| Obama admits Israel 'differences' Posted: 20 May 2011 07:30 PM PDT 
US President Barack Obama and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu have admitted to "differences" on the path to Mid-East peace, after they met in Washington. The talks came after Mr Obama said in a key speech that any future Palestinian state must be based on the borders that existed prior to the 1967 war. A defiant Mr Netanyahu said there may be some concessions but stressed the 1967 lines were "indefensible". He said that there could be no peace "based on illusions". "[It] will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality," Mr Netanyahu said. After the talks, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urged Mr Obama to continue pressing Mr Netanyahu on the 1967 borders plan, AFP news agency reported. 'I want peace' Mr Obama said there were differences between the US and Israel on a future state for Palestinians, but that such disputes occurred "between friends". He did not bring up the matter of the borders in his joint conference with Mr Netanyahu. Mr Obama said Palestinians faced "tough choices" following the recent reconciliation deal between Fatah, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza and still denies Israel's right to exist. He said true peace could only occur if Israel was allowed to defend itself against threats. Mr Obama said the pair had also discussed the revolts in a number of Arab countries, and their impact on the security of the US and Israel. He said the situation meant there were both "opportunities" and "perils". Mr Netanyahu also admitted that "we may have differences here and there" on the peace process. He said: "While Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines because these lines are indefensible. "They do not take into account certain demographic changes on the ground that have taken place over the last 44 years." But Mr Netanyahu insisted he valued Mr Obama's efforts, saying: "Israel wants peace, I want peace." The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says the two leaders had tried hard not to show what a difficult encounter this had been. 'Passionate' The reference to the 1967 borders in Mr Obama's speech on Thursday had angered the Israeli government. Mr Netanyahu believes the formula would isolate Israeli settlements in the West Bank. US officials told Associated Press news agency a "passionate" Mr Netanyahu had tried to have the section removed from Mr Obama's speech and was incensed when he failed. One Israeli official travelling to Washington on the plane with Mr Netanyahu said: "There is a feeling that Washington does not understand the reality, doesn't understand what we face." But Mr Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure as world figures and organisations lined up to back Mr Obama's position. The Middle East Peace Quartet - which combines the European Union, United Nations and Russia with the US - expressed "strong support" for Mr Obama's plan. Key European Union leaders also backed Mr Obama's speech. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague praised President Obama's "clear message that the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps". German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it "a good, viable path that both sides should consider". Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, also called on President Obama to remain committed to the 1967 borders plan. Obama and Netanyahu admit 'differences' on Middle East Cannot play media.You do not have the correct version of the flash player.Download the correct version Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects 1967 border agreement call Related Stories Obama and Netanyahu statements in full As it happened: Obama speech Full Obama speech with analysis Analysis They are not a natural double- act. Mr Netanyahu was much more comfortable with the unconditional love for Israel offered by President George W Bush. He told Israel in 2004 that it would not have to pull back to the 1967 lines. President Obama prefers tough love. As he put it, "precisely because of our friendship, it is important that we tell the truth: the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace". Mr Netanyahu is an Israeli nationalist who believes that the land Palestinians want for a state is really the Jewish homeland. In the 1990s he fell out with President Bill Clinton. President Obama was furious when Mr Netanyahu earlier ridiculed his call for Israel to stop building homes for Jews on occupied land. Mr Netanyahu was punished with a White House meeting too late to get on the Israeli evening news. They didn't even release a photo of the two men together. But with so much happening in the Middle East, they have reasons to try to get on. It might not be easy. Jeremy Bowen BBC Middle East editor image of Jeremy Bowen Cannot play media.You do not have the correct version of the flash player.Download the correct version Barack Obama: "Let's get started on a conversation about territory, and about security" |
| Mamata takes oath as first female CM of W Bengal Posted: 20 May 2011 07:24 PM PDT 
