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,26.06.2013

Marcus: Global recovery years away

If things do not get any worse it will probably still take a number of years before the world is back to more normal growth and output gaps are fully closed‚ Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus cautioned on Tuesday.

Speaking at a FM Top Companies awards function‚ she said there would probably be at least one or two more forms of the crisis before it could safely be said that recovery was sustainable.

“The economic environment is a difficult one. The world is in its sixth year of crisis: a crisis that has repeatedly mutated‚ shifting its epicentre from a sub-prime crisis to systemic banking crisis; a liquidity‚ fiscal deficit and sovereign debt crisis. Measures taken to address each of these elements have had unintended consequences. Austerity measures have contributed to an unemployment crisis of immense proportions‚ particularly for the young.

“There will probably be at least one or two more forms of the crisis before we can safely say that recovery is sustainable. And even then‚ as we can see in the United States where there are signs of recovery‚ the measures that are outlined to be taken very cautiously and with considerable conditionality‚ such as a tapering off of Quantitative Easing‚ have also had unintended consequences‚” Marcus said.

As had been seen in recent days and weeks‚ the exchange rates of many emerging market economies had been impacted negatively by an outflow of capital. This development could well mark the start of a new mutation of the ongoing global crisis‚ she added.

“If things do not get any worse it will probably still take a number of years before the world is back to more normal growth and output gaps are fully closed. Even then‚ there is debate about whether that new normal would be at a lower rate of growth than in the past. All in all‚ it is a very uncertain and difficult decade for individuals‚ companies and countries‚” Marcus said.

South Africa’s weak first quarter annualised growth rate of 0.9 per cent was‚ to some extent‚ consistent with what was seen happening globally and in other emerging markets and these developments had‚ in part‚ contributed towards a weaker rand exchange rate. But domestic factors had also contributed.

“These have to do with lost production in the mining sector‚ instability caused by violent and often illegal strike action and persistent capacity constraints in infrastructure‚ electricity in particular‚” Marcus noted.

The source of this vulnerability‚ she pointed out‚ was primarily a large current account deficit‚ a high budget deficit‚ rising public debt and relatively low foreign exchange reserves as well as high household indebtedness and inflation close to the top of the target range - all suggesting limited room for fiscal or monetary support.

Berlin hails US ties 50yrs after JFK speech

Germany hailed the endurance of transatlantic ties on Wednesday on the 50th anniversary of US president John F Kennedy's stirring Cold War declaration "Ich bin ein Berliner", with celebrations across the reunited city.

Ahead of the main commemoration ceremony at the old West Berlin town hall where JFK addressed 450 000 people in 1963, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the historic speech remained "unforgettable for us Germans".

"Berlin was a divided city, the Cold War had separated Germans along the Wall," he said in a statement. "President Kennedy gave Berliners new hope in difficult times and all Germans new confidence."

Westerwelle said last week's visit to Berlin by President Barack Obama, in which he borrowed tropes from Kennedy's speech to call for stronger transatlantic co-operation on global crises, showed that the spirit of Kennedy's pledge was alive and well.

"Shared history has become vibrant German-American friendship, which in a world of fundamental change is as important today as it was then," he said.

"In his speech at the Brandenburg Gate, President Obama underlined the partnership of values that binds us together which Kennedy had hailed. That is a good foundation to weather the challenges of 21st century globalisation together."

‘Ich bin ein Berliner’

Kennedy's eight-hour visit on 26 June 1963 came at a critical stage of the Cold War, and Berlin was on the front line.

It was only a year since the United States and Soviet Union nearly went to war in the Cuban missile crisis, and two years after East Germany's communist regime erected the Berlin Wall, cleaving the city in two.

In an electrifying 10-minute address, Kennedy gave Berliners what they wanted to hear: a condemnation of the Wall and a promise that the free world stood by them.

"Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us," the defiant president said, in a firm rejection of communist appeasement.

At the end, Kennedy uttered the immortal words: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner' [I am a Berliner]."

His vow, just five months before he would be assassinated in Dallas, was greeted with rapturous applause from the crowds of Berliners thronging the square.

Democrat wins US Senate election

Longtime Democratic US Representative Edward Markey defeated Republican political newcomer Gabriel Gomez in a special election on Tuesday for the state's US Senate seat long held by John Kerry.

Markey, aged 66, won the early backing of Kerry and much of the state's Democratic political establishment, which was set on avoiding a repeat of the stunning loss it suffered three years ago, when Republican state Senator Scott Brown upset Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley in the election to replace the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy.

Gomez, a 47-year-old businessman and former Navy Seal, positioned himself as a moderate and Washington outsider who would challenge partisan gridlock, contrasting himself with Markey, who was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 1976.

