IAF strike leaves 3 dead in Gaza after rocket wounds woman; earlier, 3 Kassams fired into w. Negev.

...

Ups and downs..or simple same old obstacles..

Wednesday's negotiating session was supposed to lay the ground for detailed talks on final-status issues, including borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Instead, the first round was dominated by Palestinian demands Israel halt plans to build new houses on occupied land near Jerusalem and concerns about Israeli military activity in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, officials on both sides said. The Palestinians said future negotiating sessions depended on Israel's response on the settlement issue, but they stopped short of threatening to pull out of the talks. "We want to hear a reply to our demands," said chief negotiator Ahmed Qurie. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said both sides raised concerns during the 90-minute session. "This process does not have a quick fix," he said. "It's clear the issues on the table will demand ongoing diplomatic efforts." The United States, which pushed for the talks, said it was important not to make snap judgments after one meeting. "There will be ups, there will be downs," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "What is important is that they continue to move forward and that the overall trend line is positive."

We know Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman and chairman Eli Yishai are against negotiations with the Palestinians and this settlement issue right before negotiations and in middle of meetings is just another way to put obstacles in the way.

There is just a bunch of politicians taking advantages of ongoing meetings in a government that was elected on the platform for peace agreements with the Palestinians, to get own political gains of it. We have heard rightists using the "division of Jerusalem" as a argument to stand in the way for agreements.

Jews, Arabs and Christians and a whole lot more are already living side by side in Jerusalem! This is a few politicians having same old "problems"! Not the people!

Syria issued summonses and arrested dozens of opposition activists

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syria issued summonses and arrested dozens of opposition activists, including the brother of political prisoner Anwar Bunni, during International Human Rights Day, human rights groups said on Tuesday.

Authorities acted on Sunday and continued targetting opponents on Monday, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rights campaigners said. The crackdown targetted around 30 people who signed the 2005 Damascus Declaration calling for "radical change" in Syria and took part in a 163-person protest held on December 1, the groups continued. Security officials visited the home of writer and protester Akram Bunni, who was elected as secretary of the National Declaration of Damascus Council on December 1, the rights groups and a member of his family added. In April, his brother, human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni, was jailed for five years after signing the declaration on relations between Lebanon and Syria, its former powerbroker.

The declaration called for Syrians to work in a peaceful manner for radical change and saying the creation of a "national democratic regime" was the way to achieve this change. "It is a flagrant violation of international treaties on human rights," said the Syrian Human Rights League, adding that they condemned the actions which coincided with international human rights day on Monday. The National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria, the Arab Organisation for Human Rights and two other NGOs also condemned the arrests. The Syrian Organisation for Human Rights called on the authorities to release all political prisoners in custody without exception.

This stands!:

*"Jerusalem should be an open city. Within Jerusalem, irrespective of the resolution of the question of sovereignty, there should be no physical partition that would prevent the free circulation of persons within it". "Palestine and Israel shall be committed to guaranteeing freedom of worship and access to religious sites within Jerusalem. Both states will take all possible measures to protect such sites and preserve their dignity."

Egyptian security forces have found 500 kilograms of TNT explosives

Egyptian security forces have found 500 kilograms of TNT explosives in the northern Sinai desert believed to be destined for the Gaza Strip, a security official said Monday. "It is thought that Islamic militants buried the explosives, but no militants were in the vicinity when the police, acting on a tip-off, uncovered the cache," said the official, who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity. The explosives were found stashed in plastic bags and hidden in a warehouse near el-Rodha village, about 100 kilometers to the west of the Egypt-Gaza Strip border, the official said. Egyptian investigators believe that Islamist militants were stashing the explosives, which they planned to smuggle into the Gaza Strip.

Source: Haaretz

One still wonder..How much ancient artifacts the paid Islamic-Suiciders -idiots have destroyed in that area that people came from different parts of the world to..by making a Schweitzer cheese of it!

Agreements does not mean any one have to go without security!

