Welsh miners’ families face their loss after hopes of rescue are dashed
September 17, 2011 No Comment
Grief and sadness hangs over the valleys as the community around Gleision colliery mourns its loss As so often, it wasn’t the despair that at first devastated. Not at first. It was the hope. Hope that had sprung almost certainly, if subconsciously, from last autumn in the Atacama desert, when 33 long-trapped Chilean miners were pulled to safety in the world’s feelgood event of 2010. The slow, anguished extinguishing of that hope, the sombre voices tolling ever-worse news every few hours on Friday, is the story of the Gleision disaster. The deaths, the grim sudden deaths in an onrush of old, cold, sludgy water, are bad enough, but they were quick. The fractious angst for the families as Friday progressed was something else. According to Peter Hain, the local MP, who had been speaking to them for much of that day, after news of the fourth body was announced they simply “fled” the community centre in Rhos. On Saturday Rhos lay near-silent. Desultory to-camera pieces from the media stragglers were about the only signs of life. Once hope is gone, there is retreat. Hain was throughout, he told the Observer , a reluctant pessimist. “Even on Thursday night, I had the feeling this didn’t look good. There was just … something. I hope I’m not just being wise after the event: I was gloomy throughout. I had a glimmer of more hope at midday when it was reported that the oxygen levels looked good, there was no methane, but … still. “And I’d actually said, after one of the conferences on the Thursday night, that the police and emergency services were communicating such passion that it may give false hope: people would read that as conviction of success. It wasn’t, and nothing was, their fault: they were simply conveying a true and professional determination. I’d been escorted at one stage up there, to the mouth of the mine, and was simply astonished not just at the number of emergency workers but their commitment. I managed to speak to one, and he said: ‘But don’t you understand, this is my passion. It is my job, my determination, to get these men out’.” They didn’t. And now it turns out that they could not have, not alive anyway, although perhaps the sight of so many big filthy knackered men going back again and again into a swampy burrow fraught with new menace,, 12 hours a stint, gave some solace to those slowly losing hope: the stoic bravery of our specialist emergency teams is one of the few good things to emerge from this week in Swansea, and an image that will linger. But the hope had gone by early evening on Friday, and its loss was obvious. In the bars that straddle and straggle the A4064, a filthy meander of an arterial route through shopping centres, which suddenly, gloriously, trips into the foothills of the Swansea Valley proper – a place of dappled sun and babbled brooks and, all but hidden on one hillside, a small drift-mine – there was a strange mood abroad. People were getting on with getting drunk. In three places, at least, however, the raucousness stopped for the news bulletins. Older patrons listened intently; younger ones were told to pipe down. “I don’t know how they could do it,” half-whispered Al, 19, as he followed the screen. “That space, that dark. I suppose at least they had a job.” Around in the snugger of the bars, old Mary had been following the telly all day, far more than the younger generations. “There’s still something about the mines, and the young people don’t seem to know it. Not their fault probably. We grew up with the last of them, or almost the last of them. And then … this. Brave men and probably proud. I think I knew this morning, when they pulled the first one out.” I was told that David Powell, known as Dai Bull, one of those who died, took fine pride in the workings of the Gleision pit, and would wander up on days off – the tiny half-hidden entrance, past hedgerows and holly, and horses in fieldsand, of course in winter, snow, was visible from his house below – to check pumps, valves, safety, sumps, and the manageability of flowing water within a hillside. This was not a shambles of a mine. Safety measures, particularly from gas, are a world away from thoseVictorian/Edwardian horrors. But guessing hidden hillside water movements is famously unpredictable. Powell’s son escaped, and spent the day comforting other relatives. Whether he goes, ever, back into a pit … whether drift-mines can continue, is a question being asked by some who don’t really know. “I am very resistant,” insists Hain, “to what seems to be becoming a bit of a media issue at the moment, which is: should these mines be closed? I have between 200 and 300 in my constituency doing this, and it’s a well-paying job, they can earn up to £30,000, a huge wage for these parts, and they have justified pride, and it’s in an area where there can be 10 people chasing one job. “So, if a man chooses to do this, I’d rather he was doing it in my constituency, with proper safety standards, despite what has just happened, rather than some unregulated part of the world fraught with even more danger.” He dismissed instantly, as a “red herring”, some newish allegations about disturbance of water tables by a controversial pipeline (built when he was Welsh secretary) through, essentially, most of his country east from Milford Haven – “I was involved with all that, know all about it, and it’s not to blame” – and has his own theories about Thursday’s disaster, but will wait a little, at least while inquiries continue, to reveal them. For the families the inquiry takes second place. They have their men to bury and tears to shed. The family of Phillip Hill went to the mine to pay their respects. They laid their own floral tributes and paused for a few moments, comforting each other in their grief. Hill’s daughter, Kyla, left a bunch of flowers with a card, which said: “Hi dad, I love and miss you forever.” Another card from the family said: “Thank you for being part of our lives. Our girls will be safe with me. Miss you always. Donna x Meg.” Among the other people leaving tributes to the four men were the widow and daughters of a miner also killed underground. On a card they wrote: “To the families of miners lost. May you find courage and strength over the coming days, months and years ahead. Our sincere sympathy and our thoughts are with you. From the wife and daughters of Alan Jones (killed in Blaenant Colliery, Crynant, 1976).” Wales Mining Mining Coal Euan Ferguson guardian.co.uk
