire in a failed attempt to rally oil workers to bring down the government. Kozlov denied the charges.
Idrissov, the foreign minister, said criticism of his country was overdone.
"We do not claim that we have got everything right," he said. "It was never going to be possible to turn a country with no democratic institutions or culture into a Jeffersonian democracy in two decades."

Europeans demand answers over bugging

The European Union angrily demanded answers from the United States on Sunday over allegations Washington had bugged its offices, the latest spying claim attributed to fugitive leaker Edward Snowden.
The report in German weekly Der Spiegel is likely to further strain relations between the United States and Europe, shortly after they launched formal negotiations to create what would be the world's biggest free trade area.
Der Spiegel said its report, which detailed covert surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on EU diplomatic missions, was based on confidential documents, some of which it had been able to consult via Snowden.
"We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington DC and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports," the European Commission said in a statement.
"They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."
One document, dated September 2010 and classed as "strictly confidential", describes how the NSA kept tabs on the European Union's mission in Washington, Der Spiegel said.
Microphones were installed in the building and the computer network infiltrated, giving the agency access to emails and internal documents.
The EU delegation at the United Nations was subject to similar surveillance, Der Spiegel said, adding that the spying also extended to the 27-member bloc's Brussels headquarters.
It said the leaked documents referred to the Europeans as "targets", in intelligence activity reminiscent of the Cold War.
US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes refused to be drawn into commenting directly on the allegations in a briefing in Johannesburg on Saturday, but said it was "worth noting" the US was "very close" to EU security services.
In another report on Sunday, Der Spiegel said leaked documents showed that the US secret services targeted Germany more than any other EU country.
Citing figures from NSA documents, the magazine said that half a billion forms of communication phone calls, emails, text messages and Internet chat entries were monitored in Germany every month.
The Spiegel reports are the latest in a series of allegations about US spying activity revealed by Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is holed up in a Moscow airport transit zone after the United States issued a warrant for his arrest and revoked his passport.
Speaking before the latest Spiegel revelations on Sunday, EU powerhouse Germany said the United States must quickly say whether the spying allegations were true or not.
"It's beyond our imagination that our friends in the US consider the Europeans as enemies," Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.
"If the media reports are accurate, it is reminiscent of actions among enemies during the Cold War."
European Parliament president Martin Schulz said he was "deeply worried and shocked" by the claims.
"If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations," he said in a statement, demanding full and speedy clarification from the US authorities.
The US authorities issued an arrest warrant this month for Snowden after he revealed details of NSA's so-called PRISM programme which collects and analyses information from Internet and phone users around the world, with access to data from Google, Yahoo! and other Internet firms.
US officials say the information gathered is vital in the fight against global terrorism but the scale of the programme raised deep concerns around the world.
Der Spiegel also referred to an incident more than five years ago when EU security experts discovered telephone and online bugging devices at the Justus Lipsius building.
In 2003, the EU announced it had found phone taps in the building targeting the offices of several countries, including Britain, France and Germany. It was not immediately clear if Der Spiegel was referring to this case.
Even before the most recent allegations, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month calling for answers about its Internet spy programme, saying: "Fundamentally, this is a question of trust."
Snowden himself remains in political limbo at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after flying in from Hong Kong last week, unable to fly on without legal travel documents or exit the airport without a Russian visa.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said that US Vice President Joe Biden had asked Quito to reject any asylum request from the 30-year-old who is wanted by the United States on charges including espionage.
But he said Snowden's fate was in Russia's hands as Quito could not process his asylum request until he was on Ecuadoran soil.
"We have not sought out this situation," said Correa, saying it was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who recommended he seek asylum in Ecuador.
Assange, who is wanted for questioning in Sweden on sexual assault allegations, took refuge at the Ecuadoran embassy in London a year ago to avoid Britain putting him on a plane to Stockholm.
French MEP Jean-Luc Melenchon said Sunday that France should grant Snowden asylum and called for a suspension of all trade negotiations with the United States.
Earlier this month, Brussels and Washington formally launched negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement which would add tens of billions of dollars to the EU and US economies.

Kerry in last-minute push on Mideast peace

US Secretary of State John Kerry made a last-minute push on Sunday to revive Middle East peace talks as Israeli media said that days of exhaustive shuttle diplomacy had failed to break the deadlock.