On the eve of the first peace talks in nearly seven years, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday promised to "forge a historic path" toward a final settlement with the Palestinians.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are set to meet Wednesday to kick off talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement by the end of 2008. Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas set the target at last month's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Speaking at a business conference in Tel Aviv, Olmert acknowledged that the new dialogue is full of risks. He said Abbas's government is weak, and that Palestinian security forces are not yet capable of ensuring law and order in the West Bank. "I intend to take advantage of this opportunity to wage serious, ongoing and uninterrupted negotiations in order to forge a historic path toward a new diplomatic reality," he added.

Israeli and Palestinian officials have that Wednesday's meeting is likely to focus on technical issues, with the real work to begin after an expected visit by Bush early next month. However, the talks have run into trouble following Israel's announcement last week that it plans to build 307 new housing units in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa. "This issue needs to be worked out before we start negotiations," Abbas confidant Yasser Abed Rabbo said. But he did not say construction must be halted as a condition for the talks to begin. Top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were meeting on Monday to discuss the Har Homa issue.

J-Post

And the Israelis have rights to defend themselves from rocket attacks from Gaza! Don´t you dear trying to denying them that!

It will not cost more. Doing nothing will cost more! In fact..No one can afford it..And save what´s left of the rain forests! HELLOOO?

BALI NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Washington rejected stiff 2020 targets for greenhouse gas cuts by rich nations at U.N. talks in Bali on Monday as part of a "roadmap" to work out a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009. "It's prejudging what the outcome should be," chief negotiator Harlan Watson said of a draft suggesting that rich nations should aim to axe emissions of heat-trapping gases by between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. He said that Washington wanted the December 3-14 talks, of 190 nations with more than 10,000 delegates, to end on Friday with an accord to start two years of negotiations on a new global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

A draft final text by Indonesia, South Africa and Australia says evidence by the U.N. climate panel demands cuts of 25-40 percent by rich nations to avoid the worst impacts of climate change such as more droughts, floods and rising seas. "We don't want to start out with numbers," Watson told a news conference, adding that the 25-40 percent range was based on "many uncertainties" and a small number of scientific studies by the U.N. Climate Panel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Other countries such as Japan are also opposed, fearing such stiff goals would choke economic growth. The Bali talks are trying to agree the principles for a successor to Kyoto, which binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, by five percent below 1990 by 2008-12. "Our opinion about Kyoto has not changed," Watson said. President George W. Bush opposes Kyoto, saying it would damage the U.S. economy and wrongly excludes 2012 goals for developed nations, such as China, India and Brazil. Bush says he will join a new global pact.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. climate secretariat said that the 25-40 percent range would be "critical issue" at the talks. He said he considered the figure an important signpost to show where the world should be heading in curbing warming. De Boer also said that all industrialized nations agreed on the need to agree a Kyoto successor at U.N. talks in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. Developing nations, wary of any commitments that might hit their drive to fight poverty, are undecided.

Environmentalists urged action.
"This is the week the world has been waiting for," said Jennifer Morgan of the London-based climate E3G think-tank. On the margins of the main talks, about 40 deputy finance ministers held unprecedented talks about ways to ensure that efforts to slow climate change do not derail the world economy. "Having the finance ministers meeting...itself is a breakthrough," Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said. The meeting will prepare for talks by about 20 finance ministers in Bali on Tuesday. "The role of the finance ministers is to lead this discussion so that we have wider policy options," Indrawati said, referring to taxes or incentives for green technologies such as wind, solar power or "clean coal." Trade ministers also met at the weekend, the first time the annual U.N. climate talks have expanded beyond environment ministers. The trade ministers failed to ease splits between Brazil and the United States over green exports.
The U.N. Climate Panel, which will collect the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday in Oslo with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has said that the strictest measures to offset warming will slow annual world growth by 0.12 percentage point at most.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
By Emma Graham-Harrison, With extra reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison and Rob Taylor in Canberra; writing by Alister Doyle; editing by David Fogarty and Rosalind Russell


http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=bali&c=yahoo_news

Senior Palestinian officials said Qurie, insisting Israel honor a pledge renewed at Annapolis to end settlement activity

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians warned on Monday they might boycott peace negotiations starting this week after Israel defied Washington and other international sponsors of the process by planning new homes on occupied land.