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As Bernie Sanders says in that clip, we’re picking winners and losers. Sure we are. And the Republicans are working hard to make solar energy a big loser. In the case of Solyndra, they’re also hoping to smear the Obama administration with the “crony politician” label at the same time. This Solyndra “story” is a non-story and just another smear, but as digby points out : Progressives are very concerned that the right isn’t out there misinforming the rest of the public and go to great lengths to “set the record straight.” By contrast, during the Bush years, when liberals criticized the president, the other side would say “Yeah. So what? He did the right thing.” They’d stage a symbolic hissy fit every once in a while to prove their moral/patriotic bonafides, usually over a perceived slight from a hippie somewhere, but they really didn’t care if the left “understood” what they were doing or if they approved. In fact, they consciously try to offend them. It’s not limited to the Bush years. They still do it, every single day. Cheer the death of a hypothetical 30-year old? It’s totally justified because “Obamacare is socialism.” Climb into bed with Big Pharma? No problem, as long as you feign outrage that someone would dare suggest you can be bought for a mere $5,000. Add to that the right-wing custom of ritual defamation , and the Solyndra smears begin to make more sense, particularly when it’s clear what constituencies the right serves. Still, as a lefty-type, it seems to me that facts do and should matter, so here is the Solyndra non-story/scandal in a nutshell, summarized from this Think Progress timeline . The Solyndra loan guarantee process began in 2006, under the Bush administration, as part of a loan guarantee program under the newly-passed Energy Policy Act of 2006. It took three years for those loan guarantees to be approved, despite the efforts of the Bush administration to push the process in order to have something to show for their energy policy efforts. In that three-year period, the market changed for alternatives to silicon-based solar panels after China flooded the market with cheap silicon-based panels. Free markets being what they are, Solyndra failed. There it is, in a nutshell. The beginning, middle and end of the Solyndra story. There is no “there”, there, despite all the concern trolling going on in the right-wing nutosphere. It is a tale of free markets. Now that you know the real story, please go read Dave Johnson’s post on the 5 biggest right-wing lies about Solyndra. And remember the biggest lie: Something bad happened . The right has been trying to push the idea that something bad has happened involving Solyndra. They are calling it a “scandal.” But it is entirely a manufactured scandal, like those from the Clinton era. This is what they do. Nothing bad happened. The supposed campaign donor/investor is not an investor. The timing of the loan is not suspect, it followed the proper, transparent, accountable procedures. The loan assisted the development of a promising technology. The green-energy industry stands to create millions of jobs and trillions of dollars for the countries that are smart enough now to make the investments that help them grab a chunk of it. The loan was good for the country, even though one company went bankrupt. But by the time this smear is refuted, five more will have taken its place. If I may be so bold, allow me to point to another “scandal” brewing right now. There’s LightSquared , which is building a wireless broadband network that might compete with established corporate interests , like AT&T and Verizon. Reality, courtesy of Daily Kos : So the White House allegedly asked Shelton to to say (1) that he supports commercial wireless broadband and (2) that he would seek to expedite the Pentagon’s review of the technology used by LightSquared. So Republicans are pissed off that the Obama administration might be trying to fast track the regulatory approval process. Uh, isn’t that exactly what they have been demanding ever since President Obama took office? A day doesn’t go by that you don’t hear some Republican or another demand that President Obama lift the regulatory burden on America’s “job creators.” But as soon as there’s a rumor that President Obama may have helped a “job creator” clear one of those regulatory hurdles, it’s proof that he’s corrupt—even though he was just doing what Republicans said they wanted him to do in the first place. He’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Winners and losers. They’re being chosen, and the right wing is simply trying to tilt the table toward their winners. Believe it. Let this clip from Morning Joe sink in, where that shill Jim Cramer is arguing for oil and gas development over solar. Click here to view this media [h/t Heather]
Continue reading …Taranto: E.J. ‘Baghdad Bob’ Dionne Sees Dark Days for GOP In Winning Weiner’s House Seat
September 17, 2011 No Comment