Kerry has spent 13 hours with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Thursday, with the latest session between the two men and their aides lasting until nearly 04:00 (01:00 GMT) at a hotel suite overlooking Jerusalem's Old City.

A sleep-deprived Kerry was to head to Ramallah in the West Bank on Sunday morning to consult for the third day in a row with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, a US official said. His previous two meetings with Abbas took place in Amman.

Israel's army radio painted a grim picture of Kerry's initiative, saying that he has apparently failed in his goal of restarting direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

The last face-to-face negotiations broke down quickly in September 2010, with Abbas accusing Israel of refusing to talk substance.

Sign on commitment

The Palestinian leader is pushing Israel to free the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners as a sign of commitment to peace, to remove roadblocks in the West Bank and to publicly agree to making the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war the baseline for negotiations.

But army radio said that Netanyahu was willing to consider just the first two conditions - but only after talks were under way, and even then in stages.

So far, Israel has flatly refused to countenance any return to the 1967 borders.

Army radio also said an Israeli committee was likely to push through the construction of another 900 new homes in annexed east Jerusalem, in a meeting scheduled to take place on Monday.

The committee had given final approval to around 70 homes in the same area on Wednesday, on the eve of Kerry's visit.

Palestinian leaders have accused Israel of a lack of sincerity by moving ahead on construction in east Jerusalem - which they want as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

A top priority

Kerry has made the elusive goal of Middle East peace a top priority. He is paying his fifth visit to the region since taking on the role of top US diplomat in February.

But he is running against the clock.

Kerry is scheduled to attend a meeting of southeast Asian leaders in Brunei on Monday, at which he will also hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Syrian crisis and a row over the presence in Moscow of US leaker Edward Snowden.

Kerry - whose predecessor Hillary Clinton had made Asia a defining focus - also plans to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and to hold three-way talks with Japan and South Korea, US allies whose relations have recently been sour.

US officials said Kerry was dedicated to seeking progress in the Middle East and plans to speak before flying out. He cancelled a dinner on Saturday in Abu Dhabi on the Syria crisis to spend more time shuttling between Netanyahu and Abbas.

"Kerry is willing to put in the legwork necessary to move this process forward in a meaningful way," a US official said on condition of anonymity.

Tight-lipped about meetings

US officials have been tight-lipped about the substance of Kerry's meetings, fearing that any public statements could put at risk his efforts.

On Kerry's all-night meeting with Netanyahu and senior aides, a US official said only that the two men discussed a "wide range of issues related to the peace process" over a dinner of hummus, pita and sea bream.

Netanyahu had a tense relationship with President Barack Obama during the US leader's first term, with the Israeli leader resisting calls to renew a freeze on settlement construction as part of efforts aimed at leading to a Palestinian state.

Israel had observed a 10-month freeze on new West Bank construction which expired shortly after direct negotiations began in September 2010, with the renewal of settlement building causing the talks to collapse.

While some ministers and aides have described Netanyahu as increasingly pragmatic, he emerged from January elections with a coalition of hardliners, many of whom oppose a Palestinian state.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the far-right Jewish Home party, recently described the Palestinian issue as "shrapnel in the buttocks" a problem Israel simply had to keep suffering through but threatened to quit if the government agreed to a Palestinian state.

Abbas also faces internal dissent with the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the impoverished Gaza Strip, strongly criticising him for pursuing talks.

NEWS,29.06.2013

US asks Ecuador to deny Snowden asylum

US Vice President Joe Biden asked Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa not to grant asylum to wanted whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Correa said on Saturday.

