CHINA FEARS FLOODING WILL ADD TO DEATH TOTAL
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=7991889&ch=4226714&src=news
CHINA QUICKLY EVACUATES 80,000 DUE TO MADE SEAS.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080527/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake;_ylt=AjEi1MhcYD7mVtuAOfXECIqbOrgF
AL-QUIDA GROUP WANT RETALIATION ON US
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080527/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AlZKNVlPEB405AJnj_YqX4abOrgF
US suggests Hezbollah speech shows self-inflicted damage MAY 27,08
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's claim that his group does not want to control Lebanon may reveal how self-defeating its recent armed offensive in Beirut was, a senior US official said Tuesday. I think their actions belie the statements, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters when asked to comment on Nasrallah's speech to his supporters in Lebanon on Monday.They (Hezbollah) showed a willingness to use arms to kill their fellow citizens. Perhaps these words are a recognition of the real political damage done to Hezbollah, he said.Any pretense of it as a liberation organization, or an organization designed to protect Lebanese from outsiders has really been torn away, McCormack added.The Hezbollah-led opposition, which won admiration in the past for fighting Lebanon's southern neighbor Israel, staged a spectacular armed takeover of large swathes of mainly Sunni west Beirut earlier this month.The assault angered many Lebanese but led to negotiations to end an 18-month political feud between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the Western-backed ruling majority that left the nation without a head of state for six months.
As part of a deal brokered in Qatar last week by the Arab League, General Michel Sleiman was elected by parliament Sunday in a first step towards national reconciliation.The following day, in a speech marking the eighth anniversary of Israel's pullout from south Lebanon after a two-decade occupation, Nasrallah pledged that his Shiite Muslim group would not use its weapons for political gains.
Hezbollah does not want power over Lebanon, nor does it want to control Lebanon or govern the country, Nasrallah said.But he also warned that the new government should not try to use the army to tackle the weapons of Hezbollah or any of its political allies.
Analysts give some credence to US State Department arguments that Hezbollah has lost popular support by turning its guns on fellow Lebanese rather than its traditional enemy Israel.But analysts said that, at least in the short term, it was the US-backed government of Fuad Siniora that suffered the political setback, not Hezbollah, which they said achieved political gain through force of arms.
US millionaire admits giving cash to Olmert by Charly Wegman MAY 28,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - A US millionaire testifying in a corruption probe that could force Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert out of office said on Tuesday he gave the premier large sums of cash to fund his political ambitions and perhaps his taste for high living. Morris Talansky gave evidence for seven hours in a Jerusalem district court in a criminal investigation into claims that Olmert received tens of thousands of dollars in illegal funds in the years before he became prime minister in 2006.The 75-year-old Jewish American financier said in sworn testimony that could later be used at a trial that he handed envelopes stuffed with cash to Olmert and his assistant over a period of 15 years.I gave some money to Olmert for his (election) campaigns in 1991 and 1992... He told me that he would prefer cash, and I gave him first some money from my private funds, then some money collected in the United States on his behalf, said Talansky, according to Israeli public radio.In 1998 also some money, generally about 3,000 to 8,000 dollars each time, was given, always in cash, because Olmert did not want cheques.
Talansky said in New York that he had raised about 100,000 dollars for Olmert's campaigns, and also loaned him money, which would bring the total figure to around 150,000 dollars.Talansky could not testify how the money was ultimately used but described Olmert as someone with a taste for first-class hotels and luxury items.I only know that he loved expensive cigars. I know he loved pens, watches. I found it strange, Talansky said, according to pool reports from the courtroom.He did say that one 25,000-dollar loan to Olmert was for a vacation in Italy and another time he gave the Israeli leader his credit card for a three-day stay at the Ritz Carlton in Washington. None of the loans has been paid back, he added.The 62-year-old Olmert, who has yet to be charged, has denied any wrongdoing but admitted receiving money from Talansky to help finance election campaigns in 1999 and 2003.Olmert, who was mayor of Jerusalem and trade minister before becoming premier in 2006 after his predecessor Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke and fell into a coma, has been questioned twice by investigators.He has faced mounting calls for his resignation but has said he will only go if he is indicted.An opinion poll published by the Yediot Aharonot newspaper last week found that only six percent of respondents had full confidence in Olmert and 51 percent had no confidence in him at all.
And Palestinian officials have expressed fears that the affair could affect the Middle East peace process, particularly if Israel calls early elections.Talansky said he got to know Olmert around the time of the 1991 Gulf War and admired the Israeli politician, but insisted he never received anything in return for his financial support.I never expected anything personally, I never had any personal benefits from this relationship whatsover, he said.But Talansky said Olmert did offer to help him once with his mini-bar business, contacting some major hotel owners. He (Olmert) wanted to do me a favour but it never worked out.Questions from state prosecutor Moshe Lador and Jerusalem prosecutor Eli Abarvanel had to be translated from Hebrew into English for the financier, who began crying at one point when prosecutors said it might take another day to complete the deposition. Talansky will be back in court in July so that lawyers for Olmert can cross-examine the financier. We cannot make the slightest conclusion from the first part of the testimony. He will be questioned again in July. We will decide whether to indict or close the case when the inquiry is finished, prosecutor Lador told reporters after the deposition was over. One of Olmert's lawyers, Eli Zohar, said Talansky's testimony was no surprise and reaffirmed that the premier did nothing against the law.