Kolkata: The wheel of political fortune turned full circle on Friday as Mamata Banerjee finally took oath as the eleventh Chief Minister of West Bengal and gained control of Writers' Buildings, the red-painted edifice of power in the heritage hug of Kolkata from where she was thrown out once by the communists who captured it for over 34 years. The erstwhile rulers of West Bengal - former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee graced the swearing-in- watched the historic moments of West Bengal' s first female Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reading out the oath in chaste Bengali. His merry band of 43 ministers only followed their leader and took oath in Bengali. Mamata was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor M K Narayanan on the southwest lawn of the 208- year-old the governor' s residence, the Raj Bhavan, at about 1:01 pm. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram were among the many top leaders present on the occasion. Besides Buddadeb Bhattacharjee, Left Front chairman Biman Bose was also present, in a show of political courtesy that was long missing in the state. Bhattacharjee was invited along with his wife Meera by Deputy leader of the TMC Legislature Party Partha Chatterjee, who personally went to their Palm Avenue residence in the first visit by any Trinamool leader since the party' s inception in 1998. Top names in politics, business, art and culture attended the starry function though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi could not attend owing to their preoccupation. It was an over three-fourth majority against the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)- led Left Front that had sealed Banerjee' s long held claim over the hot seat of Bengal, a state ruled by the reds for 34 straight years. When state election results were declared on May 13, the Congress-TMC alliance, led by Banerjee, won a thumping 227 seats in the 294-seat Assembly, while the Bhattacharjee-led Left were reduced to a mere 62 seats. Forty-three ministers take oath besides Mamata, a number that comes in contrast to her earlier assertions of having a small cabinet. Reports said that the final figure swelled thanks to her promise of representations from all regions and communities of the state and also commitments to her allies. The Congress will have seven ministers in Mamata' s cabinet, who herself resigned from the post of the Union Minister for Railways on Thursday, while the remaining 36 reportedly belong to her own party Trinamool Congress (TMC). The list of ministers from the TMC includes Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Manish Gupta, Subrata Mukherjee, Abdul Karim Chowdhury, Sadhan Pandey, Upen Biswas, Sabitri Mitra, Bratya Basu, Madan Mitra and Noore Alam Chowdhury. Unprecedented security arrangements have been made for the much-hyped function. Kolkata Police are said to be leaving no stone unturned to ensure the security and order. Quick response teams under the command of senior deputy commissioners have been deployed in and outside the Raj Bhavan compound and in front of the state secretariat Writers' Buildings. A two-kilometre radius around the Raj Bhavan, Shahid Minar and Writers' Buildings has been sanitized. Officers were posted on all tall buildings near the area. Giant screens have been put up at the Shahid Minar grounds and also at Metro Channel, near Esplanade, for the live telecast of the swearing-in ceremony. After the swearing-in ceremony Banerjee will head for the refurbished state secretariat Writers' Buildings in nearby BBD Bagh, to formally take charge of her new office. Mamata Banerjee was born on Jan 5 1955, in Kolkata to a lower-middle class family to Promileswar and Gayatri Banerjee. She began her political career with Congress as a student leader and became the general secretary of the Congress state women wing. Mamata majored with History from the Jogamaya Devi College, under Calcutta University. Later she earned a master' s degree in Islamic History from the University of Calcutta. But the turning point of Mamata Banerjee came in 1984 when she became a giant killer by defeating CPI-M leader Somnath Chatterjee from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat and pitch-forked herself in the rough-and- tumble of national politics that is intrinsically linked to the state from where she hails. She also became the General- Secretary of the All India Youth Congress and became one of the leaders close to the late Rajiv Gandhi. But West Bengal remained Mamata' s priority and her single point agenda was defeating the communists. In 1991, Banerjee fractured her head in an attack by Lalu Alam, a rowdy of the CPI- M, at the famous Hazra crossing of Kolkata, the scene of many protests by the leader in her neighbourhood. Mamata lost a seat in 1989 in an anti-Congress wave, but came back in 1991 general elections, having settled into the Calcutta South constituency. She retained the Kolkata South seat in the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009 general elections. In 2004 when all other members of her party Trinamool Congress lost, she could