Biden said in the telephone conversation that Snowden was a fugitive from justice and did not have a valid passport.
Snowden has sought asylum in Ecuador, but has remained in a Moscow airport for days after fleeing the United States via Hong Kong.
He is accused of leaking information about a vast US spying programme that examined telephone and internet records.
Correa said he told Biden that Snowden's request could only be processed once he was on Ecuadorian soil.
Correa also noted that the US had not turned over to Ecuador brothers William and Roberto Isaias, who are wanted for banking crimes and also did not possess passports from their country.
Rafael Correa said he had a "friendly and very cordial" conversation with Biden, and told the vice president that Ecuador hadn't sought to be put in the situation of deciding whether to harbor an American fugitive. Correa said Ecuador can't consider the asylum request until Snowden is on Ecuadorean soil.
"The moment that he arrives, if he arrives, the first thing is we'll ask the opinion of the United States, as we did in the Assange case with England," Correa said. "But the decision is ours to make."
Julian Assange, founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has been given asylum in Ecuador's embassy in London.
White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan confirmed that the two leaders spoke by phone Friday and discussed Snowden, but wouldn't disclose any details about the conversation. It's the highest-level conversation between the U.S. and Ecuador that has been publicly disclosed since Snowden began seeking asylum from Ecuador.
Correa, in a weekly television address, praised Biden for being more courteous than U.S. senators who have threatened economic penalties if Ecuador doesn't cooperate.
At the same time, Correa rebuked the Obama administration for hypocrisy, invoking the case of two bankers, brothers Roberto and William Isaias, whom Ecuador is seeking to extradite from the U.S.
"Let's be consistent," Correa said. "Have rules for everyone, because that is a clear double-standard here."
The U.S. believes Snowden is holed up in a Moscow airport's transit zone. He may be waiting to see whether Ecuador or another country may grant him asylum. Snowden is charged with violating American espionage laws.
The White House confirmed that Biden spoke with Correa, but did not provide a readout, except to say the men discussed Snowden's case.
The situation has strained relations between the US and Ecuador, with Ecuador claiming on Thursday it no longer wanted trade privileges granted by Washington.

Obama pushes for immigration reform

President Barack Obama on Saturday urged the US House of Representatives to follow the lead of the Senate, and pass a bill by August to reform the US immigration system.

Speaking during a press conference in South Africa, Obama said there was more than enough time for lawmakers to finish work on the issue before their summer recess.
Immigration reform is one of the president's top domestic issues.
The Senate recently passed a bill that would strengthen US border security and provide a way for undocumented immigrants in the United States to obtain citizenship.
Obama welcomed the passage of that bill.
Despite strong bipartisan support for the Senate bill, the leader of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, John Boehner, said the measure was dead on arrival in his chamber. Boehner said House Republicans would write their own bill.
Many House Republicans oppose citizenship for immigrants who are in the United States illegally, arguing law-breakers should not be rewarded.
Any House Republican bill is expected to focus heavily on border security and on finding immigrants who have outstayed their visas.
But watering down the measure further may not be acceptable to Obama, who repeated on Saturday that he sees the Senate bill as far from perfect.
Even though congressional Republicans have been reluctant to co-operate with Obama, many see immigration reform as a political necessity to improve their standing with Hispanic voters, who overwhelming supported Obama in November's election.

Violence hits China's west ahead of anniversary

Violent attacks have spread this week in a tense minority region of western China, state media reported Saturday, just days before the anniversary of a bloody clash between minority Uighurs and the ethnic Han majority that left almost 200 dead and resulted in a major security clampdown.

China's communist authorities have labeled some of the incidents including one which left 35 people dead as terrorist attacks, and President Xi Jinping has ordered that they be promptly dealt with to safeguard overall social stability, state media reported.
The latest violent incidents were reported in southern Xinjiang's Hotan area. In one, more than 100 knife-wielding people mounted motorbikes in an attempt to storm the police station for Karakax county, the state-run Global Times reported.
Another was an attack mob in the township of Hanairike on Friday afternoon, according to the news portal of the Xinjiang regional government. It said the mob was armed, but did not say with what sort of weapons.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported a "violent attack" Friday afternoon on a pedestrian street in downtown Hotan city. No casualties were reported for any of the incidents, which state media say were quickly brought under control. The government's news portal, Tianshan Net, said there was no civilian casualty in Hanairike.
It has not been possible to independently verify the reports because of tight controls over information in the region.
The incidents on Friday in Xinjiang came after what the government described as attacks on police and other government buildings on Wednesday in eastern Xinjiang's Turpan prefecture's Lukqun township killed 35 people.
That was one of the bloodiest incidents since the July 5, 2009, unrest in the region's capital city, Urumqi, killed nearly 200.
Xinjiang (shihn-jeeahng) is home to a large population of minority Muslim Uighurs (WEE'-gurs) in a region that borders Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has been the scene of numerous violent acts in recent years.
Critics often attribute the violence in Xinjiang to what they say is Beijing's oppressive and discriminatory ethnicity policies. Many Uighurs complain that authorities impose tight restrictions on their religious and cultural life.
The Chinese government says that it has invested billions of dollars in modernizing the oil- and gas-rich region and that it treats all ethnic groups equally.
Calls to local government agencies were either unanswered or returned with the answer that they were unauthorized to speak.
State-run media reported that the incident Wednesday started when knife-wielding assailants targeted police stations, a government building and a construction site - all symbols of Han authority in the region.
Photos released in state media show scorched police cars and government buildings and victims lying on the ground, presumably dead.
An exiled Uighur activist has disputed that account, saying the violence started when police raided homes. It was impossible to independently confirm the conflicting accounts.
Xinhua said 11 assailants were shot dead, and that two police officers were among the 24 people they killed.
"This is a terrorist attack, there's no question about that," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Friday at a regular news briefing. "As to who masterminded it, local people are still investigating."
State news reports did not identify the ethnicity of the attackers, nor say what may have caused the conflict in the Turkic-speaking region. The reports said police captured four injured assailants.
The Global Times newspaper said on Saturday that police had stepped up security measures, deploying more forces to public areas, governmental institutes and compounds for police and military police. It said a suspect was captured on Friday afternoon in Urumqi.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, questioned Beijing's account of the event, saying local residents had told him police had forcefully raided homes at night, triggering the deadly conflicts.

