Israeli Jews divided over removal of settlements: poll

JERUSALEM: Jewish Israelis are divided on the question of removing some settlements as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians, with 50 per cent in favour and 43 per cent opposed, a poll said on Thursday.

The survey, which was conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute, found that just 28 per cent of Jewish Israelis thought the government would need to remove all settlements, including major blocs.

Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up 20 per cent of the population, are strongly in favour of the full removal of settlements, according to the poll which was published in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

Three quarters, 74 per cent, of Israeli Jews support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as the Jewish state in exchange for renewed restrictions on settlement construction, while 79 per cent of Arabs were opposed.

The Palestinians recognised Israel in 1993 but have refused to recognise its Jewish identity, fearing that doing so would compromise the right of return of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Arab citizens of Israel also oppose such recognition along with the related demand that new citizens swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state,” saying it amounts to discrimination.

The survey also found that 72 per cent of Israeli Jews support US-backed peace negotiations with the Palestinians but only 35 per cent believe they will lead anywhere, a degree of pessimism reflected in other recent polls.

The pollsters surveyed 600 people they said were representative of the adult population of Israel and gave a margin of error of 4.5 per cent.

The United States managed to relaunch direct peace talks in early September after months of intense diplomatic efforts, but they ground to a halt later that month when an Israeli settlement-building moratorium expired.

The Palestinians have refused to return to the talks without a complete freeze on settlement construction and the Arab League has given the United States until early November to find a way out of the impasse. – AFP

Internet accounts for 7.2 per cent of UK economy: study

LONDON: The Internet contributed 100 billion pounds (155 billion dollars, 115 billion euros) to the British economy last year, about 7.2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), a report showed Thursday.

The sector is bigger than the construction, transport or utilities industries in Britain, according to the study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which was commissioned by the British arm of Internet giant Google.

The research also predicted that by 2015, the British ‘Internet economy’ is likely to grow to 10 per cent of GDP, eclipsing the financial sector.

“The Internet is pervasive in the UK economy today, more so than in most advanced countries,” said Paul Zwillenberg, a partner with BCG in London.

“Whether they are driving international expansion, improving their interactions with customers or the efficiency of their supply chains, UK companies are increasingly embracing the Internet’s potential.”Much of the growth is driven by consumption, the majority of it online spending but also what consumers spend on getting access to the Internet, while the rest comes from government spending, private investment and exports.

The study found that about 62 per cent of adults, or 31 million people, have bought goods or services online so far this year and collectively they spent about 50 billion pounds last year on goods or travel.

More than 19 million out of a total of 26 million British households have an Internet connection and broadband access has doubled since 2005.

Overall, Britain was ranked sixth among major economies on the BCG “e-intensity index” which judges the reach and depth of the Internet, after Denmark, South Korea, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands. –AFP

Hopes for treaty rise at UN biodiversity summit

NAGOYA: Hopes rose that rich and poor nations would be able to forge a historic treaty to protect the world’s ecosystems after grinding progress was made at a UN summit on Thursday, delegates said.

Representatives of more than 190 countries have been meeting in the central Japanese city of Nagoya for nearly two weeks in an effort to set goals on saving habitats which would help to end the mass extinction of species.

With talks due to wind up Friday, delegates said last-minute negotiations among environment ministers had helped bridge key differences between developed and developing countries that had threatened to derail the event.

“Things are unlocking, but there is very little time left,” France’s state secretary for the environment, Chantal Jouanno, told AFP.

The European Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik, also emerged from talks in the afternoon to post an optimistic message on microblogging website Twitter: “Can we do it? Yes we can. But do the others agree?”The key dispute has been over fairly sharing the benefits of genetic resources such as wild plants.

Brazil and other developing countries argue rich nations and companies should not be allowed to freely take genetic resources to make medicines, cosmetics and other products for huge profits.

Brazil has maintained throughout that it would not agree to a 20-point plan on protecting nature unless there was first a deal on genetic resources with a legally binding “Access and Benefits Sharing Protocol”.

The planned protocol would ban so-called “biopiracy” and outline how countries with genetic resources would share in the benefits of the assets’

commercial development.

Brazil’s Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira told reporters that a deal on genetic resources had not yet been reached, but she believed a full pact on all the environment issues could still be reached by Friday night.

“I’m maintaining our optimism about all this. We believe that we have political momentum. We are working hard and we are optimistic about the results,” she said.

