MAY 2002 WORLD NEWS
May 28, 2002
Jesus of Siberia
May 17, 2002
FRANCE AND BRITAIN DEMAND POWERFUL EU PRESIDENT
May 17, 2002
Plan
for the almost immediate establishment of a PA State
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
released details of a diplomatic plan calling for the centralization of
Palestinian security forces immediately followed by the establishment of a
Palestinian state. The announcement comes three days after Labor Party
colleagues Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Haim Ramon each unveiled blueprints for a
diplomatic solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Peres said that ending Israel's control over the Palestinians is both a Jewish
moral imperative and in the state's best security interests.
According to Peres, the Palestinians created serious doubts about whether they
are a viable partner for peace when they rejected then US president Bill
Clinton's proposals at Camp David.
"It appears that as a result of the lack of trust created by this rejection,
another partner is needed to lend trustworthiness to the negotiations and faith
in their results," Peres said. He said this new partner is the body known as the
"Quartet," made up of the US, the European Union, Russia, and the United
Nations.
In a radio interview today, Peres said he would try to convince Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon and the international community to support the plan. Sharon said a
Palestinian state could only be established after a long interim process and
Sharon's Likud party has said it will oppose the creation of such an entity.
Peres's plan is based on understandings he reached earlier in the year with
Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala). Any peace plan
needs to suggest steps that will be acceptable to Israel and not be rejected by
the Arab world, Peres said.
He said that the understandings he reached with Qurei were not formally accepted
or rejected, and are a logical way to bridge both ideological gaps within
Israel, and political gaps between Israel and the Palestinians.
The plan is based on four stages:
The first stage is the establishment of a centralized Palestinian Authority that
would put an end to the ability of armed extreme elements to "harm the peace,
shake Palestinian autonomy, and bring about defensive actions by Israel."
This would require a unified military command to control all the arms in the
Palestinian Authority, and be capable of implementing a cease-fire.
The second stage, to come within "a number of weeks," is mutual recognition.
Israel would recognize the areas now under PA control as a state, whose final
boundaries would be decided along the lines of UN Security Council Resolutions
242 and 338, and the Palestinians would recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The third stage of the plan involves negotiations that would take place over a
year, dealing with outstanding issues such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees,
settlements, and security arrangements.
The fourth and final stage would be implementation of the agreements, which
would take "a number of additional years."
Also today, Jordan's Prime Minister Ali Abul-Ragheb and Foreign Minister Marwan
Muasher met Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah
to discuss the stalled peace process.
"Our visit came as a message to show we are working as one team to achieve our
goal of removing the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian
state," Abul-Ragheb said after the meeting at Arafat's office.
Unlike Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer, Peres did not call for the
internationalization of Jerusalem's Old City. And unlike Ramon, Peres did not
call for unilateral separation, which many see as a euphemism for unilateral
withdrawal.
"The growing dangers in the Middle East ballistic threats going beyond the
geography of the Middle East, terror that crosses borders, and unconventional
weapons obligates the Quartet to immediate involvement... in order to create a
momentum for renewing the peace [process]," Peres's statement read.
Likud political sources said last night that, despite this "season of peace
plans, everyone knows that there is one government in Israel, and when the time
comes, there will be one plan." The source said Peres's plan has been on the
table for some time, and is part of the internal wrangling inside the Labor
Party.
Peres said he plans to present his proposal for approval by the Labor Party's
central committee, and then for approval by the cabinet. The Labor forum is to
convene at the beginning of July to decide which plan to adopt Peres's, Ramon's,
or Ben-Eliezer's.
Peres said the agreement between the two sides would be backed by the Quartet.
This is important, he said, because, "infringement of the agreements is liable
to bring about international delegitimization and the end of active support."
He said he is opposed to any international military force to help reach or
implement an agreement.
"An army cannot operate except in a battlefield," he said, "or to supervise a
situation created as a result of agreements between sides.
"An army cannot come in place of an agreement, and cannot operate in the absence
of an agreement. Peace will be reached by compromise, not by shooting."
verses for story, Daniel's Dream of
Four Beasts : Daniel 7
"the four great beasts are four
kingdoms that will rise from the earth."
May
11, 2002
AL QAIDA TARGETS LEBANON AS NEW BASE
May 10, 2002
Giant Glacier Falls Into Ocean Near Antarctica
May
9, 2002
MEDIA
MATTERS
New
Mideast war front:
American newspapers
Boycotts over 'anti-Israel' bias in major dailies gaining ground
May 8, 2002
As Israeli Blood
Flows, UN Condemns Israel The UN's War Against the Jews Prophecy - Signs
May
7, 2002
Plague
of locusts hits Afghanistan
Bush attracted controversy with his "axis of evil" speech
May 7,2002
The United States has added Cuba, Libya and Syria to its "axis of evil" -
nations it claims are deliberately seeking to obtain chemical or biological
weapons.
Bolton: singled out Cuba for particular criticism
In a speech entitled "Beyond the Axis of Evil", US Under Secretary of State,
John Bolton said that the three nations could be grouped with other so-called
"rogue states" - Iraq, Iran and North Korea - in actively attempting to develop
weapons of mass destruction. He also warned that the US would take action.
"America is determined to prevent the next wave of terror," he said, referring
to the 11 September attacks in Washington and New York that killed up to 3,000
people. "States that sponsor terror and pursue WMD (weapons of mass destruction)
must stop. States that renounce terror and abandon WMD can become part of our
effort, but those that do not can expect to become our targets," he said. Mr
Bush first referred to the "axis of evil" during his State of the Union address
earlier this year. Threat 'underplayed' Mr Bolton, speaking to the
Heritage Foundation, a right-wing political think-tank, also accused Libya of
continuing in its attempts to obtain nuclear weapons. However he singled out
Cuba for particular criticism, saying that the country's threat to the US was
consistently "underplayed". "(Cuba) has at least a limited offensive biological
warfare research and development effort (and has) provided dual-use technology
to other rogue states," he said. Mr Bolton did not indicate that any direct form
of military action would be imposed on such countries. He said the US would
primarily concentrate on working with other countries such as China and Russia -
"unquestionably the two largest sources of proliferate behaviour
internationally" - to prevent the continued dissemination of such weapons,
Reuters reported. The US would also work on smashing the financial networks,
suspect shipments and front companies that laundered money for the purchase of
such weapons, he said.
May 2, 2002
A
SATELLITE BABY-SITTING SERVICE
Wired.com reports: "Two
companies have announced plans to launch personal GPS "location devices" this
year, which will act as a kind of LoJack for everyone from meandering children
to nervous executives in kidnap-prone countries.
May 1,
2002
Bill
would push driver's license with chip
By Dee Ann Divis
UPI Science and Technology Editor
From the
Science & Technology Desk
Published 5/1/2002 0:27 AM
WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Legislation to standardize state-issued driver's
licenses across the United States, and to mandate that those licenses carry a
computer chip and incorporate some kind of unique identifier such as a
fingerprint, will be introduced in Congress on Wednesday.
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