File - In this Friday, Aug. 13, 2010 file photo, Palestinian women wait near a section of Israel's separation barrier covered in graffiti, one depicting the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at the Qalandiya checkpoint , between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israel's election this month may have dimmed hopes for a two-state solution with the Palestinians as a way of resolving one of the Middle East's most intransigents conflicts. The vote, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coasted to another victory, left no doubt that peace talks with the Palestinians won't be on the agenda anytime soon. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)
JERUSALEM – Is the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dead?
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coasted to another victory in this month's Israeli election, it sure seems that way.
On the campaign trail, Netanyahu ruled out Palestinian statehood and for the first time, pledged to begin annexing Jewish settlements in the West Bank. His expected coalition partners, a collection of religious and nationalist parties, also reject Palestinian independence.
Even his chief rivals, led by a trio of respected former military chiefs and a charismatic former TV anchorman, barely mentioned the Palestinian issue on the campaign trail and presented a vision of "separation" that falls far short of Palestinian territorial demands.
The two Jewish parties that dared to talk openly about peace with the Palestinians captured just 10 seats in the 120-seat parliament, and opinion polls indicate dwindling support for a two-state solution among Jewish Israelis.
"The majority of the people in the state of Israel no longer see a two-state solution as an option," said Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy for the Yesha settler council, himself an opponent of Palestinian independence. "If we are looking for peace in this region, we will have to look for a different plan from the two-state solution."
For the past 25 years, the international community has supported the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — as the best way to ensure peace in the region.
The logic is clear. With the number of Arabs living on lands controlled by Israel roughly equal to Jews, and the Arab population growing faster, two-state proponents say a partition of the land is the only way to guarantee Israel's future as a democracy with a strong Jewish majority. The alternative, they say, is either a binational state in which a democratic Israel loses its Jewish character or an apartheid-like entity in which Jews have more rights than Arabs.
After decades of fruitless negotiations, each side blames the other for failure.
Israel says the Palestinians have rejected generous peace offers and promoted violence and incitement. The Palestinians say the Israeli offers have not been serious and point to Israel's ever-expanding settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, now home to nearly 700,000 Israelis.
The ground further shifted after the Hamas militant group took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 and left the Palestinians divided between two governments, with one side — Hamas — opposed to peace with Israel. This ongoing rift is a major obstacle to negotiations with Israel, and has also left many Palestinians disillusioned with their leaders.
Since taking office a decade ago, Netanyahu has largely ignored the Palestinian issue, managing the conflict without offering a solution for how two peoples will live together in the future.
After clashing with the international community for most of that time, he has found a welcome friend in President Donald Trump, whose Mideast team has shown no indication of supporting Palestinian independence.
Tamar Hermann, an expert on Israeli public opinion at the Israel Democracy Institute, said the election results do not necessarily mean that Israelis have given up on peace. Instead, she said the issue just isn't on people's minds.
"Most Israelis would say the status quo is preferable to all other options, because Israelis do not pay any price for it," she said. "They don't feel the outcome of the occupation. ... Why change it?"
While the two-state prospects seem dim, its proponents still cling to the belief that the sides will ultimately come around, simply because there is no better choice.
"Either Israel decides to be an apartheid state with a minority that is governing a majority of Palestinians, or Israel has to realize that there is no other solution but two states," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh told The Associated Press. "Unfortunately the Israeli prime minister is politically blind about these two facts."
Shtayyeh noted the two-state solution continues to enjoy wide international backing. Peace, he insisted, is just a matter of "will" by Israel's leaders.
Dan Shapiro, who served as President Barack Obama's ambassador to Israel, said the two-state solution "is certainly getting harder" after the Israeli election but is not dead.
Getting there would require leadership changes on both sides, he said, pointing to the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt 40 years ago, reached by two leaders who were sworn enemies just two years earlier.
"We know what's possible when the right leadership is in place," he said. "So that puts us supporters of it in a mode of trying to keep it alive and viable for the future."
That may be a tall task as the Israeli election results appear to reflect a deeper shift in public opinion.