Markey defeated Gomez by a margin of 55% to 45%. His victory does not change the balance of power in the Senate since Governor Deval Patrick had appointed a Democrat to fill the seat for several months until the special election. There are currently 52 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the majority in the 100-seat Senate.

Tuesday's contest served as a reminder that President Barack Obama has vowed to play a more aggressive political role for his party through next year's mid-term elections with huge stakes for his legacy and final-term agenda. Democrats face several competitive Senate contests in less-friendly terrain in 2014, when their grip on the Senate majority will be tested.

The White House, led by Obama himself, invested heavily in the Massachusetts' election, fuelled largely by widespread fear of another Brown-like surprise.

Moral victory

"The people of Massachusetts can be proud that they have another strong leader fighting for them in the Senate, and people across the country will benefit from Ed's talent and integrity," Obama said in a statement on Tuesday night.

Republicans claimed a moral victory of sorts, having forced Democrats to deploy their biggest political stars in an election in which Markey enjoyed significant advantages in Democrat-friendly Massachusetts. Markey's victory follows personal visits by Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton.

Markey, who declared victory two hours after the polls closed, ticked off a slew of legislative priorities. He said he wanted to help spark a "green energy revolution", protect seniors, boost job growth in Massachusetts and ensure young people can attend college without shouldering enormous debt.

Gomez said he called Markey to congratulate him and wished him "nothing but the best". He said he'd waged the campaign with honour and integrity but was heavily outspent by Democrats in the five-month election.

"Not every fight is a fair fight," Gomez said in his concession speech. "Sometimes you face overpowering force. We were massively overspent. We went up against literally the whole national Democratic Party. And all its allies."

Markey outspent Gomez throughout the race, and Republicans were unable to match a well-oiled Democratic field organisation in an election that saw relatively light turnout in much of the heavily Democratic state.

Kerry left the Senate this year after being confirmed as US secretary of state. Markey will fill out the remainder of Kerry's term, which expires in January 2015, meaning that another Senate election will be held a year from November.

Though Markey has a lengthy career in Congress, he will become the state's junior senator to Elizabeth Warren, who has been in office less than six months after defeating Brown in November.

Snowden spends 4th day at Moscow airport

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Wednesday spent a fourth day at a Moscow airport with his onward travel plans still a mystery after Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected calls for his extradition to the United States.

The United States told Russia it has a "clear legal basis" to expel Snowden but anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, which helped organise his flight from Hong Kong, said he risks being stuck in Russia "permanently".

Meanwhile Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, who by coincidence is expected in Moscow next week for an energy summit, said Caracas would consider any asylum request from Snowden just as Ecuador is doing.

In his first comments on the chase for the former contractor that has captivated world attention, Putin on Tuesday confirmed that Snowden had arrived in Moscow but said he had never left the airport's transit zone.

"He arrived as a transit passenger... He did not cross the state border," Putin said at a news conference in Finland late on Tuesday. "For us, this was completely unexpected," he added.

"Mr Snowden is a free man, the sooner he selects his final destination point, the better for us and for himself," he said.

Travel plans unknown

Snowden who leaked revelations of massive US surveillance programmes to the media, had been expected to board a flight for Cuba on Monday, reportedly on his way to seek asylum in Ecuador.

But he never did and Putin hinted that his onward travel plans were still unknown. His US passport has been cancelled but WikiLeaks says he left Hong Kong with a refugee document supplied by Ecuador.

Snowden's extended stay in Moscow has prompted comparisons with the Tom Hanks hit film The Terminal about a man living in an airport, while British gambling website William Hill has opened betting on his final destination.

"Cancelling Snowden's passport and bullying intermediary countries may keep Snowden permanently in Russia," WikiLeaks said in a statement on Twitter.

The US urged Russia to use all means to expel Snowden, who arrived at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on a flight from Hong Kong on Sunday despite the US issuing a request for his arrest in China.

"While we do not have an extradition treaty with Russia, there is nonetheless a clear legal basis to expel Mr Snowden," National Security spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said.

Debriefing denied

Hayden said that Snowden could be expelled on the basis of his travel documents and the pending charges against him. However Putin insisted that Russia could not extradite Snowden as it has no extradition agreement with the United States.

Putin said he would prefer not to deal with cases such as those of Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid allegations of sexual assault in Sweden.

"It's the same as shearing a piglet: There's a lot of squealing and not much wool," he said.

But Putin dismissed speculation that Snowden a potential intelligence goldmine was being purposely held up at the airport to be interrogated by Russian spies.

WikiLeaks also denied he was being debriefed by the Russian security services and confirmed that British activist Sarah Harrison from its legal team "is escorting him at all times".