The chief negotiators, former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurie and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, met to prepare the relaunch of talks on Wednesday. The negotiations, after an often violent seven-year hiatus, follow two weeks after U.S. President George W. Bush hosted a conference at Annapolis. Senior Palestinian officials said Qurie, insisting Israel honor a pledge renewed at Annapolis to end settlement activity, demanded it cancel a construction tender announced days after the conference. The plan is to build 307 homes and other units in an existing settlement near Jerusalem on land Israel annexed from the West Bank after it occupied the territory in 1967. If not, they said, some leaders have proposed a boycott over construction at the site, which gained notoriety when the start of building in 1997 triggered a collapse in peace talks.

"There's a debate within the Palestinian leadership between those who call for boycotting talks on Wednesday and those who say go, but focus only on demanding a settlement freeze," said Azzam al-Ahmad from President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party. Livni's spokesman said only that the meeting was to prepare talks on Wednesday between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He noted the Israeli position that the settlement at Har Homa, known as Abu Ghneim by Arabs, falls outside commitments in the 2003 road map peace plan because it was annexed to Israel. The annexation of East Jerusalem and adjacent West Bank land is not recognized internationally and Palestinians see building at the site, just north of Bethlehem, as part of a plan to divide the West Bank in two and isolate Arab East Jerusalem, which Abbas wants as the capital of a Palestinian state. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters: "It's putting the negotiations and the peace process in jeopardy this time ... Qurie demanded that Israel revoke the tenders to build in Jabal Abu Ghneim and give peace the chance it deserves."

On Monday, the European Union joined the United States and United Nations in voicing concern about the new building plan. "May I ... call on the Israeli government indeed to abide by all of its commitments being made before and at Annapolis and also to avoid any action that might put the process of building confidence on both sides into question," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in Brussels. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has invested much political capital in the process for the final year of the Bush administration, said the Har Homa tender "doesn't help build confidence." She warned Israel not to prejudge the outcome of talks intended to determine the fate of Jewish settlements.

Palestinian officials said Qurie and Livni discussed key issues that will be addressed in a negotiating process that Bush has said he hopes can conclude a deal on establishing a Palestinian state next year, before he steps down in 13 months. These also include the future of Jerusalem, the borders of the two states, the fate of Palestinian refugees and water. Few on either side are anything but skeptical of Abbas and Olmert's ability to deliver, given their weaknesses at home. Olmert, in a speech that addressed widespread Israeli doubts that Abbas can meet his road map commitment to prevent attacks on the Jewish state, said on Monday: "This leadership is not strong enough ... However, there is a leadership which declares its desire to make peace with us. This is an opportunity."

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told EU ministers in Brussels he was committed to continuing efforts to establish new security forces and complained Israeli settlement activity was bolstering support for those who reject the peace process. "How can we stem the tide of rejectionism and convince our people that the peace process will lead to our freedom when, at the same time, Israel continues to build and expand settlements?" Fayyad said, according a text of his speech. Palestinian negotiators said they feared Israel was trying to avoid negotiating on Jerusalem for fear of a backlash among right-wing voters. Olmert's vice premier said on Sunday that Israel should hand over some occupied Arab areas to Palestinian control if it wanted to retain the support of its U.S. ally.

By Wafa Amr, Editing by Alastair Macdonald

*Israel to remove all economic and other incentives luring Israelis into Occupied Territory.

*The Palestinian authority will work with education minister and establish a functioning cooperation between school, parents and other responsible to offer children and youths meaningful activities after school, with volunteer's and adults presence. We want to see progress and actions in this issue at ones! In both calm and in restless areas.

Well...

JERUSALEM - A key ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signaled on Sunday that Israel intends to hold on to all Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem — a position that undercuts the Palestinians' claim to the eastern part of the city for their future capital.

Or like this?:

JERUSALEM - A key ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel will hold on to all Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem but would have to relinquish Arab neighborhoods in a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

We are not really sure of what you are doing? Are you?

Did you know?

