Group items tagged

A deepening drought in the Middle East is aggravating a dispute over water resources after the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians from a vital shared aquifer.

both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.

Israelis use 240 cubic metres of water a person each year, against 75 cubic metres for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans, the bank said. Increasingly, West Bank Palestinians must rely on water bought from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot.

Israel to propose removing some West Bank settlements Barak hopes dismantling two dozen small outposts will win US support for more expansion in main areas Buzz up! Digg it Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 May 2009 11.52 BST Article history Israel is to propose removing two dozen Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in the hope of winning US support for the continued expansion of its main settlements, reports said today.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, will take the proposal to senior US administration officials in Washington next week, the Associated Press said.

Netanyahu held what was apparently a tense meeting with members of his Likud party yesterday and told them that Israel needed to make some compromise over its settlement-building enterprise in order to encourage Washington to take a tougher stance on Iran and its nuclear programme.

As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money while they struggle with sharply slowing economies, a plunge in commodity prices and restricted access to credit.

In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.

China’s trade with Latin America has grown quickly this decade, making it the region’s second largest trading partner after the United States. But the size and scope of these loans point to a deeper engagement with Latin America at a time when the Obama administration is starting to address the erosion of Washington’s influence in the hemisphere.

Israel has agreed to give the Palestinian security forces more freedom of action in four West Bank cities, Israeli and Palestinian security officials said Thursday, a move that implies a reduction in Israeli military activity in those areas as the Western-backed Palestinian forces assert more control.

The Israeli military also recently removed several significant checkpoints inside the West Bank, in line with a policy of easing movement and improving daily life for the Palestinians so long as calm prevails. A Palestinian can now drive from Jenin in the northern West Bank to Hebron in the south without being stopped and checked at any permanent roadblock along the way, the military says.

Palestinian officials said that the Israeli measures did not go far enough. The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday that they did not meet Palestinian expectations, and that “what is required is a full cessation of military raids in Palestinian Authority areas.”

The World Bank has cut its prediction for China's economic growth in 2009 to 6.5% from 7.5%, saying it could not "escape the impact of global weakness". Falling demand for Chinese goods abroad - which the bank said could cost up to 25 million jobs - is the main reason for the projected slowdown. The growth forecast is well below the minimum of 8% that many analysts argue is required to keep China stable. Beijing has spoken of a threat of social unrest if the economy stalls.

Mr Kuijs described the outlook for exports this year as "grim" and "sombre". But he said weakening the currency in the short term would not help to revive exports, because global demand was so weak, and the move would slow China's switch to consumption-led growth.

The drop in trade will hurt investment and job creation, the bank said. It expects between 16 million and 17 million non-farm jobs to disappear this year, but said the key to avoiding instability was an effective social welfare system.

Nestled in rocky hills about 40 minutes from Tehran, Pardis Technology Park is supposed to be Iran's answer to Silicon Valley. But these days, Pardis is deserted and forlorn, with many buildings standing unfinished, their exposed girders rusting. Foreign companies are reluctant to invest in the Islamic Republic, and domestic outfits are cash-strapped.

many Iranians like the prospect of working with US companies rather than the Europeans that have been the only game in recent years. "Iranian officials believe Americans are more straightforward in business deals," says Narsi Ghorban, managing director of Narkangan Gas to Liquid, a Tehran energy company. "They get what they want and give you your due."

If businesspeople do come to Tehran, a sprawling city built on steep hills that lead up to snow-capped mountains, they will find some conditions improved. Mobile telephones from other countries finally work, and several private hotels have sprung up. Since the 1979 revolution, social life has never been more liberal. Boys and girls hold hands in public, women show some hair outside their scarves, and checkpoints where police once searched cars for alcohol have all but disappeared. But there's still enough fear of the regime that many people decline to be interviewed.

Stiglitz: It's going to be bad, very bad. We're experiencing the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and we haven't reached the bottom yet. I'm very pessimistic. Governments are indeed reacting better today than during the global economic crisis. They're lowering interest rates and boosting the economy with economic stimulus plans. This is the right direction, but it's not enough.

SPIEGEL: … and let them go bankrupt? Stiglitz: No, they have to be saved, because the consequences to the monetary system would be incalculable. But as a countermeasure, these institutions have to be nationalized, which even Alan Greenspan is now demanding. Then the government can close those business segments that have nothing to do with lending and make sure that the banks no longer organize esoteric stock deals that they themselves do not understand.

The state of our financial system, for example, is worse than it was 80 years ago.

World leaders yesterday agreed on a $1.1 trillion injection of financial aid into the global economy,

The sprawling deal set out in a nine-page communique hammered out over two days of talks in London also contains tougher-than-expected measures to tighten financial regulation, including a clampdown on tax havens, the final part of the deal to be struck, after an impassioned call for compromise by Barack Obama.

British government officials lost their battle to include a commitment to spend a substantial share of the economic stimulus on low-carbon recovery projects.

In an apparent effort to ease tensions that have been aired publicly through the press, the U.S. State Department on Thursday praised Israel's lifting of restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank.

State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly said the U.S. was appreciative of Israel's "positive steps" in easing Palestinian freedom of movement in the territories.

srael plans to limit military operations in four Palestinian cities to try to boost a Palestinian security campaign supported by Washington, Israeli and Western security sources said on Thursday.

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the Holy Basin area of Jerusalem would be under no sovereignty at all and administered by a joint committee of Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans, the former prime minister told Newsweek magazine in an interview in the current issue.

The proposal to internationalize the Holy Basin was intended to achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations around the issues of sovereignity over holy sites in Jerusalem, the issue which had reportedly caused the breakdown of the Camp David talks in July 2000.

Olmert's proposal implies Israeli willingness to give up sovereignity over the Temple Mount, the Old City and the Mount of Olives. The offer appears to contradict Olmert's promise to Shas never to negotiate over Jerusalem and was never revealed to the Israeli public while he was in office

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements. "We have no intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth."

Meanwhile, Clinton reiterated that the U.S. viewed a total settlement freeze as "important and essential" step toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mitchell has said a key element has been trying to pin down exactly what Israel means by the "natural growth" of settlements that Netanyahu has said he will defend. In principle, Netanyahu says he wants growing families to be able to accommodate their children in the towns that Israelis have built.

The European Union Commission apologized to Israel's Ambassador to the Union, Ron Kuriel, over statements it made earlier this week claiming that the settlement policy was stifling the Palestinian economy and increasing Palestinian dependence on foreign aid – and therefore was costing European citizens in taxes.

The apology was issued after EU Ambassador to Israel Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal was reprimanded by Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry Rafi Barak.

Ambassador Kuriel stressed the severity with which Israel sees Dickinson's statement, saying that the issue was not only the lack of diplomatic manners but also the clear deviation from the Commission's stated role, "which is to coordinate aid with the Palestinians, not arrogantly criticize Israel."   Kuriel was assured that an official communiqué had been issued to clarify that the earlier statement did not reflect the Commission's position.

Over the past few weeks, workers and public employees have been calling strikes across the country. Last Thursday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Greece's major cities, paralyzing public life. Trains, buses, and ferries stopped running. Hospitals offered only emergency services. Public schools were closed.

Crisis? The situation in Greece is not all that bad, insists Panos Livadas, the government's secretary general of information. The shops and cafés are full of customers, he points out. The Greek economy is "really indestructible. I don't understand these international situation assessments."

He explains that in 2008 his country's economy expanded by 3.2 percent, "one of the highest growth rates in the euro zone." Over the past four years, he says, economic growth in Greece has been twice as high as the overall average in the currency union countries.

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.