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's opinion section calls Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne “Baghdad Bob” for fun. On September 9 , as Taranto mocked Dionne's Strobe-Talbott-on-the-Cold-War routine on the War on Terror (after all that U.S. vigilance, there was never a threat). Then he turned to the special election to replace Congressman Anthony Weiner in New York's Ninth District, where Democrat David Weprin scandalized the locals with a “terrorist-y” ad of a jet menacing the New York skyline. Taranto joked: “But don't worry. If Weprin loses next week, we're sure Baghdad Bob will be ready to explain why it's really a triumph for liberalism.” Incredibly, Dionne did exactly that, writing that the NY-9 victory would lead to overconfidence, no confrontation with the ruinous Tea Party, and a Rick Perry candidacy that never collides with the reasonable middle:
Continue reading …Liberal Democrats vow to fight rightwing policies of ‘ruthless’ Tories
September 17, 2011 No Comment
Nick Clegg signals combative approach to coalition describing PM’s party as political enemies who must be taken on Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats have vowed to face down “ruthless” and “extreme” forces in the Tory party to protect the British people from right-wing policies that would widen inequality and benefit the rich. At a rally on Saturday night to open his party’s annual conference in Birmingham, Clegg underlined the Lib Dems’ newly combative approach to the coalition, describing David Cameron’s party as “political enemies” who must be taken on when necessary in the national interest. After a traumatic year during which the Lib Dems’ popularity has plummeted and their leader has been accused of abandoning his party’s principles, Clegg struck a markedly more assertive note. While trumpeting his party’s successes so far in influencing health and tax policies, he said it was more prepared than ever to “fight tooth and nail” for what was right. “We are prepared to be awkward,” he said. “We are not here to make things easy. We’re here to put things right.” In an interview with the Observer , his deputy Simon Hughes goes further, telling the Conservatives they have no mandate to drive through a rightwing agenda. Hughes says the Tories have shown themselves to be “ruthless” operators in the first 16 months of the coalition over the referendum on electoral reform and boundary changes and says the resurgent right of the party is “extreme” on issues such as Europe and tax. He says Tories must come to their senses and realise that they did not win the last election – and that they rely on the Lib Dems for power. “Not only did they not win but they got a third of those who voted,” he said. “The Tory party is not the dominant party in British politics that it used to be. It is absolutely not the dominant force in Scotland and Wales that it used to be. The Tory right have forgotten that.” In a rebuff to Conservative hardliners he adds: “There is absolutely no majority in parliament for your views. If there is a coalition government in the national interest then extreme remedies and answers are not appropriate.” The comments are bound to infuriate Cnservatives as the conference season opens. Many Tories are beginning to resent profoundly the way the Lib Dems are already watering down Tory changes on health and education and blocking Cameron from developing a more hardline approach on Europe. Clegg and his ministers are now convinced they can claw back some of their pre-election popularity if they can demonstrate that they are reining in the Conservatives and stamping their own mark on government. Deep division between the coalition partners will surface in Birmingham over tax, welfare, health, pensions and last month’s riots. The party leadership will announce it will veto the abolition of the 50p tax rate for people earning over £150,000 – a key demand of the Tory right – unless and until other measures, such as a mansion tax, are imposed. It will also unveil plans to exempt the first £12,500 of earnings from tax, raising the target from its current level of £10,000. Hughes says the party has to make the fight against wage inequality in the private sector a key theme. He said he is pushing hard for measures to limit the gap between the highest and lowest paid staff in the private sector. “The differentials are obscene and you really cannot just stand by,” he said. “Liberal Democrats have to be clear. If Labour is really relaxed about the stinking rich, some of us are not relaxed about it.” Hughes also insisted that reform of party funding was essential to stop the Conservatives running ruthless campaigns – as they had against electoral reform. “The Tories can be nastier – with a result – if they are allowed to collect more and more money legitimately,” he
Continue reading …Pinkerton: ‘There’s a Strange Thing Happening in the Media’ – Liberals Have Concluded Obama’s a ‘Turkey’
September 17, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters has been reporting, Barack Obama's sycophants in the press are really starting to lose that loving feeling. Driving this point home was the “American Conservative's” Jim Pinkerton Saturday who said on “Fox News Watch,” “There’s a strange thing happening in the media which is, I think, liberalism has sort of concluded that Obama is kind of a turkey, and they're sort of trying to distance themselves from him” (video follows with transcript and commentary): JIM PINKERTON: There’s a strange thing happening in the media which is, I think, liberalism has sort of concluded that Obama is kind of a turkey, and they're sort of trying to distance themselves from him. Carville is a great example of this. It's not that they’re Republicans, it’s not that they like Republicans any better. We'll get to that later. It’s that when you see, for example, Ron Suskind, who’s a well-known author, no conservative as far as I can tell, talking about what a feckless and ineffective economic policy President Obama has enacted. He can't even keep track of his own treasury secretary. Something is breaking loose in terms of the liberal lockstep. Pinkerton was referring to a CNN.com op-ed written by former Clinton adviser James Carville in which