WASHINGTON, Nov 30, 2012 (AFP) - Approval of Palestinian non-member UN status this week provoked no US funding ban on the United Nations, but irate US lawmakers have introduced measures that would do dramatic fiscal harm to the Palestinians and could also target the global body.
The upgrade from "observer entity" to "non-member observer state" marked a diplomatic triumph for Palestinian...
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has welcomed the landmark decision by the United Nations (UN) to recognise Palestine as a non-member observer state. He said that the move provided Palestinians with the opportunity to join international treaties and agencies. ...
LONDON: British lawmakers started work Friday on a draft law to regulate the nation's unruly newspapers as proposed by a major press inquiry, despite Prime Minister David Cameron's strong objection to the legislation.Cameron's government is divided on the future of the press after the Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in his Conservative-led coalition, said they would join forces with the opposition Labour party and support a new law....
WELLINGTON: The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is running out of time on climate change as seas rise, and is drafting plans including mass relocation of its people while the world procrastinates on the issue, the country's leader says.President Anote Tong said areas of Kiribati -- consisting of more than 30 coral atolls, most only a few metres above sea level -- had already been swamped by the rising ocean....
CAIRO: An Egyptian panel boycotted by Christians and liberals adopted a draft constitution Friday with an Islamist bent that activists say restricts freedom of speech and religion and limits women's rights.Chairman of the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly Hossam el-Ghiriani said the draft law, approved after a marathon session through the night, would be sent to President Mohamed Morsi and a referendum would be held within two weeks....
WASHINGTON, Nov 29, 2012 (AFP) - The United States and Israel downplayed Thursday the Palestinians' new upgraded status at the UN, saying it changed nothing in actual practice and even made peace with the Jewish state a remoter prospect.
Palestinians rejoiced at the historic albeit largely symbolic vote at the UN General Assembly in New York, firing guns into the air in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, shooting off fireworks and embracing each other with glee. ...
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29, 2012 (AFP) - The UN General Assembly on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to recognise Palestine as a non-member state, handing a major triumph to president Mahmud Abbas in the face of fierce US and Israeli opposition.
Abbas demanded the United Nations give a "birth certificate" to a Palestinian state and was rewarded with the backing of 139 countries. ...
UNITED NATIONS: Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will head to the General Assembly on Thursday with huge backing for his bid for UN recognition of statehood despite strong US and Israeli opposition. Abbas will make the case for Palestine to become a UN non-member observer state and indicate his conditions for talks with Israel in a key speech to the 193-member assembly. ...
WASHINGTON: The United States can close its detention centre in Guantanamo, Cuba, without risking the nation's security, the head of the Senate's Intelligence Committee said Wednesday. Senator Dianne Feinstein made her case while brandishing a copy of a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the suitability of US prisons to house the remaining 166 detainees currently in custody at Guantanamo....
JAKARTA, Nov 29, 2012 (AFP) - Indonesia's foreign minister said in an interview published on Thursday that new Chinese passports featuring a map laying claim to disputed islands were "counterproductive".
Although it is not a claimant itself, Indonesia has mediated in the dispute between China and several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), using its position as the bloc's biggest economy as leverage. ...