However other delegates said they were concerned that time was running out to strike a deal, particularly as some contentious issues would still have to be approved by their home governments.

One of the other key planks of the planned treaty delegates are hoping to sign on Friday is a strategic plan that commits countries to 20 targets for protecting ecosystems over the next decade.

These targets would aim to conserve large areas of coral reefs, waterways and forests, cut pollution and restore degraded ecosystems.

However, environment groups are concerned that some of the targets that are likely to be agreed upon will not be ambitious enough, particularly ones that aim to protect waterways.

While Greenpeace and other groups want 20 percent of coastal and marine areas protected, they say China and India are lobbying for six percent or lower.

The overarching goal of the Nagoya summit is to end the destruction of ecosystems that scientists say is causing the world’s plant and animal species to vanish at up to 1,000 times the natural rate.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature warned last year that the world was experiencing its sixth mass extinction in history, with the last one 65 million years ago wiping out dinosaurs.

The treaty to be signed in Nagoya would come under the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity, which has 193 member nations. However the United States is not a party the convention. – AFP

US prepares new offer for Iran nuclear talks –NYT

WASHINGTON: The United States and its European allies are putting together a new offer for talks with Iran over its nuclear program, but would include tougher conditions for an atom fuel swap than those rejected by Tehran last year, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper cited a senior US official as saying the Obama administration and its partners were “very close to having an agreement” on a position to present to Tehran in negotiations the West hopes will get under way in Vienna next month.

Iran has welcomed the offer of talks, which the Western powers want to yield a deal curbing its uranium enrichment drive and opening it to U.N. nuclear inspectors in exchange for a package of benefits.

Tehran, which has ruled out halting sensitive nuclear work which can have both civilian and military uses, has yet to formally reply to the invitation for talks from Nov. 15 to 17.

Dismissing the impact of tougher sanctions introduced since June, it has said it is open to resume negotiations on a proposal for it to send low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad and get higher-grade fuel for a medical research reactor in return.

Western diplomats said that even if a deal was struck on a fuel exchange, it would not resolve wider concerns about Iran’s nuclear plans. Iran rejects Western accusations it is seeking to develop nuclear bombs.

The Times said the new offer would require Iran to send more than 4,400 pounds (2,000 kg) of LEU out of the country. That would represent a more than two-thirds’ increase from the amount required under a tentative deal a year ago that later collapsed.

“MOVING GOALPOSTS”

It said the increase reflected Iran’s steady production of uranium the past year and Washington’s goal to ensure Iran has less than than a bomb’s worth of uranium on hand.

Iran would also be required to stop all production of nuclear fuel it is enriching to 20 per cent since February, a key step toward bomb-grade levels.

The Times said intelligence analysts concluded that last year’s deal was scuttled by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many officials therefore suspect this latest effort to fail, the Times said.

Western diplomats have earlier made clear that any new swap deal must be updated to take into account Iran’s increased uranium stockpile and its work to enrich to higher levels.

One diplomat in Vienna told Reuters: “Discussions (between the powers) are still under way. I wouldn’t describe it as a new offer. I think primarily it is speculation. Of course, time has moved on since last year.”

“Iran has taken up 20 per cent enrichment which is not justified if there were to be a fuel swap … so that would be a new element which would have to be contemplated.”

Research Associate Ivanka Barzashka of the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists said a successfuel fuel deal was a necessary condition for further Iran-West engagement and that its confidence-building benefits could still be salvaged.

But, “an increase in the swap amount will surely be seen by Iran as moving goalposts and will likely cause further delays in negotiations,” Barzashka said in an e-mailed comment to Reuters.

Schools, stipends trigger Israeli religious battle

JERUSALEM: During its six decades of existence, Israel has maintained a shaky alliance with its ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority that allowed most religious men to avoid military service, attend separate schools and get paid by the state to study the Bible instead of entering the work force.

But this system is coming under new scrutiny, pressured by a series of Supreme Court rulings, an ambitious education minister and the hugely unpopular cost of sustaining a fast-growing ultra-Orthodox population that has few skills for the 21st century.

The vitriolic debate has created the first serious threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. His ultra-Orthodox partners are threatening to topple the government if subsidies to their constituents are cut.

The dispute goes far beyond money, touching on the character of the Jewish state in a modern world and the ultra-Orthodox community’s place in it.

Many secular Israelis see the ultra-Orthodox, with their large families, as a financial drain and are growing less willing to subsidize them when half of their men don’t work preferring to study the Torah and their children are taught little math and science. They warn that if the system continues it could ultimately undermine a country that has become a high-tech powerhouse with vibrant media and culture.

Schools have emerged as a main front in the conflict.

Education Minister Gideon Saar is moving to tighten oversight of the semiautonomous ultra-Orthodox grade school system. Saar, a rising star in Netanyahu’s Likud Party, is insisting that core subjects such as English, math, history and science be taught at all government-funded schools, including ultra-Orthodox ones.

Some 245,000 students about one in every six in Israel are enrolled in ultra-Orthodox schools from grades 1-12, according to the Education Ministry. The schools, which emphasize religious studies, are essentially run by nonprofit organizations that do not answer to the state, though they receive government funds.

Top ultra-Orthodox rabbis held an emergency meeting last week to oppose Saar’s moves. The rabbis say the schools are training spiritual leaders and that the measures undermine an emphasis on biblical studies they say has allowed the Jewish people to survive for thousands of years.

”Education is not just about knowledge, it is also about values,” said ultra-Orthodox lawmaker Uri Maklev. ”We teach the value of the Bible as the ultimate value. They teach children to be infidels and anti-religion.”

Under the current system, ultra-Orthodox schools must teach the core grade-school curriculum in proportion to how much state money they receive. Fully funded ones must teach it in full. A school receiving 50 percent funding needs to teach only half.

In the past, oversight has been lax. But an Education Ministry survey found that nearly 20 percent of ultra-Orthodox schools are not living up to their obligations, and Saar has informed them their funding will be slashed. He has also hired more inspectors.

The ultra-Orthodox, also known as haredim, make up 10 percent of Israel’s 7.6 million people. But they have long served as kingmakers in Israel’s fractious parliamentary system, giving them considerable political clout.

With generations of coalition governments dependent on their support, they have won outsized subsidies for schools, child support and welfare payments to allow adult men to spend their days studying in seminaries.

The government’s budget for supporting the seminaries, for example, runs at around $275 million, including operating costs and the stipends that go to married seminary students. The haredim’s exemption from military service which is compulsory for other Jewish Israelis has added to the resentment.

Ultra-Orthodox men are easily identified by their black suits, long beards and sidecurls. They and their families typically live in isolated neighborhoods and often have little interaction with the outside world.

”If they want to live in a ghetto, fine, but why should the state pay for it? As long as the state is paying, it has to have a say,” said Yossi Sarid, a former education minister.

High birth rates, voluntary unemployment and limited modern skill sets have left the ultra-Orthodox sector among the poorest in Israel.

According to a 2007 survey for the Central Bureau of Statistics, 53 percent of men and 51 percent of women in the ultra-Orthodox community said they work, compared with 93 percent and 86 percent of their secular counterparts.

Earlier this year, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the seminary stipends discriminate against university students.

Ultra-Orthodox parties say they will quit the government if alternative legislation is not approved to keep stipends. Netanyahu would lose his parliamentary majority if they bolt. – AP

Gunmen attack Japanese diplomatic vehicle in Karachi

KARACHI: Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a Japanese consular vehicle in Karachi on Thursday, wounding two of the mission’s Pakistani employees.

The attack may have been an attempted robbery because the three Pakistanis in the car had stopped by a bank to get cash before they were ambushed, police official Javed Akbar Riaz said. The two wounded men were in stable condition.

Kazuhiro Kawase, a spokesman at Japan’s Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, confirmed the shooting and said no Japanese diplomatic officials were in the car. Police in Karachi said the vehicle’s license plates indicated it belonged to the Japanese consulate.

”We are still confirming what sort of damage there was to the vehicle or what sort of injuries people inside might have sustained.” Kawase said.

Japan and Pakistan have good relations, and Tokyo has been generous in providing aid to the Muslim-majority nation. — AP

Bomb attack in southern Afghanistan kills three police

KABUL: A roadside bomb attack targeting the car of a district police chief killed three police officers in southern Afghanistan, a local official said.

Provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasolyar said the police chief was not in the vehicle Thursday when it was hit by the blast in the Shinkai district of Zabul province.

Afghan and Nato troops are pushing into the traditional heartland of the insurgency in southern Afghanistan. They have managed to secure pockets of territory but the insurgents are also carrying out daily bomb attacks and assassination attempts.

There has also been a surge in insurgent activity in northern Afghanistan, traditionally considered more peaceful. — AP

Militants behead ‘fake’ Taliban in Mohmand

KHAR: Militants beheaded three “common criminals” allegedly masquerading as Taliban while stealing and kidnapping for ransom, a local official and residents said.

The trio were captured two days ago and their bodies dumped in fields in the Yaka Ghaound district of Mohmand, one of the seven districts in Pakistan’s tribal belt, said local administrator Mairaj Khan.

Residents said a note was found near the bodies, identifying them as criminals “defaming” the Taliban.

“They were involved in various crimes, including theft and kidnapping for ransom, posing as Taliban. We killed them so others may learn a lesson from this,” the note said.

A man who identified himself as a local Taliban spokesman said the trio had masqueraded as Taliban. “They were defaming our organisation,” said the man who called himself Sajjad Mohmand.

Pakistani Taliban have been blamed for many of the deadliest bomb attacks hitting Western targets, Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country over the past three years.

The militia is fighting an insurgency against the Pakistani military concentrated in the tribal belt and other parts of the northwest. — AFP

Death toll hits 65 in Afghan wedding building collapse

KUNDUZ: Sixty-five people, most of them women and children, died when a floor collapsed at a wedding in one of the most remote regions of northern Afghanistan, an official said Thursday.

The accident happened on Wednesday in a village in the Jalga district of Baghlan province, an impoverished and isolated area deep in the Pamir mountains.

“Sixty-five people have been killed. They will be buried today,” Mahmood Haqmal, spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.

Officials said the floor collapsed at 1:00 pm during the wedding party in Warchi village, and had earlier put the toll at “more than 40”.

Haqmal said the upper floor of the two-storey building was packed with people when it crashed to the ground.

He said houses in the area were very old, made of mud bricks and covered with wood, and probably unable to bear the weight of so many people.

Weddings are one of the principal forms of entertainment and social interaction in Afghanistan, where men and women typically celebrate in separate quarters.

According to Islamic tradition, funerals are held as soon as possible after death.

Obama Asia trip no slap to Pakistan, China: aides

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to India and other Asian countries should not be taken as a slap against India’s archrival Pakistan or any other country, including China, aides said on Wednesday.

Obama leaves on Nov. 5 on a 10-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.

Obama will start the trip with 3-1/2 days in India, the longest foreign stop of his presidency.

“India is a cornerstone of our broader Asia approach,” William Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told a news conference on the India portion of the trip.

Some commentators have portrayed the tour as a White House effort to counterbalance China’s influence in Asia, which has worried Indian officials. But Obama’s aides said the administration’s strategy is to develop both relationships.

“We don’t feel like there needs to be a choice between a cooperative US-China relationship and these broader relationships that we have in Asia,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.

“As an Asian power and as a Pacific power, it’s in the interest of the region for the US to have a cooperative relationship with China on some of these issues, but it’s similarly in the interest of the region for us to, again, be very engaged with ASEAN, to be deepening our partnership with India, and to firm up our alliances with Korea and Japan,” he said.
ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Pakistan-Afghan Concerns

There will be a strong economic element to the India trip — Obama is going with a long trade and finance agenda. But it will also have to address how New Delhi deals with Pakistan, its archrival and fellow nuclear power.

India is also the largest regional aid donor to Afghanistan, which Pakistan, especially its military, sees as its backyard and where Washington looks to Islamabad as a partner as it wages its 9-year war.

The White House says it wants to send the message that drawing closer to India does not mean it is moving further from Pakistan.

“Our central message — and it’s a message, really, to the region — is that both of these relationships can be advanced and deepened at the same time, on a parallel track, and that that does not, in any way, demonstrate a preference for one relationship over the other, that these things can be mutually reinforcing, in fact,” Rhodes said.

Pakistani officials were in Washington last week for a strategic dialogue and Obama spoke to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday, Rhodes noted.

Obama also will visit Pakistan in 2011, the White House announced when it said Obama would not stop there this trip, as some commentators had speculated.

Obama is staying at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which was targeted in the attacks on Mumbai two years ago, and meeting with survivors of the attacks, to underscore his awareness of India’s security concerns.