|
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas were to meet on Monday on the
heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s latest bid to
boost the peace process. A few hours before the talks Olmert held a
second meeting in less than 48 hours with Rice, who has urged Israel
to take more concrete steps to ease movement and access for
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
--AFP
MEXICO CITY: Sixty gunmen stormed
a ranch, killing 10 people, in the most deadly attack in a new surge
of organized crime across Mexico. Gunmen with automatic weapons
stormed the ranch of prominent landowner Rogaciano Alba Alvarez, who
was the target of two attacks in two days, authorities said. Six
people were wounded in the assault on the ranch in Petatlan,
Guerrero state. Hitmen arrived at the Alba ranch in six pickup
trucks and opened fire with AK-47s, killing the ranch workers.
--AFP
BELGRADE: The UN peacekeeping
chief Jean-Marie Guehenno on Sunday called on Kosovo Serb leaders to
respect law and order as violence is not a way to solve problems.
Guehenno, the UN undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations,
made the appeal after meeting the presidents of northern Kosovo
Serb-majority municipalities in the Kosovo flashpoint town of
Mitrovica, Serbia’s official news agency Tanjug reported. The UN
Security Council Resolution 1244 is still in effect and all
practical endeavors must be based on that document, Guehenno said.
--Xinhua
SYDNEY: Australia will need
several years of heavy rainfall to reverse the devastating effects
of a drought that has battered farm production, the Bureau of
Meteorology said in a report received Monday. The report came
despite months of drenching rains spawned by the La Niña weather
phenomenon in the agricultural east of the country that sparked
optimism that the worst drought in 100 years might at last be over,
but latest findings show that the rain needed to end the “big
dry,” is not in sight.
--AFP
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Catholics
on Monday won the right to mount a legal battle against a government
ban on the use of the word “Allah” as a translation for
“God” in their main publication. The Muslim-dominated government
last year declared that the word could only be used by Muslims and
threatened to close down the Herald newspaper if it defied the
prohibition. The newspaper, which features articles written in
English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay, is circulated among the
country’s 850,000 Catholics.
--AFP
|