According to the Israel Democracy Institute, which conducts monthly surveys of public opinion, support for the two-state solution among Jewish Israelis has plummeted from 69% in 2008, the year before Netanyahu took office, to 47% last year. Just 32% of Israelis between the ages of 18-34 supported a two-state solution in 2018. The institute typically surveys 600 people, with a margin of error of just over 4 percentage points.
Attitudes are changing on the Palestinian side as well. Khalil Shikaki, a prominent Palestinian pollster, said 31% of Palestinians seek a single binational state with full equality, a slight increase from a decade ago. His poll surveyed 1,200 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Although there was no breakdown by age group, Shikaki said the young are "clinging less to the two-state solution because they lost faith in the Palestinian Authority's ability to provide a democratic state" and because the expanding settlements have created a new reality on the ground.
Amr Marouf, a 27-year-old restaurant manager in the city of Ramallah, said he maintains his official residence in a village located in the 60% of the West Bank that Israel controls, just in case Israel annexes the territory. That way, he believes, he can gain Israeli citizenship.
"I think the one state solution is the only viable solution," he said. "We can be in Israel and ask for equal rights. Otherwise, we will live under military occupation forever."
Netanyahu is expected to form his new coalition government by the end of May, and he will come under heavy pressure from his partners to keep his promise to annex Israel's West Bank settlements.
Such a step could extinguish any hopes of establishing a viable Palestinian state, particularly if the U.S. supports it. American officials, who have repeatedly sided with Israel, have said nothing against Netanyahu's plan.
There is also the Trump administration's long-delayed peace plan, which officials have signaled could finally be released this summer. U.S. officials have said little about the plan, but have indicated it will go heavy on economic assistance to the Palestinians while falling far short of an independent state along the 1967 lines.
Shtayyeh said such a plan would be a nonstarter.
"This is a financial blackmail, which we reject," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
FILE PHOTO: Qualcomm's logo is seen during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
April 2, 2019
(Reuters) – Qualcomm Inc’s Chief Financial Officer George Davis plans to depart the company and is likely heading to rival Intel Corp, according to Qualcomm and a person familiar with the matter.
Qualcomm said Davis, who has been the mobile chip supplier’s finance chief since 2013, was leaving the company.
At first glance, you’d be hard-pressed to find two lawmakers more dissimilar than Ilhan Omar and Steve King.
Omar is a Somali immigrant and freshman Democratic congresswoman on the liberal end of the partisan spectrum. King is a long-tenured Republican congressman whose tough stances on issues like immigration have made him among the most conservative lawmakers in Washington.
And yet ever since Congress last week passed a resolution condemning bigotry in response to alleged anti-Semitic comments from Omar, it has been difficult to talk about one lawmaker without mentioning the other.
Both lawmakers ran into trouble with their own parties for incendiary comments. Yet as the dust settles on last week's Omar controversy, Republicans maintain that the Minnesota congresswoman was treated with kid gloves by comparison – and continue to pressure Democrats to deal with Omar like they dealt with King.
The parties' handling of how to discipline the lawmakers is a study in contrasts.
For his part, King was stripped of committee assignments as he faced condemnation for saying, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” to the New York Times earlier this year.
Democratic leaders, however, have allowed Omar to remain on the Foreign Affairs Committee. And they overhauled a planned resolution on anti-Semitism following concern in the ranks that it would unfairly single out Omar, and instead passed a broad anti-bigotry resolution last week. This, following comments from Omar claiming Israel supporters seek "allegiance" to the Jewish state, which drew accusations that she was echoing the "dual-loyalties" smear.
“It is absolutely shameful that Nancy Pelosi and Leader [Steny] Hoyer and the Democratic leaders will not put her name in a resolution on the floor and condemn her remarks and remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Those people who won’t condemn it are enabling it,” Cheney said.
Despite Cheney's comments, however, neither King nor Omar was named in the resolutions drafted in response to their comments.
Further Democrats argue that it took Republicans a long time to censure King for racially charged comments he’s made in the past.
“It took them 13 years to notice Steve King?” Pelosi said of the Republicans, adding that President Trump never condemned King for his comments. Trump has called Omar “terrible” and said she should resign from her post on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Other Democratic lawmakers – including several presidential candidates – came to Omar’s defense. They suggested that her comments could be seen simply as criticism of U.S. foreign policy and Israeli lobbying efforts.