the “Ragin Cajun” surprising said: People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic. The Suskind reference was to an upcoming book by the author excerpted by the Washington Post Friday chronicling serious problems within Obama's economic team. But I digress: JON SCOTT, HOST: You're getting nods from Judy here. You agree? JUDITH MILLER: Yeah, I didn't expect to agree with Jim on this one, but I have to say that when you hear Ron Brownstein and other people say, “You know? This really raises questions about how effective a leader Obama.” Or the other thing I heard on Friday on “Morning Joe” quoting Chuck Todd as saying, asking, “Gosh – is he even serious about this American jobs bill? I mean, is this, is this not just a kind of political talking point?” There's something going on at the base. National Journal's Ron Brownstein wrote Monday about the nation's “deepening doubts about President Obama’s economic agenda.” That's a lot of former Obama fans in one week concluding he's “kind of a turkey.”
Continue reading …Met’s threats to Guardian are ‘direct attack on free press’, say lawyers
September 17, 2011 No Comment
Critics round on police for using Offical Secrets Act to try to force Guardian to reveal source of phone-hacking story Leading journalists and lawyers on Saturday accused Scotland Yard of launching “a direct attack on a free press” after it invoked the Official Secrets Act in an attempt to force journalists to reveal their sources. Lawyers acting for the Metropolitan Police will on Friday apply for an order under the 1989 act requiring the Guardian to hand over documents that could identify the source of information for several articles published as part of the newspaper’s investigation into phone hacking. The Society of Editors on Saturday joined the Index on Censorship in criticising the legal manoeuvre, while a leading QC suggested it could breach human rights laws. “Scotland Yard’s outrageous and unjustified attempt to force the Guardian to reveal its sources in its phone-hacking investigation is a direct attack on a free press,” said John Kampfner, chief executive of Index on Censorship. “This is a shocking move to intimidate the media using the Official Secrets Act, one of the state’s most draconian pieces of legislation.” Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, described the Met’s behaviour as “outrageous, pointless and baffling”. He said: “The Official Secrets Act is designed to protect national security, so there is no justification in this case. The law, and particularly the Human Rights Act, is supposed to protect journalists’ sources.” Sir Harold Evans, former editor of the Sunday Times and Times , branded the Met’s move “ridiculous”. Writing in today’s Observer, he says : “I cannot believe that the attorney general will let this case of uniformed bullying go forward” and claimed that “without the ability and determination of the press to protect sources many wrongs would go undetected and unpunished”. Evans told the Observer the Official Secrets Act was never intended for such use. “This is a cavalier abuse of an act intended to protect national security, not to cover up negligence and corruption, least of all to justify an assault on the very newspaper that exposed the original crime while the police, politicians and the press walked by.” John Cooper, a leading human rights lawyer and visiting professor at Cardiff University, echoed Evans’s concerns. “In my view this is a misuse of the 1989 act,” Cooper said. “Fundamentally the act was designed to prevent espionage. In extreme cases it can be used to prevent police officers tipping off criminals about police investigations or from selling their stories. In this instance none of this is suggested, and many believe what was done was in the public interest.” Cooper added: “The police action is very likely to conflict with article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of speech.” Scotland Yard yesterday defended its attempt to force the paper to reveal its confidential sources, claiming it was important to preserve the integrity of its high-profile investigation into phone hacking, Operation Weeting. “Operation Weeting is one of the MPS’s most high-profile and sensitive investigations, so of course we should take concerns of leaks seriously to ensure that public interest is protected by ensuring there is no further potential compromise,” the Met said in a statement. The police are said to be seeking the source of the Guardian ‘s report disclosing that the mobile phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler had been hacked. The Met said it was not seeking to use the law “to prevent whistle blowing or investigative journalism that is in the public interest”. “We pay tribute to the Guardian ‘s unwavering determination to expose the hacking scandal and their challenge around the initial police response,” it said. “We also recognise the important public interest of whistle blowing and investigative reporting. However, neither is apparent in this case. This is an investigation into the alleged gratuitous release of information that is not in the public interest.” Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger strongly condemned the move as “vindictive and disproportionate”, and said the paper would resist it “to the utmost”. A Guardian reporter, Amelia Hill, has been interviewed under caution by Scotland Yard over the alleged leaks. A 51-year-old detective constable was arrested and bailed last month in connection with the investigation. Press freedom The Guardian Phone hacking Official Secrets Act Metropolitan police Police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Freedom of speech Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk
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Glee star Jane Lynch won't be the first gay activist to host the Emmy awards show on Sunday night (Ellen DeGeneres did in 2005).
