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Kaieteur News
Turkey president urges shift in Syria policy Ankara (AFP) - Turkish President Abdullah Gul called yesterday for a shift in government policy towards Syria after years of vocal opposition to the Damascus regime. His comments came just a week ahead of peace talks aimed at ending the civil war in Syria that are due to open in Switzerland on January 22. “I am of the opinion that we should recalibrate our diplomacy and security policies given the facts in the south of our country (in Syria),” Gul told Turkish ambassadors gathered in Ankara. Turkey has long called for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad but he remains in power in the face of an increasingly fragmented rebel movement almost three years since the uprising against his regime erupted in 2011. Ankara has been accused by its Western allies of backing some of the more radical rebels in
Abdullah Gul Syria and of shipping weapons to Al-Qaeda linked groups, allegations it has strongly denied. But it does host the exiled Syrian opposition on its soil as well as hundreds of thousands of refugees f l e e i n g t h e increasingly deadly conflict. “We are pondering what to do for the realisation of a win-win situation in the region,” Gul said, saying it called for “patience,
calmness... and, when necessary, silent diplomacy. “Today’s situation, however, represents a loselose scenario for each state, regime and people of the region. Unfortunately we see there are no magic formulas to reverse this picture.” Turkey found itself increasingly isolated over the civil war when the United States decided last year not to launch air strikes against the Syrian regime after an August chemical weapons attack. The opposition National Coalition is due to debate on January 17 at a meeting in Istanbul whether to attend the so-called Geneva II peace conference. The United States and Britain have told the opposition that they will stop their support if it fails to turn up. The Syrian regime has said it will attend the negotiations but insists that Assad’s departure is not on the table.
Greek socialists to form new leftist alliance for EU elections ATHENS (Reuters) Greece’s once-mighty socialist PASOK party will team up with a new centerleft group to contest European Parliament elections in May rather than run alone, after its support was decimated by the country’s debt crisis. The party, a junior partner in the coalition government led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, has been fighting to survive as a political force since backing austerity cuts and is hoping the new alliance will help revive its fortunes. The European elections
to be held in May alongside local elections will be a key test of support for the fragile coalition, which is under pressure to show a recovery has taken root after four years of austerity. Latest polls show Samaras’ conservative New Democracy party tied with the leftist, anti-bailout Syriza party, while PASOK’s support is down to just 5-6 percent, from 43 percent when it won the national election in 2009. The socialist party will run under a joint ticket in the EU elections with the Progressive Democratic
Party, also known as “58 Initiative”, a new center-left movement formed by a group of professors, economists, businessmen and artists, PASOK spokesman O d y s s e a s Konstantinopoulos said. “There will be an alliance, there are efforts to form a big, democratic party for the EU e l e c t i o n s , ” Konstantinopoulos said. “The country needs a new socialist force which will have a balancing role and contribute to the efforts for recovery.”
House Republicans voice support for $1.1 trillion spending bill (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives voiced tentative support yesterday for a $1.1 trillion spending bill, signaling likely passage and removing one source of potential drama ahead of the 2014 elections. The 1,582-page measure provides a $45 billion increase in military and domestic spending to ease automatic “sequester” budget cuts and about $85 billion in Afghanistan war funding this fiscal year. It is scheduled for a vote in the Republicancontrolled House today, and
consideration later this week by the Democratic-controlled Senate. The House yesterday approved by voice vote a stop-gap measure to extend current funding for three days past midnight today deadline to allow more time for passage of the “omnibus” spending bill. Enactment will eliminate through September 30 the threat of another government shutdown like the 16-day standoff in October that caused the public’s opinion of Congress to plumb new depths in polls. The bill adds funding for some Democratic priorities
such as a $1 billion increase in the Head Start pre-school education program for the poor, but Republicans scored a partial victory when negotiators denied a funding increase for implementation of “Obamacare” health insurance reforms. Republicans also succeeded in denying funds for highspeed rail projects and for International Monetary Fund reforms. The bill also contains a provision to ensure that the government can continue efforts to dispose of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Wednesday January 15, 2014
Israel minister angers US with Kerry peace push diatribe
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) listens as US Secretary of State John Kerry. (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski) Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel’s defence minister accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of an “incomprehensible obsession” with his push for Middle East peace, drawing an angry response from the Jewish state’s chief ally yesterday. The US State Department described Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon’s comments as “offensive,” in a mark of the degree of outrage in Washington at the latest public spat between the two allies, which follows a major row over Iran policy. Israel’s top-selling newspaper Yediot Aharonot quoted Yaalon as expressing
hope that Kerry, who has visited the region 10 times since taking office in February 2013, would end his peace push and focus his energies elsewhere. “The American plan for security arrangements that was shown to us isn’t worth the paper it was written on,” Yaalon was quoted as saying in private conversations with Israeli officials, accusing Kerry of being naive and implying he is a nuisance. The State Department said Yaalon’s reported remarks were “inappropriate” for a minister in the government of a close ally. “The remarks of the
defence minister, if accurate, are offensive and inappropriate especially given all that the United States is doing to support Israel’s security needs,” spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki told reporters. Psaki said Kerry and his team “have been working day and night to try to promote a secure peace for Israel because of the Secretary’s deep concern for Israel’s future. “To question his motives and distort his proposals is not something we would expect from the defence minister of a close ally,” she said.
UN cuts rations for a million Zimbabweans Harare (AFP) - Around a million poverty-stricken Zimbabweans face hunger after the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced yesterday it was cutting food rations due to a cash crunch. “We’d been hoping to have scaled up our seasonal relief operations... in the coming months with distributions of food and, in some areas, cash,” Tomson Phiri, WFP spokesman in Zimbabwe, said as the country enters the peak of the so-called hunger season. But “we’ve had to cut rations for one million of our beneficiaries in recent months and there are likely to be deeper cuts as from next month,” Phiri said in a statement. At least 2.2 million people — a quarter of Zimbabwe’s rural population — will need food aid until the next harvest in May, according to
Zimbabwean children wait for food. (AFP Photo/Alexander Joe) estimates by aid agencies and government departments. Food prices have doubled since last year, forcing many more into hardship, according to the WFP. The UN food agency needs $80 million to feed
hungry Zimbabweans in the next six months. So far it has just $20 million and is working at raising the remaining $60 million, WFP regional spokesman David Orr told AFP in Johannesburg.