Dilma Rousseff's Popularity Rating Suffers Drastic Decline In Wake Of Protests In Brazil

Public approval of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's government has suffered a steep drop in the weeks since massive protests broke out across this country, according to Brazil's first nationwide poll released since the unrest began.
Published Saturday by Folha de S. Paulo, the country's biggest newspaper, the Datafolha survey found 30 percent of respondents rated Rousseff's government as "great/good," a sharp fall from the 57 percent who gave it that rating three weeks ago before the demonstrations began.
The government's popularity was down throughout the country, including in the northeast where the ruling Workers Party is strong. Her rating dropped there from 64 to 40 percent.
Datafolha interviewed 4,717 people on June 27 and 28, and the poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
The government's approval rating had hit 65 percent in March, according to Datafolha, but in June suffered its biggest drop since Rousseff took office 2 1/2 years ago. Many Brazilians have been upset about rising inflation and shrinking purchasing power.
The firm said the government's approval had suffered the biggest drop for any president since a 1990 fall for then-leader Fernando Collor de Mello who tried to control spiraling inflation by freezing all savings accounts. He was forced from office because of a corruption scandal two years later.
Beginning mid-June, the recent protests had first targeted transportation fare hikes but quickly expanded to a variety of causes including government corruption, high taxes, poor public services and the billions of dollars spent for next year's World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The Datafolha poll showed that 81 percent of respondents supported the protests.
Political watchers said Rousseff's popularity drop was to be expected in the face of the biggest protests this 197 million-person nation has seen in two decades. But it still wasn't clear whether opposition politicians could take advantage of Rousseff's problems, as she gears up for re-election next year.
"The protest movement that began two weeks ago isn't necessarily a movement against the (ruling) Workers Party nor Dilma personally, it's a protest against the entire ruling class," said Pedro Arruda, a political science professor at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. "If polled, the unpopularity would be of all politicians. The people are protesting all the parties."
For Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes the demonstrations have underscored the "institutional crises" affecting the country's political parties.
"Which party has a good image?" he asked in an interview in Saturday's edition of Folha de S.Paulo. "Only the one not yet been born. We cannot sit back and think there is nothing more to be done because we have become a democracy, pulled 40 million people out of poverty and enjoy high employment rates.
Throughout the protests, the country has been hosting the Confederations Cup soccer tournament, which are seen as a warm-up to next year's World Cup. But the unrest has grown to such a level that Rousseff and other political leaders have reportedly decided not to attend Sunday's final match, which would be seen as a major embarrassment after they had showcased the country's hosting of such mega-events as proof that Brazil had finally arrived on the global stage. Demonstrators are expected to turn out around the iconic Maracana stadium where the Brazilian and Spanish teams will meet.
Meanwhile, social networks were abuzz with rumors of a general strike Monday, with posts saying it would hit every state. However, representatives for Brazil's two biggest unions, the Central Workers Union and Union Force, said they knew nothing about such a strike but were planning a national work slowdown for July 11, when workers will only perform strictly what's required of them on the job.
Rousseff is expected to deliver a formal proposal to Congress early next week on a political reform plebiscite she wants held in the coming months. She hasn't yet released any details on what political reforms she will suggest nor how or exactly when a plebiscite would occur.
Earlier this week, the president announced $23 billion in transportation investments. On top of that, she said her government would prioritize improvements in fiscal responsibility, controlling inflation, political reform, health care, public transport and education.