Continue reading …Silvio Berlusconi wiretaps reveal boast of spending night with eight women
September 17, 2011 No Comment
Conversations show that Italian PM resented meetings with the Pope and world leaders interfering with his partying Magistrates investigating an alleged prostitution ring in Italy have published wiretaps in which Silvio Berlusconi boasts of spending the night with eight women and complains that meetings with Gordon Brown and the Pope are interfering with his partying. The wiretaps were released at the conclusion of an investigation into entrepreneur Gianpaolo Tarantini, who is accused of paying women to sleep with Berlusconi, 74, at his homes in 2008 and 2009. The Italian prime minister is not under investigation, although the wiretaps throw doubt on Berlusconi’s claims that he has never paid for sex. “They are all well provided for,” Berlusconi tells Tarantini of the girls passing through his Rome residence in one of the thousands of recorded conversations released, which filled Italian newspapers on Saturday. In another conversation, a woman named Vanessa Di Meglio sends a text from Berlusconi’s residence to Tarantini at 5.52am asking “Who pays? Do we ask him or you?” Tarantini’s supply of women first made the headlines thanks to the revelations of prostitute Patrizia D’Addario, who claimed Tarantini recruited her to have sex with Berlusconi. A second scandal has since erupted over Berlusconi’s subsequent parties at his villa near Milan, with the prime minister on trial accused of paying underage Moroccan dancer Karima El Mahroug for sex. The newly published wiretaps give startling insight into Berlusconi’s sexual appetites. “Last night I had a queue outside the door of the bedroom… There were 11… I only did eight because I could not do it anymore,” Berlusconi told Tarantini in 2009. “Listen, all the beds are full here… this lot won’t go home, even at gunpoint.” Berlusconi, who boasted to one TV showgirl that he was only “prime minister in my spare time”, told Tarantini in September 2008 that he needed to reduce the flow of women since he had a “terrible week” ahead seeing Pope Benedict, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown. Berlusconi has long insisted that his private parties are informal but elegant affairs, that extend only as far as joke telling and songs, but is revealed on the tapes as putting pressure on Tarantini and his associates to conjure up beautiful female guests. He is heard complaining he will need a caravan to pick up all the girls, while in another conversation Tarantini says to a colleague: “Find a whore, please.” Tarantini, an entrepreneur from Bari who sold prosthetic limbs before meeting Berlusconi in 2008, quickly became a confidant of the prime minister. “Listen Gianpaolo, now we need at most two each,” said Berlusconi in one call. “Because now I want that you have yours, otherwise I will always feel I am in your debt. Then we can trade. After all, the pussy needs to go around.” Berlusconi also sought to impress his female guests by inviting senior managers from his cinema production company and from state TV network RAI. “These are people who can get jobs for whoever they want,” he told Tarantini. “Therefore the girls will get the idea that they are in front of men who can decide their destiny.” Tarantini is suspected of procuring women for other top officials, including a magistrate and a manager at state controlled defence group Finmeccanica. In a separate probe, he has also been arrested on suspicion of seeking to blackmail Berlusconi through an intermediary in return for keeping the lid on details of his procurement of women. Berlusconi has claimed the money he paid out, believed to be more than ¤500,000, was merely financial assistance. In a letter published in the newspaper Il Foglio , Berlusconi hit back at the latest wiretaps, claiming: “My private life is not a crime, my lifestyle may or may not please, it is personal, reserved and irreproachable.” Opposition leaders meanwhile demanded an inquiry into suggestions in the wiretaps that Berlusconi used government aircraft to ferry prostitutes to his parties. “Italy, with its grave problems cannot allow itself an executive which governs in its spare time. The time for words is over, Berlusconi must go to the Italian president and resign,” said Davide Zoggia, an official for the opposition Democratic Party. Already in trouble in the polls after pushing through a painful austerity budget, Berlusconi’s political support took another blow over the weekend as his crucial partner Umberto Bossi, head of the Northern League party, warned that the administration would not make it to the end of its mandate in 2013. Encouraging support, however, came from Russia, where Vladimir Putin said: “They criticise [Berlusconi] because they are jealous.” Silvio Berlusconi Italy Europe Tom Kington guardian.co.uk
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President Abbas takes case for statehood to the Security Council as negotiators say US response was ‘the final straw’ Palestinian negotiators accused Washington of failing to offer measures that might have headed off a looming diplomatic crisis over UN recognition of a Palestinian state. A senior official said US proposals had been the “final straw” that led to the decision to go to the UN. Nabil Shaath, a member of the team headed by President Mahmoud Abbas that left for New York said he “gulped” when he saw the proposal presented by the US team of David Hale and Dennis Ross. “This was the statement supposed to persuade Abu Mazen [Abbas] not to go?” he said. There was no mention of Israeli settlements, of the future of Jerusalem or of refugees. It also included the demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. The US, he added, was “not a neutral observer, but a strategic ally of Israel”. His claim came as British officials said they were still undecided on how they would vote either at the UN Security Council later this week or in the subsequent vote in the UN’s General Assembly that is widely expected to grant Palestine enhanced status at the UN. Abbas will lodge the formal application for Palestine to be admitted to the UN as an independent state based on the borders of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in the coming week. The Palestinians’ resolve to resist intense pressure from the US, the European Union and Israel has set it on a collision course whose repercussions could be far-reaching. Among the threats of retaliation made by Israeli ministers are tearing up the Oslo accords, under which the Palestinian Authority was given control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, annexing West Bank settlements to Israel and withholding tax revenues which Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians. But, Shaath said, “there will not be any rowing back, reticence or hesitation in completing our mission of seeking international support for recognition of our independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders.” He added: “This is the moment of truth.” The Palestinians were still prepared to look at fresh proposals for a return to peace talks, but “after all the discussions, negotiations, threats, incentives and meetings of the past two to three weeks” they were now committed to going to the security council. Jerusalem and Ramallah have been the scene of frenetic diplomatic activity in the past week. In addition to Hale and Ross, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Middle East envoy Tony Blair have been attempting to formulate proposals to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table. Meetings with the US delegation had continued until “the last minutes before the president’s speech”, said Shaath. As well as rounding on the Americans, he dismissed Blair’s efforts to craft a statement by the Quartet on the Middle East (the US, EU, UN and Russia) as a framework for restarting talks. “Mr Blair doesn’t sound like a neutral interlocutor, he sounds very much like an Israeli diplomat sometimes,” he said. In contrast, “the Europeans have played a much more serious and positive game. The Europeans were seriously engaged.” But the EU had failed to unite around a common position and “they are also being threatened by the US”, he said. The Palestinian team was not alarmed by the prospect of the US withholding funding in the aftermath of their approach to the UN. “To tell you the truth we’re not concerned. You don’t barter for your rights for money,” he said. Arab states had pledged to make up any shortfall, and “the Europeans have assured us they won’t cut our funds, so have the Japanese”. Shaath said the Palestinians had only two serious options. One was to go back to war, “which we don’t want. There is nobody planning violence on this side, but Netanyahu would love to make the world believe that Israel is threatened. We are not going back to violence – it’s too costly for us and the Israelis”. The other was to go to the international community to seek support for a Palestinian state. The US said it continued to be committed to a return to talks. “What we are focused on is… getting them back to the table so that they can address the many final status issues and reach a comprehensive peace agreement that results in two states living side by side,” a State Department spokesman said. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said: “When the Palestinian Authority will abandon these futile and unilateral measures at the UN, it will find Israel to be a genuine partner for direct peace negotiations.” Palestinian territories Mahmoud Abbas Israel Middle East peace talks United Nations Tony Blair Binyamin Netanyahu US foreign policy Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
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