Click on Link to download or play MP3 file || 3 m 55s || 3.59 MB
||
Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Thursday November 10, 2011
In the news today, Shimon Peres calls on Palestinian leaders to resume peace talks with Israel and an Egyptian gas pipeline is hit by explosions for the seventh time this year, these stories and more coming up; so stay tuned.
During the memorial ceremony of former Israeli Prime Minister ‘Yitzhak Rabin’, Israeli president, Shimon Peres called on his Palestinian counterparts to resume peace talks in order to resolve all issues that are hindering the “peace process”.
He went on to add “Peace cannot be achieved at the United Nations,” adding that “The UN cannot bring independence to the Palestinians and security to Israel.”
Commenting on Peres’s statements, Chief Palestinian negotiator, Dr Saeb Erekat, said to Ma’an News Agency “the key to starting peace talks is very clear; it is based on Israel stopping all settlement activates, and to be committed to the two-state solution.”
Staying in Israel, The Israeli Supreme Court has upheld the conviction against former Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, after it rejected the appeal filed by his lawyer against two convictions of rape, and several sexual offenses. Katsav will be imprisoned for seven years beginning from the 7th December.
Over in the West Bank, there have been three separate attacks by Israeli settlers, leaving one Palestinian dead and three injured. In Hebron, settlers set fires to parked Palestinian cars and spray painted the words “price tag” near the blazing cars in reference to the price the Palestinian population must pay for living on the settlers land.
In another attack, a group of settlers from Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Bethlehem, fired tear gas on a family of Palestinians in Artas village. A ten-year old child was among those attacked, and was transferred to a hospital in Beit Jala after being rendered unconscious by the gas.
Also in the news today, Unknown gunmen detonated an Egyptian gas pipeline that provides Israel and Jordan with gas. It is the seventh such attack on the pipeline this year since the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, was ousted by the Egyptian revolution.
It is worth mentioning that Egypt provides Israel with 43% of its gas supplies, while 40% of Israel’s electricity is produced using natural gas.
The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has announced that Great Britain will abstain from the upcoming United Nations Security Council vote regarding the granting of full UN membership to Palestine.
The announcement comes only a day after France announced its intention to abstain, and comes a double blow to the UN full membership bid.
Had the U.K. and France voted for Palestine, they would join fellow permanent UN security council members Russia and China, and would have isolated the U.S. as the only permanent UNSC member opposed to the Palestinian bid.
They now hold 9 votes out of the 15 Security Council members, with Germany, Colombia and Portugal voting against, and the U.S. vetoing.
That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Wednesday November 10th daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This was brought to you by Hassam Qassis and me Adam Carey.
