Group items tagged

Europe's mainstream centre-left parties suffered humiliation last night when four days of voting in the EU's biggest-ever election concluded with disastrous results for social democrats.

With the social democrats licking their wounds and the centre-right scoring ­victories whether in power or in opposition, the other signal trend of the ballot was the breakthroughs achieved by extreme right-wing nationalists and xenophobes.

In the EU's biggest country, Germany, returning 99 of the parliament's 736 seats, the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition, sunk to an all-time low, with 21% of the vote.

The morning after the night before, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was either defiant or in denial. The veteran Danish centre-leftist and former prime minister heads the PES, or Party of European Socialists, that groups all the mainstream social democratic movements of the EU."To those who announce a profound crisis in European socialism", he declared yesterday, "I say no."

"Our voters stayed away. They simply didn't see the relevance of these elections. They did not see the political choices at European level ... we had a European alternative, but it was not visible enough."

"This is a meltdown for the centre-left," said Professor Simon Hix of the London School of Economics, who has been running an EU-wide poll-tracking project for the election. Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform said: "There is a structural crisis for the centre-left, whether they are unpopular incumbents or in opposition. They have been routed."

Israel's Labour leader Ehud Barak has reached a provisional deal with PM-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on forming a coalition, Israeli army radio says. The centre-left Labour party is divided over whether to join a government with Mr Netanyahu's Likud and will vote on the agreement shortly. The right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu and Orthodox Jewish Shas parties have already agreed to join a coalition.

Mr Barak is defence minister in the current government and would retain the post in the next government, Israeli army radio reported. Under the draft agreement, Labour would also get five cabinet posts and the government would commit to continuing negotiations with the Palestinians and to respecting previous deals made with them.

A Likud member of the Knesset, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, said there was general agreement between Likud and Labour on the main international challenges facing the incoming government. "In terms of other issues like the peace process with the Palestinians, and probably other day-to-day issues, there will be an argument, but this is not what's going to bring the government down," he told the BBC. "Because in practical terms, I don't think that either side really believes that it's possible to reach an agreement with the present Palestinian leadership in the near future."

During his tour of Europe, Netanyahu has so far heard criticism on the issue of the settlements from leaders considered "friends" - starting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and yesterday from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Advertisement "I am your friend and therefore I am speaking honestly," Sarkozy told Netanyahu during their meeting at the Elysee Palace. "You must conduct confidence building measures and the first must be the absolute freeze on construction in the settlements."

During his tour of Europe, Netanyahu has so far heard criticism on the issue of the settlements from leaders considered "friends" - starting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and yesterday from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Advertisement "I am your friend and therefore I am speaking honestly," Sarkozy told Netanyahu during their meeting at the Elysee Palace. "You must conduct confidence building measures and the first must be the absolute freeze on construction in the settlements."

The proposal that the prime minister is now considering, which Ariel Sharon had previously put forward, is to carry out a "territorial freeze" to settlement activity. In other words, the settlements will not expand onto more territory in an effort to meet the growing needs of settler population without leading to new "facts on the ground," which would stand as an obstacle to the creation of a future Palestinian state. Under this proposal, the only new structures in settlements would be for public functions, like kindergartens or schools.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's next prime minister, was last night on the verge of forming a majority coalition after the Labour party agreed a last-minute deal to join his incoming government.

Netanyahu will be prime minister, with Lieberman as his foreign minister and Barak remaining as defence minister, where he was a key figure behind Israel's three-week war in Gaza.

Labour's central committee voted by 680 to 570 in favour of the deal, despite bitter divisions among the party hierarchy. Some at the meeting in Tel Aviv last night showed their frustration, shouting "disgrace" after the result was announced.Netanyahu already has Lieberman's Israel Our Home party on board, as well as the ultra-Orthodox Shas. Now with Labour he has a total of 66 seats - a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament. However, it is unclear whether the seven Labour MPs who opposed Barak will accept the party's decision or rebel and refuse to support the government.

In the wake of mass street protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's relection, meanwhile, Iran's Basij militia has called for the defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to be prosecuted. The semi-official Fars news agency said the militia - a volunteer force of Islamic government loyalists - had accused Mr Mousavi of nine offences, including propaganda against the state, and complicity in disrupting national security. It is our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people Mir Hossein MousaviIranian presidential candidate Iran frees five from UK embassy In a letter to the chief prosecutor, the militia said Mr Mousavi had been involved in the street protests, in which about 17 protesters and a number of militia members were killed.

In the wake of mass street protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's relection, meanwhile, Iran's Basij militia has called for the defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to be prosecuted. The semi-official Fars news agency said the militia - a volunteer force of Islamic government loyalists - had accused Mr Mousavi of nine offences, including propaganda against the state, and complicity in disrupting national security.

Iran's Guardian Council, the country's highest legislative body, has admitted some irregularities occurred in the disputed June 12 presidential election.

Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, a spokesman for the council, told state-funded broadcaster IRIB on Monday that up to three million votes were under scrutiny, after it was found that the number of votes exceeded the number of eligible voters in 50 cities.  However, he said it was a normal discrepancy because people are allowed to travel to other areas to vote, and that it was "yet to be determined whether the amount is decisive in the election results".