"We have a moral duty to combat hateful ideologies in our own country and around the world -- and that includes both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a statement. "In a democracy, we can and should have an open, respectful debate about the Middle East that focuses on policy. Branding criticism of Israel as automatically anti-Semitic has a chilling effect on our public discourse and makes it harder to achieve a peaceful solution between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Unlike Omar, King -- who has a history of controversy including ties to far-right European groups, exaggerated claims about immigrants and crime and an endorsement of a white nationalist politician in Canada -- did not apologize for the comments that led to his reprimand. He has rejected claims that he is aligned with white nationalists.
“Omar’s apology, and the speed at which it was offered, is quite different from how Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) responded when he came under fire for his comments about race,” Eugene Scott, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote. “King refused to apologize. Though he didn’t deny his quote in the Times, he painted the outrage against him as a political witch hunt.”
Some conservative commentators, however, argue that King’s comments were made over a long period of time, while Omar has only been in Congress since January and already has been the center of controversy on numerous occasions. They add that while GOP leaders may have taken their time condemning King, they eventually took a firm stance against him.
“They probably should have done something sooner and they probably regret not doing something sooner,” Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told Fox News.
Olsen added that if Democrats don’t take firm action against Omar, she will continue to court controversy and the party will end up in a similar situation as the Republicans with King.
“King got in trouble for a lot of scandals until it became something they couldn’t ignore,” he said. “And the same thing will probably happen with the Democrats and Omar.”
BIG LAKE, Minn. – Authorities say a man suspected of starting a house fire in Minnesota that killed two of his children has died.
The Sherburne County Sheriff's Office says in a release that 36-year-old Anthony Robert Parker died Saturday of injuries suffered in the Friday morning blaze in Big Lake, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Minneapolis.
The fire killed Parker's two toddlers, 1-year-old Spencer Parker and 2-year-old Landon Parker. His other children, who 7 and 9 years old, were injured. Their conditions have not been released.
The state fire marshal's office is investigating the cause of the blaze.
FILE PHOTO: Tim Sloan, CEO and President, Wells Fargo & Co., speaks at the Milken Institute's 21st Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
March 11, 2019
By Imani Moise
(Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co Chief Executive Tim Sloan will tout the bank’s progress in repaying wrongly charged customers and highlight changes to its risk management structure during testimony to U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday, according to prepared remarks.
Since 2016, the bank has reviewed 165 million accounts, contacted more than 40 million customers and payed out millions in compensation, Sloan said in his opening statement submitted to the House Financial Services Committee on Monday.
(Reporting by Imani Moise; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
That tweet came after his attorney Lanny Davis, tweeted that Cohen “knows and can fill in the bulk of the redactions.”
“We will tell it all,” he promised.
Cohen is scheduled to report to jail next month to begin serving a three-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.
He testified to Congress in February, branding Trump a “racist….a conman….a cheat” and expressing regret for having worked for Trump. In that testimony, he said he had “suspicions” that Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia -- though the special counsel apparently did not find such evidence.
Cohen’s legal team sent a letter to House Democrats this month saying he was still sorting through documents that might be of interest to House Democrats investigating President Trump, including emails, voice recordings, images and other documents on a hard drive. The lawyers said if Cohen reports to prison May 6 as scheduled, he won't be able to finish reviewing the material.
They asked the lawmakers to write letters saying that Cohen was cooperating and that "the substantial trove of new information, documents, recordings, and other evidence he can provide requires substantial time with him and ready access to him by congressional committees and staff to complete their investigations and to fulfill their oversight responsibilities."
Cohen's lawyers said they were still holding out hope that federal prosecutors in New York not only would back another delay in the start of his prison term, but also would agree to reopen his case and advocate for a lighter sentence.
"It is our hope that the authorities in the Southern District of New York will consider this total picture of cooperation by Mr. Cohen, verified by your letter and the important new evidence he has made available or could make available to assist the government, and the particular facts involved here to grant Mr. Cohen a reduced term following the rules and procedures of the Southern District of New York."
Rodolfo Karisch, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Management and Accountability on Thursday, that the Border Patrol in his sector has intercepted illegal aliens trying to enter the United States “from 40 different countries, including Bangladesh, Turkey, Romania and China.”
