RAMALLAH, July 7th,The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Wednesday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's call for direct peace talks. U.S., Israel patch up spat "We reject the call" Netanyahu made Tuesday in Washington following his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, said Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator.
"The era in which we held negotiations while Israel continued its unilateral procedures away from the references of peace no longer exists and has gone forever," Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio.
Netanyahu "closes the door for the direct negotiations and he can open it," Erekat said, urging the hawkish prime minister to stop settlement constructions, including the so-called natural growth of the blocs, and to agree that the direct negotiations resume from where they stopped in 2008.
Obama said he was confident that the indirect negotiations, launched by Washington in May, would lead to direct talks, while Netanyahu said it is time to shift to face-to-face discussions rather than the so-called proximities.
Erekat asked the U.S. administration "to let Israel choose between peace and settlements because the two things can not be taken together."
B. Iran sends requirements to Permanent members of Security Council for meeting.
Iran on Tuesday set September 1 as a possible date to resume nuclear talks with six world powers that have been stalled since October, but insisted its conditions must first be met. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili sent a letter to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton saying Tehran needed three issues clarified by the world powers before it could consider resuming talks.
Ashton, who is negotiating with Iran on behalf of the so-called P5+1 powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany -- invited Tehran for talks after the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on the Islamic republic on June 9.
Jalili said the world powers must answer whether the talks are aimed at "engagement and cooperation or continued confrontation and hostility towards
Iranians." "Will you be committed to the logic of talks which calls for avoiding threats and pressure?" he asked, calling on the six powers to air a "clear view" on the "Zionist regime's nuclear arsenal."
"Your response to the above questions can pave the way for forming talks to allay common global concerns for peace and justice with the presence of other interested countries from September 1," Jalili told Ashton.
C. US parks new sub in South East Asia
A new class of U.S. superweapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia. But this one was different: for nearly three years, the U.S. Navy has been dispatching modified "boomers" to who knows where (they do travel underwater, after all). Four of the 18 ballistic-missile subs no longer carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. Instead, they hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads.
Their capability makes watching these particular submarines especially interesting. The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan. (See pictures of the U.S. military in the Pacific.)
That's why alarm bells would have sounded in Beijing on June 28 when the Tomahawk-laden 560-ft. U.S.S.Ohio popped up in the Philippines' Subic Bay. More alarms were likely sounded when the U.S.S. Michiganarrived in Pusan, South Korea, on the same day. And the Klaxons would have maxed out as the U.S.S.Florida surfaced, also on the same day, at the joint U.S.-British naval base on Diego Garcia, a flyspeck of an island in the Indian Ocean. In all, the Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 new Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood. "There's been a decision to bolster our forces in the Pacific," says Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There is no doubt that China will stand up and take notice."
U.S. officials deny that any message is being directed at Beijing, saying the Tomahawk triple play was a coincidence. But they did make sure that news of the deployments appeared in the Hong Kong–based South China Morning Post - on July 4, no less. The Chinese took notice quietly. "At present, common aspirations of countries in the Asian and Pacific regions are seeking for peace, stability and regional security," Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said on Wednesday. "We hope the relevant U.S. military activities will serve for the regional peace, stability and security, and not the contrary." (See pictures of the most expensive military planes.)
Last month, the Navy announced that all four of the Tomahawk-carrying subs were operationally deployed away from their home ports for the first time. Each vessel packs "the firepower of multiple surface ships," says Captain Tracy Howard of Submarine Squadron 16 in Kings Bay, Ga., and can "respond to diverse threats on short
The submarines aren't the only new potential issue of concern for the Chinese. Two major military exercises involving the U.S. and its allies in the region are now under way. More than three dozen naval ships and subs began participating in the "Rim of the Pacific" war games off Hawaii on Wednesday. Some 20,000 personnel from 14 nations are involved in the biennial exercise, which includes missile drills and the sinking of three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy ships. Nations joining the U.S. in what is billed as the world's largest-ever naval war game are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Singapore and Thailand. Closer to China, CARAT 2010 - for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training - just got under way off Singapore. The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
D. Cuba begins to free it’s political prisoners.
Cuba took the first steps toward releasing 52 political prisoners as the island's Catholic Church on Thursday notified five they would be freed soon in a deal struck with the Cuban government that drew praise from Washington.
The planned release prompted dissident Guillermo Farinas to end his 4-1/2-month-long hunger strike, sweeping aside a thorny issue that threatened Cuba's international relations.
The Church, asserting its new prominence in communist-led Cuba, said the five prisoners would be set free "in coming days" and allowed to go to Spain.
E. BP - British Pretrolum stops paying fisherman.
I guess you can give millions to the cable and internet for commercials, to clear up your image.
GRAND ISLE, La. --
Hundreds of fishermen from Lake Charles to Moss Point, Miss., were supposed to get checks from BP on Wednesday but didn't.
Wednesday night, their lawyer wanted answers.
Jeffrey Briet represents more than 500 fishermen, and he said the payment system he set up with BP required his clients to be paid every 30 days. Now that process has suddenly changed without warning, Briet said.
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"Not only did they spring it on us that the process has changed, but the people I've been dealing with for six weeks who've done a good job said, 'We don't know what the process is going to be. We're not authorized to talk to you about it. Someone from BP will contact you,'" he said.
But Briet said he hasn't heard from BP or its lawyers. He said the claims people have been given so much conflicting information about the process that they can't provide answers.
F. EU bans cloned meat
G. Death toll in Pakistan "Terror" bombing kills over 100.
This week Pakistan goverment decided to set up an non partisan "think tank" to deal with it's internal terrorism problem.
G. North Korea calls for Nuclear talks day after UN statement regarding the ship sinking.
North Korea said on Saturday it was willing to return to nuclear disarmament talks and signaled satisfaction that a U.N. Security Council statement did not directly blame it for the sinking of aSouth Korean warship.
China, the North's sole key ally, urged regional powers to put the navy ship sinking behind them and return to the negotiating table to end a cycle of confrontation that has raised security tensions to new heights since late March.
On Friday, the Security Council condemned the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in March that killed 46 sailors but stopped short of directly blaming North Korea, an outcome hailed by Pyongyang's U.N. ambassador as "a great diplomatic victory."
Six-way nuclear talks involving North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China have been in limbo since 2007 and a 2005 disarmament deal appeared to lose relevance when Pyongyang tested a long-range missile and a nuclear device.
"The DPRK will make consistent efforts for the conclusion of a peace treaty and the denuclearization through the six-party talks conducted on equal footing," the North's Foreign Ministry spokesman said in comments carried by the KCNA news agency.
DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"We take note of the ... statement saying that 'the Security Council encourages the settlement of outstanding issues on the Korean Peninsula by peaceful means to resume direct dialogue and negotiation through appropriate channels'," it added.
A South Korea-led investigation concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan. Pyongyang has denied any involvement in the incident, saying it was a fabrication by the South aimed at politically damaging Pyongyang's leaders.
The Security Council statement, by not identifying an attacker, was able to win consent from Pyongyang's ally China for unanimous approval.
China, which had been the host of the six-way talks that began in 2003, urged regional powers to "flip the page of the Cheonan incident" and quickly resume those negotiations.
"We call for an early resumption of the six-party talks and joint efforts to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