manage to hold on to her seat. In 2004 Lok Sabha elections, she was the only Trinamool Congress MP from West Bengal. In the Rao government in 1991, Mamata Banerjee was made the Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development. Differences with Congress party and the party' s leaders policy of cozying up with the Marxists prompted her to found Trinamool Congress in 1997. In 1999, Mamata Banerjee made the gamble of joining the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. She knew she would be losing the Muslim votes for joining the saffron alliance, but she still chose to join the NDA owing to her differences with the Congress. She became the Railways Ministry. The first taste of victory in West Bengal came in 2000 for Trinamool Congress when they won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The next year, she quit NDA cabinet and again went back to hold the hands of Congress though that did not translate into much seats in West Bengal state elections. The alliance could garner only 86 seats. Mamata Banerjee lost the Kolkata corporation in 2005, owing to defection of mayor Subrata Mukherjee to Congress again after she fell out with her former colleague. But 2006 assembly polls came as a shocker for Mamata Banerjee. Trinamool Congress could win only 30 seats while the Left Front boasted its 235 seat strength in assembly and set out to industrialize West Bengal in its own terms. But 2006 also became a turning point for Mamata Banerjee with the outbreak of the Singur movement. The communists seized about 1000 acres of land in the fertile region of Singur, barely 40 km from Kolkata, against the wishes of the farmers to hand over the plot to Tata Motors for building a plant for the ultra cheap Nano car. Mamata Banerjee began a hunger strike for the farmers of Singur at Esplanade East in downtown Kolkata and her fast continued for 25 days in December that year, earning her an iconic status as a peaceful protester. Singur was followed by the CPI-M atrocities in Nandigram. Now Banerjee found a support group in the people of Bengal and the intelligentsia. Nandigram and Singur produced huge political mileage for Mamata Banerjee. In Panchayat elections in 2008, her party fared well. Also her Singur movement succeeded around that time with the Tatas deciding to pull out of Singur in 2008 and go to Gujarat. By then Mamata is a national icon for farmers' movement. With the Left meeting repeated electoral setbacks, the fortunes of Mamata rose. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls she pulled off another victory by bagging 19 MP seats from West Bengal. Bagging 19 MP seats alone was no small achievement after her single seat status in 2004. Her alliance partner Congress bagged six. Mamata thus reversed the fortunes of 2004 when she had won only herself. —IBNS |
| Pak province cancels 6 US aid deals Posted: 20 May 2011 07:21 PM PDT 
LAHORE: Pakistan' s most populous province has cancelled six aid agreements with the United States in protest over the US. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, its law minister said. Pakistan hailed bin Laden' s death as a big step against militancy but was incensed by the raid in a garrison town not far from the capital, saying it was a violation of sovereignty. The operation severely strained already uneasy ties between the United States and Pakistan, whose cooperation is needed to stabilise Afghanistan. "We have cancelled six MOUs (memorandums of understanding) with the United States in the fields of health, education and solid waste management," said Rana Sanaullah, law minister of Punjab, the country' s political nerve centre. "We have told their concerned departments about our decision. This is our protest against the Abbottabad incident." |
| Angry Israel PM to take on Obama Posted: 20 May 2011 07:19 PM PDT 
WASHINGTON: US president Barack Obama opened White House talks with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, as both men waged a public row over the shape of an elusive peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu arrived at the White House with the two leaders embroiled in another spat, the latest to test their tense relationship, at a time of high significance as the Middle East is rocked by "Arab Spring Revolts." The Israeli PM, on a trip which will see him embraced by Republicans opposed to the US leader' s Israel policy, quarreled with the suggested parameters of peace deal laid out by Obama on Thursday. Obama said that territorial lines in place before the 1967 Arab- Israeli war combined with land- swaps should be the basis for talks on a peace deal with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has long opposed such a formulation, and his office issued a blunt statement saying such a scheme would leave it "indefensible" and would isolate major Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The prime minister arrived in Washington at dawn, with an aide saying his tough line was motivated by worries that Obama did not understand the threats Israel faces as popular revolts sweep the region. |
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