In parting shot, John Kerry tears into Israel over settlements

December 29, 2016

Washington, Dec 29: US secretary of state John Kerry tore into Israel on Wednesday for settlement-building, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging Israel away from democracy and forcefully rejecting the notion that America had abandoned Israel with a controversial UN vote. Netanyahu accused the Obama administration of a biased bid to blame Israel for failure to reach a peace deal.

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In a farewell speech, Kerry laid out a two-state vision for peace that he won't be in office to implement, but that the US hoped might be heeded even after President Barack Obama's term ends. He defended Obama's move last week to allow the UN Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal, the spark that set off an extraordinary and deepening diplomatic spat between the US and its closest Mideast ally.

"If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both, and it won't ever really be at peace," Kerry said in a speech that ran more than an hour, a comprehensive airing of grievances that have built up in the Obama administration over eight years but were rarely, until this month, discussed publicly.

Netanyahu pushed back in a hastily arranged televised statement in which he suggested he was done with the Obama administration and ready to deal with President-elect Donald Trump, who has sided squarely with Israel. The Israeli leader faulted Kerry for obsessing over settlements while paying mere "lip service" to Palestinian attacks and incitement of violence.

"Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders," Netanyahu said from Jerusalem.

The dueling recriminations marked a low point for US-Israel relations, and a bitter end to eight years of frustrated ties between Obama and Netanyahu, who quarreled repeatedly over settlements, the peace process and Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

Trump, who has assured Israel it merely needs to "hang on" until he takes over, wouldn't say Wednesday whether settlements should be reined in. But he told reporters Israel was being "treated very, very unfairly by a lot of different people."

It was unclear whether Israel came up in a phone call Obama, while vacationing in Hawaii, placed to Trump on Wednesday morning. Nor was it obvious what impact Kerry's speech, coming in the final days of the administration, might have.

Netanyahu expressed concern that a French-hosted summit next month could lead to an international framework that the UN Security Council might then codify with Obama's assent, boxing Israel in. Yet Kerry seemed to rule out the possibility Obama would take more parting shots, such as promoting that type of UN resolution or recognizing Palestinian statehood.

The diplomatic fracas erupted last week when the US, in a departure from past policy, decided to abstain rather than veto a UN Security Council resolution calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem a violation of international law. Israel was incensed, and on Wednesday, Netanyahu claimed Israel has "absolute, indispensable evidence" the US actually spearheaded the resolution.

Netanyahu offered what he called proof of US collusion: a document, leaked to an Egyptian newspaper, that purports to be a Palestinian account of a December meeting between top US and Palestinian officials. But White House spokesman Ned Price called it a "total fabrication" and added: "This meeting never occurred."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded to the speech by reaffirming that he's ready to resume peace talks if Israel halts settlement construction.

Kerry, unveiling a six-part outline of what a future peace deal could look like, deviated from the traditional US message that foreign powers shouldn't impose a solution. His outline tracked closely with principles long assumed to be part of an eventual deal, and Kerry insisted he was merely describing what's emerged as points of general agreement.

Though Kerry faulted Palestinian leaders for insufficiently condemning violence and terrorism against Israelis, most of his speech focused on Israel. He said the two-state solution, the basis for all serious peace talks for years, was "now in serious jeopardy," and called Netanyahu's' government "the most right-wing in Israel's history."

He invoked the widespread concern that the growing Arab population in Israel and the Palestinian territories will eventually make Jews a minority in Israel, creating a demographic crisis for Israel unless there's a separate Palestinian state.

"The settler agenda is defining the future of Israel. And their stated purpose is clear: They believe in one state," Kerry said.

The US, the Palestinians and most of the world oppose Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and claimed by the Palestinians for an independent state. But Israel's government argues previous construction freezes failed to advance a peace deal and that the future of the settlements — now home to 600,000 Israelis — must be resolved in direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

While Israel's Arab population has citizenship rights, the roughly 2.5 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank do not. Israel has annexed east Jerusalem, where Palestinians have residency rights but few have citizenship, in a move not internationally recognized.

Kerry said a future deal would have to ensure secure borders for Israel and a Palestinian state formed in territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, with "mutually agreed, equivalent swaps." He said both countries must fully recognize each other, ensure access to religious sites and relinquish all other existing claims. Kerry also called for assistance to help Palestinian refugees.

Yet he offered fewer details about how to get to such a deal, given the failure of so many previous attempts, including his own nine-month effort that collapsed in 2014. He urged Israelis and Palestinians to take "realistic steps on the ground now" to begin separating themselves into two states.

Kerry reiterated that the Obama administration's commitment to Israel was as strong as that of previous presidents, but he also noted that previous US administrations had also abstained on certain resolutions critical of Israel.

Comments

Skazi
 - 
Thursday, 29 Dec 2016

These bullshit leaders do not have courage to take right decisions , while they are in office ..... At the end of their term, they just bark some thing and quit .....