“I want to provide some perspective on the challenges facing our men and women at the Southwest border,” Karisch told the committee in his opening statement. “Though I cannot speak for all of the components of Customs and Border Protection, I can provide a first-hand account of the complex border-security environment and ask for your assistance in helping our frontline men and women.
“In our line of work, Border Patrol agents rarely know exactly who or what they will encounter,” he said.
“In a single day,” he said, “and agent may arrest a violent felon, encounter a large group of families and children, or rescue a drowning migrant sent into the river by smugglers.”
Karisch told the committee that in his sector, the Border Patrol apprehends “nearly a thousand people between the ports of entry each day.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has divided the U.S.-Mexico border into nine Border Patrol Sectors. Running from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf of Mexico, these include: the San Diego Sector, the El Centro Sector, the Yuma Sector, the Tucson Sector, the El Paso Sector, the Big Bend Sector, the Del Rio Sector, the Laredo Sector, and the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
South Africa’s 400m Olympic gold medallist and world record holder Wayde van Niekerk looks on as he attends South African Championships in Germiston, South Africa, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
April 26, 2019
GERMISTON, South Africa (Reuters) – Olympic 400 meters champion Wayde van Niekerk has backed South African compatriot Caster Semenya in her battle with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which now appears to have taken a new twist.
Semenya, a double 800 meters Olympic gold medalist, is waiting for the outcome of her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to halt the introduction of new regulations by governing body IAAF that would require her to take medicine to limit her natural levels of testosterone.
The IAAF wants female athletes with differences of sexual development who run in events from 400 meters to a mile, to reduce their blood testosterone level to below five (5) nmol/L for a period of six months before they can compete, saying they have an unfair advantage.
“She’s fighting for something beyond just track and field, she’s fighting for woman in sports, in society and I respect her for that,” Van Niekerk told reporters.
“I will support her and with the hard work and talent that she’s been putting into the sport. With what she believes in and what she’s dreaming for, I’ve got a lot of respect for her.
“I really hope and pray that everything just goes from strength to strength for her.”
Semenya has sprung a surprise at the on-going South African Athletics Championships though, ditching the 800 meters and instead competing over 1,500 and 5,000-metres – the latter one would not require her to medically lower her testosterone level.
She stormed to victory in the 5,000-metres final in a modest time of 16:05.97, but looked to have lots left in the tank as she passed the finish line.
Semenya beat fellow Olympian and defending national 5,000m champion Dominique Scott in Thursday’s final but the latter admitted she is unsure whether the 800m specialist could be a serious Olympic contender over the longer distance.
“Honestly‚ I have no idea‚” Scott said. “Before today I probably would have said no. It’s hard to compare a 5,000 at altitude to a 5,000 at sea level.
“But I think she’s an amazing runner and I don’t think there’s any limit or ceiling on what she can do.”
Van Niekerk, the 400m world record holder, had to abort his comeback from a knee injury, that had sidelined him for 18 months, following a combination of cold weather and a wet track.
“We are trying to take the correct decisions now early in the year so as not to put myself in any harm,” he said.
“It was a bit chilly this entire week prepping and coming through here as well it was quite cold and it caused bit of tightness in my leg. We decided to not risk it.
“My recovery is going well and I would like to be back in competition this year, but will only do so if I can deliver a good performance.
“I am a competitor and respect my opponents, so I need to be at my best when I return.”
(Reporting by Nick Said, additional reporting by Siyabonga Sishi; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
The suspected leader of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka died in the Shangri-La hotel, one of six hotels and churches targeted in the attacks that killed at least 250 people, authorities said.
Police said Mohamed Zahran, leader of the National Towheed Jamaat militant group, had been killed in one of the bombings. The group’s second in command was also arrested, police said.
Zahran amassed an online following for his hate-filled sermons. Some were delivered before a banner depicting the Twin Towers.
Sri Lankan authorities said Friday that Islamic cleric Mohammed Zahran died in the blast at the Shangri-La hotel during the Easter Sunday atatcks that killed at least 250 people. (YouTube)
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that the attackers responsible for the bombings were supported by the Islamic State group. Around 140 people in Sri Lanka had connections to ISIS, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said.