Snowden had been expected to travel on with the state carrier Aeroflot on Monday to Havana, but never appeared on the flight. He has not been spotted in the airport, located north-west of Moscow, and is speculated to be inside a capsule hotel in the transit zone.

There is no scheduled flight from Sheremetyevo to Havana on Wednesday. The RIA Novosti quoted unidentified sources as saying that Snowden had also booked on Tuesday's flight to Havana but the reservation had been cancelled a few hours before take-off.

'Ill-considered pressure'

The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed source in Snowden's entourage claiming he is in limbo because his passport was cancelled by the US.

"Snowden's American passport is annulled, he has no other ID with him. Therefore he is obliged to stay in the Sheremetyevo transit zone, since he can neither enter Russia nor buy a ticket," the source said.

Snowden abandoned his high-paying intelligence contractor job in Hawaii and went to Hong Kong on 20 May to begin issuing a series of leaks on the NSA gathering of phone call logs and internet data, triggering concern from governments around the world.

Hong Kong, a special administrative region under Chinese rule that has maintained its own British-derived legal system, said the US government request to arrest him did not fully comply with its legal requirements.

But White House spokesperson Jay Carney lashed out at Beijing, saying its failure to "honour extradition obligations" had dealt a "serious setback" to efforts to build trust with new President Xi Jinping.

The United States is applying "ill-considered pressure" that will only serve to "bring Moscow and Beijing closer together", Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian lower house of parliament's foreign affairs committee, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

The dispute risks sharpening tensions between Washington and Moscow as well as Beijing when they are struggling to overcome differences to end the conflict in Syria.

Hardliner picked as head of Netanyahu party

An Israeli deputy minister and leader of the radical right in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud has been elected as the head of the party's presidency, reports said on Wednesday.

The election of 42-year-old Danny Danon as Likud president during an initial party vote on Tuesday night enabled him to score political points against the premier, Israeli media said.

The role is largely symbolic, but belies the growing influence of the hardline settler lobby within the rightwing party.

Although Netanyahu will remain as head of the party, members will on Sunday choose who will preside over three key institutions the central committee, the Likud bureau, and the secretariat - in a vote likely to highlight exactly how much of a threat the premier faces from party rebels.

Danon, who serves as deputy defence minister, is widely expected to be voted in as chairperson of the central committee, which decides on all the key policy issues.

Leadership of the Likud bureau, which sets the party's ideology, is expected to go to deputy foreign minister Zeev Elkin, another party rebel.

Wider revolt

And one of the frontrunners for the chairpersonship of the Likud secretariat is Miri Regev, another rebel from the party's far right.

Danon sparked uproar this month when he came out against a Palestinian state a position firmly at odds with Netanyahu's public stance on the issue.

"If Secretary Kerry, whose efforts we support, were to pitch a tent halfway between here and Ramallah - that's 15 minutes away driving time - I'm in it, I'm in the tent," Netanyahu told the Washington Post last week in reference to US Secretary of State John Kerry.

"And I'm committed to stay in the tent and negotiate for as long as it takes to work out a solution of peace and security between us and the Palestinians."

But Danon said the government was not serious about it and that moves to create one would be opposed by most of the coalition.

Netanyahu appears to be facing a wider revolt on the two-state solution, after Israeli ministers began openly expressing their opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Possibility of quitting

Analyst Yossi Verter said in Haaretz newspaper that "Netanyahu now finds himself in the worst possible situation for a party chairman: He's not a player. He doesn't count".

Commentators pointed out the prime minister had not even presented his candidacy for president of the party at the Likud conference, as Danon's victory seemed assured.

Faced with this opposition, Netanyahu could even quit Likud, as did former premier Ariel Sharon, who exited the same party to create the centrist Kadima in 2005, wrote Verter.

"It's hard to know what he's thinking: Either he has lost his fighting spirit and is giving up, or in his heart, he knows that in the next election, he won't be running at the head of this party," he added.

Kerry: Leaders serious on peace talks

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are both committed to reviving peace talks, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday, but he acknowledged that progress on the long-stalled negotiations would be difficult.
Israeli-Palestinian talks broke down in late 2010 in a dispute over construction of Jewish settlements on occupied West Bank land that Palestinians want as part of their future state.
Kerry, who held separate talks with both sides in May, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wanted the peace process to move forward. This would be Kerry's fifth attempt to restart talks.
"I believe they believe the peace process is bigger than any one day or one moment, or certainly more important to their countries than some of their current political challenges," he told a news conference in Kuwait with Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah.
"That is why both of them have indicated a seriousness of purpose. I would not be here now if I didn't have the belief this is possible," he said.
Kerry said he did not want to set any deadlines for the peace process but added that there needed to be progress before the UN General Assembly in September.