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News Network
January 27,2020

Kabul, Jan 27: A passenger plane crashed on Monday in a Taliban-held area of Afghanistan's Ghazni province, local officials said.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time in Deh Yak district, which is held by the Taliban. Two provincial council members also confirmed the crash.

The number of people on board and their fate was not immediately known, nor was the cause of the crash.

Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national carrier, dismissed the claim that one of their planes had crashed in a statement on their website, saying all their aircraft were operational and safe.

The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.

The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005 when a Kam Air flight from western Herat to the capital Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.

The war however has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. One of the most spectacular occurred in 2013 when an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base north of Kabul en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All seven crew member were killed.

Afghanistan's aviation industry suffered desperately during the rule of the Taliban when its only airline Ariana was subject to punishing sanctions and allowed to fly only to Saudi Arabia for Hajj flights.

Since the overthrow of the religious regime smaller private airlines have emerged but the industry is still a nascent one.

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News Network
June 9,2020

Jun 9: The World Health Organization says it still believes the spread of the coronavirus from people without symptoms is “rare,” despite warnings from numerous experts worldwide that such transmission is more frequent and likely explains why the pandemic has been so hard to contain.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO''s technical lead on COVID-19 said at a press briefing on Monday that many countries are reporting cases of spread from people who are asymptomatic, or those with no clinical symptoms.

But when questioned in more detail about these cases, Van Kerkhove said many of them turn out to have mild disease, or unusual symptoms.

Although health officials in countries including Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere have warned that COVID-19 is spreading from people without symptoms, WHO has maintained that this type of spread is not a driver of the pandemic and is probably accounts for about 6 per cent of spread, at most.

Numerous studies have suggested that the virus is spreading from people without symptoms, but many of those are either anecdotal reports or based on modeling.

Van Kerkhove said that based on data from countries, when people with no symptoms of COVID-19 are tracked over a long period to see if they spread the disease, there are very few cases of spread.

“We are constantly looking at this data and we''re trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question,” she said. “It still appears to be rare that asymptomatic individuals actually transmit onward.”

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News Network
May 2,2020
Seoul, May 2: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made his first public appearance since speculation about his health began last month, cutting the ribbon at the opening of a fertilizer factory, KCNA reported Saturday.
 
Kim attended the event on Friday in Sunchon, near the capital Pyongyang, after nearly three weeks of swirling rumours that the leader of the nuclear-armed nation was seriously ill or possibly dead.
 
The North Korean leader had not made a public appearance since presiding over a Workers' Party politburo meeting on April 11, and the following day state media reported that he had inspected fighter jets.
 
At Friday's event, "all the participants broke into thunderous cheers of 'hurrah!'" when Kim appeared, the Korean Central news agency reported.
 
He inspected the facility and was "briefed about the production processes," the report said.
 
Kim "said with deep emotion" that his grandfather Kim Il Sung and father Kim Jong Il "would be greatly pleased if they heard the news that the modern phosphatic fertilizer factory has been built," it added.
 
Also in attendance were other senior officials, including his sister and close adviser, Kim Yo Jong. Photos from the ceremony were not immediately released.
 
Conjecture over Kim's health had grown since his conspicuous no-show at April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather, the North's founder -- the most important day in the country's political calendar.
 
His absence unleashed a series of unconfirmed reports over his condition, triggering global fears over the North's nuclear arsenal -- and who would succeed Kim were he unable to lead.
 
A top security advisor to South Korea's President Moon Jae-in said less than a week ago that Kim was "alive and well," downplaying rumors that he was ill or incapacitated.
 
The advisor, Moon Chung-in, told CNN that Kim had been staying in Wonsan -- a resort town in the east of North Korea -- since April 13, adding: "No suspicious movements have so far been detected."
 
South Korea Reports Kim Jong Un Is 'Alive and Well' Amid Rumours of His Death
 
South Korea has told CNN that the rumours of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's death are untrue.
 
Rumours of ill health
 
Daily NK, an online media outlet run mostly by North Korean defectors, reported that Kim was undergoing treatment after a cardiovascular procedure last month.
 
Citing an unidentified source inside the country, it said Kim -- who is in his mid-30s -- had needed urgent treatment due to heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.
 
Soon afterwards, CNN reported that Washington was "monitoring intelligence" that Kim was in "grave danger" after undergoing surgery, quoting an anonymous US official.
 
US President Donald Trump appeared to confirm that Kim was alive earlier this week.
 
On Friday, Trump refused to comment on Kim's reported re-emergence.
 
Previous absences from the public eye on Kim's part have prompted speculation about his health.
 
The North is extremely secretive, and doubly so about its leadership.
 
Kim's father and predecessor had been dead for two days before anyone outside the innermost circles of North Korean leadership was any the wiser.
 
In 2014, Kim Jong Un dropped out of sight for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane.
 
Days later, the South's spy agency said he had undergone surgery to remove a cyst from his ankle.

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