“We will completely control this and create a free and peaceful environment for people to live,” he said.
Investigators determined the attackers received military training from someone called “Army Mohideen.” They also received weapons training overseas and at some locations in Sri Lanka, according to authorities.
A copper factory operator arrested in connection with the bombings helped Mohideen make improvised explosive devices, police said. The bombings have led to increased security throughout the island nation as authorities warned of another attack.
KATHMANDU, Nepal – A Malaysian mountain climber was being treated in a hospital in Nepal’s capital Friday after being stranded nearly two days alone near the summit of Annapurna.
A helicopter crew searching for the missing climber on Thursday spotted Wui Kin Chin waving his hands at them, and rescuers brought him down to a lower camp.
At the time of his rescue, Chin had been without an oxygen bottle, food and water for over 40 hours, said Mingma Sherpa, the head of Seven Summit Treks, which arranged his expedition.
Chin was flown to the capital, Kathmandu, on Friday and taken to a hospital, where his wife joined him.
Chin is an anesthesiologist and accomplished climber, and Sherpa credited Chin’s medical knowledge and familiarity with mountains for keeping him alive.
“It’s a big thing to stay alive in that altitude without food, water, and oxygen,” Sherpa said. He described Chin on Thursday as fine but not in condition to walk.
Chin was a part of a 13-member expedition led by a French climber and was separated from the others during the descent.
The 8,091-meter (26,545-foot) Mount Annapurna is the ninth tallest mountain in Nepal and the 10th tallest in the world. It’s considered an especially treacherous mountain due to its difficult terrain and weather conditions.
Spanish Prime Minister and Socialist Party candidate Pedro Sanchez applauds to supporters during an election campaign event in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, April 25, 2019. Spain is preparing to hold its third parliamentary election in less than four years. But even though the exercise is familiar, uncertainty surrounds the election’s outcome. Polls indicate a substantial share of voters, about one-third, hadn’t decided by the final week of campaigning how they would mark their ballots on Sunday. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
MADRID – Spain’s prime minister says he’s open to a coalition with an anti-austerity party, hinting for the first time at a possible center-left governing alliance after Sunday’s national election.
In an interview published Friday by El Pais newspaper, Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez says “it isn’t a problem” for the far-left United We Can to become part of his Cabinet if he wins the tight race.
With Spain’s electoral law banning polls during the last week of campaigning, it’s unclear if the two parties will emerge strong enough in the lower house of parliament or whether a right-wing alliance could assemble a majority.
Sánchez is calling on Spaniards to cast a “useful vote” and has warned that the rise of the far right in polls could be underestimated given the large pool of undecided voters.
FILE PHOTO: KPN logo is seen at its headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands, January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
April 26, 2019
By Bart H. Meijer and Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch telecom firm Royal KPN NV said on Friday it would select a Western supplier to build its core 5G mobile network, making it one of the first European operators to make clear it would not pick China’s Huawei for such work.
The United States has been seeking to discourage its allies from using equipment made by Huawei because of concerns that it could eventually be used for Chinese government spying. Huawei says such worries are baseless and U.S. policy is driven by economic interests.
The Hague-based KPN, the Netherlands’ largest telecom firm, said its decision took into account “the evolving assessment on the protection of vital infrastructure and the influence this may have on future Dutch policy.”
The Dutch government has not taken a decision on the issue.
KPN, which also reported on Friday slightly worse than expected first quarter core earnings of 563 million euros ($627 million), said it would still use equipment made by Huawei in some capacities.
In addition, the company announced a preliminary deal with Huawei to upgrade existing mobile telecommunications gear to make it safer. Huawei has been a key supplier to KPN in the past decade.
The Dutch government set up a task force with KPN and other major operators in the Netherlands this month to analyze the “vulnerability of 5G telecommunications networks to misuse by technology vendors … and measures needed to manage risks.”
KPN said it would use equipment made by Huawei, which it described as a world leader in radio and antenna technology, to improve security on its existing network.
“This preliminary agreement can be adjusted or reversed to align it with future Dutch government policy,” it added.
Sources told Reuters on Wednesday that Britain’s National Security Council (NSC) had decided to bar Huawei from core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core areas.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Edmund Blair)
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