Keep up resistance, Iran tells Hamas Tue May 27, 6:52 AM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday told the visiting political supremo of Hamas to keep up the resistance against Israel, warning that abandoning the struggle would lead to disgrace. The meeting between Khamanei and Khaled Meshaal came a week after Syria and Israel announced they had resumed indirect peace negotiations through Turkish mediators, after an eight-year freeze.It is evident today that the Zionist regime is at its lowest ebb and is unable to resist the patient Palestinian people, Khamenei was quoted by state radio as telling the Syria-based Meshaal.Thank God the Palestinian people have stood like a mountain despite the disaster. The only way to the liberation of Palestine is to resist faithfully.The ones who choose a path that is not one of resistance will pay a price and be disgraced in the eyes of God, he added.Iran, which does not recognise Israel, is one of the militant Palestinian group's main cheerleaders in the region. However Tehran denies it provides Hamas with arms or military training.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that he remained confident that Syria -- Iran's closest regional ally -- will keep up the struggle against Israel despite its announcement of renewed peace negotiations.Ahmadinejad has provoked outrage with his frequent verbal tirades against the Jewish state, which he has likened to a stinking corpse and predicted is doomed to disappear.
Israeli demolition threatens 3,000 Palestinian homes: UN Tue May 27, 5:21 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank risk being displaced as the Israeli authorities threaten to tear down their homes and in some cases entire communities, a UN agency said on Wednesday. To date, more than 3,000 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank have pending demolition orders, which can be immediately executed without prior warning, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.
At least 10 small communities throughout the West Bank are at risk of being almost entirely displaced due to the large number of pending demolitions orders, OCHA said.Most of the orders were issued because there were no construction permits, which Israeli authorities only seldom grant to Palestinians.The buildings are located in so-called Area C, which makes up more than 60 percent of the West Bank and which is under full Israeli control.In the first quarter of 2008, Israeli authorities demolished 124 structures as compared with 107 for the whole of 2007, leading to the displacement of 435 Palestinians, 135 of them children, OCHA said.
Children are frequently disproportionately affected by the demolition of their homes and the subsequent displacement of their families, the study said.Over 94 percent of applications for building permits in Area C submitted by Palestinians between January 2000 and September 2007 were denied, according to official data.During this period 5,000 demolition orders were issued, and over 1,600 Palestinian buildings were actually demolished.The denial of permits for Palestinians on such a large scale raises the fear that there is a specific policy by the authorities to encourage a silent transfer of the Palestinian population from Area C, the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a recent report.In the 2000 to 2007 period, 2,900 demolition orders were issued against Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but just seven percent were implemented, according to Peace Now.Some 283,000 settlers live in Area C, which is also home to 70,000 of the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Peace with Syria would isolate Iran: Israeli minister Tue May 27, 5:11 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Any peace deal between Israel and Syria would dramatically change the face of the Middle East, in particular by isolating Iran, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Tuesday. Peace with Syria would break up the current strategic situation because it would isolate Iran and silence (Lebanese Shiite militant group) Hezbollah, said Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.We are talking about a true peace, an end to hostilities, an opening of the borders, and Israel is ready to pay the price for such a peace and coexistence with Syria, he told public radio.Israel and Syria confirmed last week that they have launched indirect peace talks through Turkish mediation, a process that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said began in February 2007.The last round of peace talks broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau which Israel seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.Ben Eliezer said he would visit the Golan on Tuesday to discuss with the local population its electricity and development needs.Opinion polls show that two thirds of Israelis are opposed to withdrawing from the Golan, which is now home to some 20,000 Jewish settlers.Ben Eliezer was also questioned about an eventual prisoner swap with Hezbollah.I pray that Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser are still alive, he said, referring to two Israeli soldiers captured in July 2006 by Hezbollah guerrillas in a deadly cross-border raid.
The violence triggered a devastating Israeli war against Hezbollah in Lebanon that lasted for 34 days until a UN-brokered ceasefire in August.For two years, we have doing everything possible to bring them home, and we are ready to pay the price for that, Ben Eliezer said.Military radio has reported that Israel is prepared to free five Lebanese prisoners and return the remains of 10 Hezbollah fighters in exchange for Regev and Goldwasser.Among the prisoners who could be freed is Samir Kantar who was sentenced in 1980 to 542 years in prison for killing an Israeli civilian and his daughter as well as a police officer in an attack that shocked Israel, the radio said.