That there have happened that polar bears have drown because they didn´t find any ice to climb up on? And that The United States stands for 30% cause of the global warming? And then comes China..And that there have been some mischiefs from both Russia and the U.S. in climate research reports..And did you know that the Caspian_sea is drying out because some thought it would be a good idea to tamper with the inflow of water to it? Some smart headed Russian..Wasn´t it? Did you know that there have never ever been so much carbon in the air as it is now? Do you know how much the rain forests takes care of carbon in the air? Did you know that there are climate scientist being persecuted and threatened? Do you know that all the flooding and the occur of worse hurricanes in different parts of the world is one consequences of global warming? Do you know what more places on earth than Manhattan in the United States would be under water if the ice melts at the polars? Do you know what happens if melt ice water from the polars runs into the Gulf Stream? Should we find out?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream

Protest ongoing settlement expansion

Palestinian and left-wing activists built a mock "Palestinian outpost" in the West Bank on Saturday to protest ongoing settlement expansion. In an area between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, demonstrators set up a small house, complete with a concrete foundation, and raised Palestinian flags. The fake outpost was meant to draw attention to continued settlement activity and about 30 Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners participated in the protest. Two Palestinian were arrested on suspicion of attacking police men, police said. One man shoveled concrete around the small house to reinforce it. Others tried to work out how to fit a glass window into its ready-made gap. "We are trying to make a new Palestinian suburb on land that is threatened with expropriation," said Abdullah Abu Rahme, a protester. During the protest, an man carrying an Israeli flag began arguing with the protesters. "This is Israeli land," he said. "Go to Jordan," he told Palestinian demonstrators. Police said the protesters had 60 days to remove the house.

Well..Mr Barak..

If there should be any talks it should be about a prisoner swap. Shouldn´t it..

Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa

But the Iranian President´s "adviser" Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi seems to ..want go back to 1979 and talking about Iran's rights to such weapons and justifying using it. Ayatollah Khamenei´s fatwa, forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons! But with the Iranian invented Islamic-Suicide and "religious war"..With rewritten religions, with one source used from the very same neighbourhood Yazdi comes from, to mix it up in a fantasy-jihad-"religion" and their use of people with it, spreading all over the Middle East and elsewhere, in their propaganda machinery, making people believe it´s about "the enemies of Islam", while we all know it´s for own purpouses and gains, we wouldn´t like anyone to have nuclear with such actions. Mesbah Yazdi regularly advocates the use of “martyrdom operations” to fight “the enemies of Islam”.

The Elad organization that purchases property

Rightist Jewish organization told to reveal source of $7 million donations

The Elad organization that purchases property in Arab East Jerusalem for Jewish settlers has 21 days to reveal the identity of its donors. In an ultimatum issued by the registrar of non-profit organizations, the registrar wrote that the information Elad had submitted regarding the source of its funds was "very odd." He added that if Elad failed to submit the required information, he would consider opening an investigation into the identity of its donors as well as imposing sanctions. Elad has been operating in East Jerusalem for about 20 years. It has acquired a large number of properties in the village of Silwan, adjacent to the Old City, and manages the national park in the City of David on behalf of the state.

According to the registrar, the group is withholding information relating to five donations made by unknown companies in 2005, totaling $7 million. Elad told the registrar it only had the donors' addresses and that it was not obligated to divulge information as to their identity. "Your response that you do not have the required information is very odd," Eli Goff, an accountant in the registrar's investigation unit, wrote. "The addresses of the donors as presented in your letter are very unclear, and you did not point out which organizations are involved or the countries in which they are registered." Elad had revenues totaling NIS 41 million in 2005 - the last year it reported its figures to the registrar. Of this sum, NIS 38 million came from donations. The association gave the registrar a list of all donors who had given more than NIS 20,000, in keeping with a recently amended law designed to make donations more transparent. According to the list, however, the lion's share of the donations - over 75 percent - came from five companies whose names were not familiar to the registrar. Attorney Danny Zeidman, of the Ir Amim group that monitors Elad's activities, said that Elad's refusal to reveal its donors raised suspicions that "it receives funds from suspect sources and that it merits an investigation." Elad claimed it had disclosed "the full extent of details as required by court rulings" and added that media coverage of the registrar's request has been "a false display of libel and gossip." The group would not say whether it intended to respond to the registrar's request.

By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent