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YALE DAILY NEWS · MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
WORLD
“Hatred is blind, as well as love.” OSCAR WILDE IRISH WRITER AND POET
Greece faces decisive votes BY DEMETRIS NELLAS ASSOCIATED PRESS ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s coalition government is facing two crucial votes this week in its effort to secure a portion of a bailout loan by creditors that will stave off threatened bankruptcy. Along with the inevitable strikes that are expected at least through Thursday, and possibly throughout the week, the coalition has to rein in its own fractious MPs, with the smaller partner saying it will vote against the bill and the other two parties facing possible dissent within their ranks. Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis reiterated his opposition to further cuts in wages, pensions, benefits and other labor market
reforms contained in the omnibus bill after a late Sunday meeting with conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. This means he will vote against the whole bill, since the government has decided to place all the bill’s provisions in a single article in a “take it or leave it” message to the MPs. “It is not my intention to cause a fracture in the government,” said Kouvelis, who repeated that his party will not leave the government and will vote for the 2013 budget, which is contingent upon the spending cuts envisaged in the omnibus bill. A vote on the omnibus bill will most likely take place on Thursday and the budget vote will take place at midnight on Sunday. Usually, Greece voted on the budget at the last session before Christ-
mas recess but has brought the vote forward and accelerated the debating schedule at the insistence of its Eurozone partners, who said it should do so before the meeting of Eurozone finance ministers on Nov. 12. Passage of the omnibus bill and the budget is necessary for Greece to finally get a delayed euro 31.5 billion installment from the bailout aid, without which, as prime minister Samaras has said, the country will go bankrupt in mid-November. Evangelos Venizelos, the socialist leader, will meet with his own deputies Monday to brief them of the final contents of the bill and to prod them to vote for it. Party officials were saying they expected about six dissidents.
It is not my intention to cause a fracture in the government. FOTIS KOUVELIS Leader, Democratic Left
KOSTAS TSIRONIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fotis Kouvelis, whose Democratic Left Party is a partner in Greece’s governing coalition, addresses the media after meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
The coalition government has 175 MPs in the 300-member parliament, including 127 from conservative New Democracy, 32 from socialist PASOK and 16 from the Democratic Left. Four MPs of the three parties have recently declared themselves independent. The bills only need a simple majority of those present to pass and the Democratic Left’s opposition to the bill should not threaten its passage. Also, dissidents are being pressed to abstain from the vote, which would lower the number of votes needed for passage. But a passage with fewer than 151 votes would be a big blow to the coalition government and reinforce the opposition’s argument that it lacks legitimacy to pass such measures. Alexis Tsipras, leader of the main opposition Radical Left Coalition, on Sunday called for elections as the only way out. His party is leading recent opinion polls.
Abbas violates refugee taboo BY AMY TEIBEL ASSOCIATED PRESS JERUSALEM —The Palestinian president has set off a strident debate by shattering a once-inviolable taboo, publicly suggesting his people would have to relinquish claims to ancestral homes in Israel. Mahmoud Abbas’ comments on the refugee issue, made in an interview on Israeli TV over the weekend, triggered hot responses from Palestinians and Israelis alike. In Israel, it suddenly put the long-sidelined issue of peace talks back in the Israeli public’s consciousness ahead of parliamentary elections. Palestinians have maintained for six decades that Arabs who either fled or were expelled from their homes during the fighting that followed Israel’s 1948 creation, as well as all their descendants, all have the right to reclaim former properties in what is now Israel. Israel says a mass return of these people, believed to number some 5 million, would spell the end of Israel as the Jewish state. Also, Israel rejects the concept of a legal “right of return.”
In the interview, Abbas was asked about his birthplace of Safed — now a town in northern Israel. He told the interviewer that while he would like to visit, he doesn’t claim the right to live there. “I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah (in the West Bank). I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine. And the other parts is Israel,” Abbas said in English. “I want to see Safed. It is my right to see it, but not to live there,” he said.
President Abbas is a failure … He is a man who makes concessions for free. IYAD ALOTOL Government employee, Rammallah The comments were widely seen as an acknowledgment that return of all the refugees would be impossible. While Palestinian officials privately acknowledge that, they have been reluctant to say so in public. His adviser, Nimr Hammad, said Abbas was being “realistic.”
“He knows he can’t bring back 5.5 million Palestinian refugees to Israel,” Hammad said. Some West Bank Palestinians were disappointed that their leader had made an overture to Israel without receiving any gestures in exchange. “President Abbas is a failure,” said Iyad Alotol, a government employee in Ramallah. “He is ceding the right of return without getting anything from the Israelis. He is a man who makes concessions for free.” Abbas, an outspoken proponent of a diplomatic solution with Israel, has little to show for his efforts. He has seen his popularity steadily decline in the West Bank, and in 2007, he lost control of the Gaza Strip to the rival Islamic militant Hamas. Condemnation of Abbas predictably was harsh in Gaza. Hamas rejects negotiations and believe only violence will persuade Israel to give up captured territory. Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh termed Abbas’ remarks “extremely dangerous.” At demonstrations in Gaza on Saturday, some protesters burned posters of a smiling Abbas, and others emblazoned the word “traitor” on posters of the Palestinian leader.
HATEM MOUSSA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians protest against president Mahmoud Abbas in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip.
Communists endorse Bo Xilai’s expulsion BY LOUISE WATT ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist elite have endorsed the expulsion of former high-flying politician Bo Xilai and approved final preparations for the party’s upcoming congress. The closed-door meeting of the Central Committee that ended Sunday was the last before Communist Party leader Hu Jintao and other government officials begin to cede power to Vice President Xi Jinping and others at the congress, which opens Thursday. The Central Committee said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency that it endorsed decisions to expel Bo and former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun from the Communist Party. Bo is accused of a range of misdeeds including covering up his wife’s murder of a British businessman. Liu faces corruption charges. Xinhua said Hu presided over the meeting and delivered a work report. It said Xi introduced a report of the current five-year session and an amendment to the party charter, both of which will be discussed at the congress. It gave no details. The leadership transition takes place as slowing economic growth in China is exacerbating public ill feelings over corruption, social injustice and policies that favor state-run companies and the elite over private enterprise and ordinary citizens. Abroad, China’s attempts to build good relations with neighbors have been set back by territorial spats with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, and Beijing feels hemmed in by a U.S. push to divert more military resources to Asia. The Central Committee applauded its performance over the past five years. “Faced with a complicated international environment and an arduous task of stable reform and development, the entire party under General Secretary Hu Jintao … withstood the test of all types of difficulties and risks.”
XINHUA, LI XUERE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hu Jintao addresses the Seventh Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee in Beijing. It said the economy had grown stably and rapidly, there had been major progress on reform and opening-up, and people’s living conditions had improved remarkably. The central committee did not signal any shifts in economic policies but said it would continue to shift the growth model to one more driven by domestic demand. The policy-setting committee also promoted two generals to the party commission that oversees the military: air force Gen. Xu Qiliang and Gen. Fan Changlong, a career soldier who runs the Jinan Military Area Command and took part in relief efforts after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. The Central Committee is comprised of about 370 people from the upper ranks of the party, government and military. Bo’s ouster earlier this year widened rifts within a leadership that likes to project an image of unity. It also complicated the bargaining over the roster of new leaders.