John Kerry Shuttles Between Abbas And Netanyahu In Hopes Of Restarting Mideast Peace Talks

A U.S. State Department official says Secretary of State John Kerry is ready to meet with the Palestinian president for a third time if that would help advance the Mideast peace process.
Kerry is in his third day of shuttle diplomacy and has held discussions with Mahmoud Abbas on Friday and Saturday in Amman, Jordan.
Kerry is having dinner Saturday night with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. It's their third meeting in three days.
It's unclear if or when Kerry might meet Abbas again.
The U.S. official spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
Kerry is currently scheduled to leave Sunday for Brunei for a Southeast Asia security conference.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry kept up his frenetic Mideast diplomacy Saturday, shuttling again between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in hopes of restarting peace talks.
Kerry met for two hours with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan in what was their second set of discussions in two days.
He planned more talks in the evening with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem after the two held two meetings over the past two days.
U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials have declined to disclose details of the talks.
"Working hard," is all Kerry would say when a reporter asked him before the latest Abbas meeting whether he was making progress.
Kerry, who is on a two-week swing through the Mideast and Asia, has conducted the meetings at a breakneck pace. He even cancelled a stop in Abu Dhabi because of extended discussions on the Mideast peace process.
He had a four-hour dinner meeting with Netanyahu Thursday night in Jerusalem followed by a more than two-hour lunch with Abbas on Friday in Amman at the home of the Palestinian ambassador to Jordan. Then it was back to Jerusalem for another meeting with Netanyahu and dinner with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
On Saturday morning, he boarded a helicopter to fly back to Amman to meet again with Abbas, this time at the Palestinian president's residence there.
Later Saturday, he was to return to Jerusalem to meet with Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, and Isaac Molho, a Netanyahu envoy.
Kerry is scheduled to leave Jerusalem on Sunday to head to Brunei for a Southeast Asia security conference.
There is deep skepticism that Kerry can get the two sides to agree on a two-state solution, something that has eluded presidents and diplomats for years. But the flurry of meetings has heightened expectations that the two sides can be convinced to at least restart talks, which broke down in 2008.
So far, there have been no public signs that the two sides are narrowing their differences.
In the past, Abbas has said he won't negotiate unless Israel stops building settlements on war-won lands or accepts its 1967 lines before the capture of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in a Mideast war that year as a starting point for border talks. The Palestinians claim all three areas for their future state.
Netanyahu has rejected the Palestinian demands, saying there should be no pre-conditions for talks.
Abbas made significant progress with Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, in talks in 2007 and 2008, but believes there is little point in negotiating with the current Israeli leader.
Netanyahu has adopted much tougher starting positions than Olmert, refusing to recognize Israel's pre-1967 frontier as a baseline for border talks and saying east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital, is off the table. Abbas and his aides suspect Netanyahu wants to resume talks for the sake of negotiating and creating a diplomatic shield for Israel, not in order to reach an agreement.
Abbas has much to lose domestically if he drops his demands that Netanyahu either freeze settlement building or recognize the 1967 frontier as a starting point before talks can resume. Netanyahu has rejected both demands. A majority of Palestinians, disappointed after 20 years of fruitless negotiations with Israel, opposes a return to talks on Netanyahu's terms.

NEWS,28.6.2013

Cleric arrested in Vatican fraud probe

A senior Catholic cleric accused of plotting to smuggle millions of euros into Italy on a private jet has been arrested as part of a sweeping probe of the scandal-plagued Vatican bank, prosecutors say.
Nunzio Scarano, known as "monsignor" in recognition of his seniority at the Holy See, is accused of fraud and corruption for plotting to illegally carry about $26m in cash into Italy from Switzerland.
The 61-year-old priest was arrested on Friday along with a former member of the secret service and a financial broker after an investigation into the Institute for Works of Religion - as the Vatican bank is known raised suspicions he was involved in money laundering.
Rome prosecutor Nello Rossi said the money belonged to Salerno brothers, Paolo, Cesare, and Maurizio D'Amico, who own a Rome-based fleet of oil tankers and was the "fruit of tax evasion".
Broker Giovanni Carenzio, who is also under investigation in the Canary Islands for fraud according to Italian media reports, was safeguarding the money for the brothers and was looking for a way to smuggle it into Italy.
Former agent Giovanni Maria Zito was tasked with bringing the money in on a private jet, but the deal fell through when the three men argued, Rossi said.
While the jet made it to Locarno in northern Italy and waited at the airport for four days with €20m on board, the plan to collect the money and drive it to Scarano's house in Rome under armed guard was aborted.

The biggest scandal involving the Vatican was in 1982 over the bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosia, in which the Vatican was the main shareholder and which had been accused of laundering money for the Sicilian mafia.

The bank was back in the headlines in 2012, when its head Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was sacked by the board after a major falling out with the Holy See's Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone.
In a bid to tighten control of its activities, Pope Francis announced a sweeping study of the bank on Wednesday before a possible clear-out of top management at the Holy See.
In his first real step towards reform, the pontiff is to take a hands-on approach, ensuring that everything a special five-member commission uncovers will be reported directly to him.

India to double gas prices

India's government has approved a doubling of natural gas prices, the first hike in three years, in a politically sensitive decision set to take effect around election time next year.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs announced late on Thursday that the price of domestically produced natural gas should rise to $8 per unit from the current $4.2 in April next year.
"It will be applicable from April 1 2014 and will be valid for five years," Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The new policy, which will raise the cost of electricity, transport fuel, fertiliser and cooking gas, will benefit domestic gas producers whose shares rose sharply on Friday morning.
India's largest state-run energy explorer ONGC jumped as much as 10.12% to 353.0 rupees, while private energy giant Reliance Industries rose 5.12% to 873.0 rupees.
The benchmark 30-share Sensex index was also up 1.50% at 19 158.9 points.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) said the "disastrous" decision had been rammed through despite objections by cabinet members and would lead to a damaging rise in inflation and higher costs for farmers.
CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said the government had caved in to "pressure" from the corporate sector.
India is scheduled to go to the polls in the first half of 2014 with inflation which has often climbed to double figures during recent years one of the main issues affecting voters.
The government earlier partially deregulated petrol and hiked diesel prices in an effort to contain ballooning debt caused in part by fuel subsidies.

Kerry presses Mideast peace bid

US Secretary of State John Kerry launched a second day of talks on Friday aimed at reviving moribund Middle East peace negotiations, sounding out Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas after talks in Jerusalem that went on into the night.

Kerry, who is trying to break a protracted deadlock in the negotiations, huddled in a Jerusalem hotel until nearly 01:30 (2230 GMT) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hear his views on the way forward.

After the four-hour meeting, Kerry's motorcade made a nearly two-hour drive through the occupied West Bank to return to Jordanian capital, where he was to have lunch with Abbas.

Aides said that further shuttle diplomacy between the two sides was possible over the next two days.

Officials were tight-lipped about Kerry's meeting with Netanyahu, held over a dinner of red tuna and salmon ceviche at a hotel suite named after Israel's slain peacemaking prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Kerry "reiterated his strong and sustained commitment to working with all parties to achieve two states, living side-by-side with peace and security", a US official said on condition of anonymity, calling the talks "productive".

Hopes for breakthrough played down

Kerry has made Middle East peace a signature priority. Since the veteran senator and former presidential candidate became the top US diplomat in February, he has visited the region five times.

US officials have played down hopes of a breakthrough but Kerry has said he wants progress before the UN General Assembly in September, when Abbas could rally international opinion against Israel if he sees no movement.

The immediate task is not a settlement to one of the world's most intractable disputes but a much more modest goal - resuming direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians after a gap of nearly three years.

After the quick failure of the last round, the Palestinian Authority wants guarantees that Israel will freeze construction of settlements on occupied land and commit to the principle of a peace deal based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel has retorted that it is ready to negotiate but will not accept "pre-conditions". Just a day before Kerry's visit, an Israeli committee gave final approval of 69 new settler homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

While the United States was low key in its reaction, Palestinian senior negotiator Hanan Ashrawi called the construction approval an Israeli repudiation of Kerry's peace initiative.

Release of prisoners

"And then they blame the Palestinians for not coming to the negotiating table," she told AFP.

US officials say they want to build a solid foundation for the peace talks so that any renewed negotiations are not just symbolic but have a real chance of moving towards a lasting deal.

Some ideas floated include a release from Israel of Palestinian prisoners jailed since before the 1993 Oslo peace accords, a gesture that could give Abbas more political room to negotiate.

Another possibility would be an informal agreement for Israel not to announce new settlements without explicitly declaring a freeze a step that would go down badly in Netanyahu's right-leaning government.

Netanyahu already had tense relations with President Barack Obama in the US leader's first term over pressure to make peace. The Israeli premier emerged from January elections with coalition partners even more scornful of a peace deal.

Trade and Industry Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the far-right Jewish Home party, recently described the Palestinian issue as "shrapnel in the buttocks" - a problem that Israel simply had to keep suffering through.

An opinion poll published by the Israel Hayom newspaper on Friday found that, while most Israeli Jews supported a resumption of negotiations, there was scepticism about whether they would achieve anything.

The poll found that nearly 70% of respondents were against confidence-building "gestures" towards the Palestinians, such as releasing prisoners and easing movement for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Give peace a chance: Sceptical Israelis

A majority of Israelis support resuming peace talks with the Palestinians, a poll published on Friday said, as US Secretary of State John Kerry presses leaders from both sides to return to negotiations.

The poll in daily Israel Hayom said 56.95% believed negotiations should resume, against 28.6% who thought they should not.
But there was scepticism over whether talks would achieve anything, with 55.4% saying it was not "possible to reach a permanent status arrangement".
And nearly 70% were against "gestures" of peace to the Palestinians, such as releasing prisoners and easing movement for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Kerry, on his fifth visit to the region, met late into Thursday night with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his latest bid to revive talks, which broke down nearly three years ago.
He was to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Friday afternoon in Jordan before heading back to Jerusalem.
The day before Kerry's arrival, an Israeli planning committee granted final approval for the construction of 69 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem.
Israeli settlement construction was the issue that scuppered direct peace talks in September 2010 just weeks after they began when Israel failed to renew a freeze on all new West Bank construction.
A cartoon in Arabic-language daily Al-Quds had Kerry arrival in Israel looking dejected as Netanyahu and Israeli pro-settlement Economics Minister Naftali Bennett stood in front of the new settlement, saying "69 new settlement homes welcome you".
The poll of 500 Israeli Jews had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Leaked US cables 'had classified info'

US Army Private first class Bradley Manning disclosed potentially damaging classified information in at least 117 of the more than 250 000 US State Department cables he has acknowledged sending to WikiLeaks, according to evidence prosecutors presented at his court-martial on Thursday.

The cables published on the website of the anti-secrecy organisation in late 2010 contained protected information about foreign governments; foreign relations; US military activities; scientific, technological or economic matters; and vulnerabilities in America's infrastructure, a State Department classification expert said.

Manning said in a courtroom statement in February that since the cables were labelled for wide distribution within the government, he believed that "the vast majority" of them were not classified, even though they were on a computer network reserved for classified material. He contends the cables revealed secret pacts and duplicity that, while possibly embarrassing, should be publicly exposed.

In written testimony read aloud by a prosecutor, classification expert Nicholas Murphy listed 96 cables that he said had been properly classified as "confidential" and 21 properly classified as "secret". His testimony revealed for the first time the specific cables that are the basis for a federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charge that is among 21 counts the former intelligence analyst faces.

The globe-spanning reports include at least six sent from the US embassy in Baghdad from 2006 to 2009. One from 5 January 2007, reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "is increasingly willing to allow targeted military action against elements of Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi militia and other Sadr organisations".

A confidential 14 December 2007, cable from the US embassy in Moscow reported on a consensus among Russian political observers on "a need for the Kremlin to reform itself and reverse a pendulum that has swung too far in favour of state authority".

Contradictory evidence

Prosecutors began presenting testimony about the cables on Wednesday when a former State Department official testified on cross-examination that the agency's computer network would have anyone with Manning's top-secret security clearance unrestricted access to the cables. The government alleges he stole them.

Earlier on Thursday, the military judge ruled that Manning's lawyers can offer evidence contradicting the government's assertion that he revealed classified information in a leaked battlefield video from Iraq.

The judge, Army Colonel Denise Lind, took judicial notice of the document, a preliminary step toward admitting evidence.

The document is an assessment by a former US Central Command official of video showing a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed at least eight people, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver. His assessment was that the video should be unclassified.

That contradicted evidence offered by prosecutors. They have presented an assessment from a Pentagon official that the video revealed military tactics, techniques and procedures and should be classified.

Manning has acknowledged giving the video to WikiLeaks but denies that it revealed national defence information.

The most serious charge Manning faces is aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.