The government is blaming the crisis on what it calls "terrorists" influenced by the West, and has said it will clamp down on any violent action. "The first issue is security - no country will deal with other issues and then talk about security,"  Hassan Ghashghavi, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry said on Monday. "First, security must be there, and then you can talk about elections, freedom, human rights and democracy."

Israel's Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has signed a coalition deal with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, officials say. Under the agreement, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman would become foreign minister, said officials from Mr Netanyahu's Likud party.

He is a strong supporter of the Israeli settler movement and opposes exchanging land for peace with the Palestinians.

Yisrael Beiteinu would get five other cabinet posts, including internal security, infrastructure, tourism, and the integration of new immigrants.

The Dutch anti-immigrant maverick, Geert Wilders, scored his biggest victory yesterday, seizing 15% and second place in European elections for the Netherlands, according to exit polls last night.

The bleached blond populist, barred from Britain and facing prosecution at home for hate speech, led his Freedom party to win four of the Netherlands' 25 seats in the European parliament at the first attempt, pushing the Labour party of the coalition government's finance minister, Wouter Bos, into third place.

Wilders wants the European parliament abolished, Bulgaria and Romania kicked out of the EU, the mass deportation of immigrants from the Netherlands, and a minimum say for Brussels over Dutch policy. The virulence of his anti-Islam and anti-immigrant activities saw him barred from entering Britain earlier this year, while the Dutch authorities are prosecuting him for inciting hatred.

The international community is better prepared than ever to deal with the threatened spread of a new swine flu virus, a top UN health chief has said

As the UN warned the outbreak might become a pandemic, Dr Keiji Fukuda said years of preparing for bird flu had boosted world stocks of anti-virals. Canada is the latest country to confirm cases after as many as 81 deaths in Mexico and 20 cases in the US. Washington has warned the flu may yet claim American lives.

Eight cases have been confirmed among New York students, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio. Several countries in Asia and Latin America have begun screening airport passengers for symptoms. There is currently no vaccine for the new strain of flu but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication.

"If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held directly responsible," Khamenei declared in his first address to the nation since the upheaval began.

"The result of the election comes from the ballot box, not from the street," the white-bearded cleric told huge crowds thronging Tehran University and surrounding streets for Friday prayers. "Today the Iranian nation needs calm."

He said any election complaints should be raised through legal channels. "I will not succumb to illegal innovation," he said, in an apparent reference to the street protests, which have few precedents in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history.

The Obama administration is set to intensify the torture debate by releasing scores of new pictures showing abuse of prisoners held by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.The pictures were taken between 2001 and 2006 at detention centres other than Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison, confirming that abuse was much more widespread than the US has so far been prepared to admit.

The Bush administration had repeatedly blocked through legal channels appeals from human rights groups for release of the pictures, which are held by the Army Criminal Investigation Division. But the Obama administration late yesterday lifted all legal obstacles and the pictures are to be published by 28 May.

The justice department has initially agreed to the release of 21 images of abuse at detention centres in Iraq and Afghanistan other than at Abu Ghraib and 23 other pictures. It added "the government is also processing for release a substantial number of other images". Up to 2,000 could be released.

Israel, whose founding idea was branded as racism by the United Nations General Assembly in 1975 and which faced an Arab boycott for decades, is no stranger to isolation. But in the weeks since its Gaza war, and as it prepares to inaugurate a hawkish right-wing government, it is facing its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades.

The issue has not gone unnoticed here, but it has generated two distinct and somewhat contradictory reactions. On one hand, there is real concern. Global opinion surveys are being closely examined and the Foreign Ministry has been granted an extra $2 million to improve Israel’s image through cultural and information diplomacy.

But there is also a growing sense that outsiders do not understand Israel’s predicament, so criticism is dismissed.“People here feel that no matter what you do you are going to be blamed for all the problems in the Middle East,” said Eytan Gilboa, a professor of politics and international communication at Bar Ilan University. “Even suicide bombings by Palestinians are seen as our fault for not establishing a Palestinian state.”

Russia today agreed to end its counterterrorist operations in Chechnya, in a move that signals the formal end of the Kremlin's war in the republic and enhances the power of Chechnya's president, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Russia's national anti-terrorist committee said military restrictions in force in Chechnya would be abolished from today. Moscow has maintained a strict security regime for a decade in Chechnya, the scene of two wars against separatist rebels.

This morning Kadyrov, a close ally of Putin, welcomed the decision to end anti-terrorist operations. "We are extremely satisfied. The modern Chechen republic is a peaceful and budding territory. The end of the counterterrorist operation will spur on economic growth in the republic," he told the Russian news agency Interfax.

Avigdor Lieberman, the outspoken far-right Israeli politician, is set to be appointed his country's next foreign minister in a new coalition deal.

Under the deal, agreed late on Sunday night, Lieberman would be both foreign minister and a deputy prime minister, giving him an important influence in shaping the new government's policies.

Both Netanyahu and Lieberman have stopped short of endorsing a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians, which may set them at odds with the international community, particularly the Obama administration which has promised to "aggressively" pursue a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.