VOANEWS.doc

20080307aWitnesses say the gunman entered the library of the Merkaz Harav seminary and opened fire on about 80 people in the room who were preparing for an upcoming Jewish religious holiday. Panicked students began jumping out of windows and the shooting continued for several minutes. Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld says the attacker was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and was killed on the scene. What I can say is that the attacker entered the main gate of the school, went through the entrance of the schools, opened fire on a number of students and then was himself shot and killed at the entrance to the library, said Rosenfeld.Police have identified the gunman as a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem. Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack. However, a statement from the ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip praised the attack, saying it would not be the last. A spokesman for Israels foreign ministry says the attack was designed to derail peace talks, but he says the talks will continue. In Washington, the U.S. State Department condemned the shooting as an act of terror and extended condolences to the victims families. Mark Regev a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says terrorist attacks like the one Thursday evening do not help the peace process. As much as my country and my government wants to move forward in peace with Palestinians, Hamas and the other extremists are the greatest single problem in moving forward in peace, said Regev. There cannot be a peace process as long as people do not stand up and oppose this sort of extremism, hatred and bloodshed. The attack comes as tensions are high in the Palestinian territories following a week of intense violence in the Gaza Strip where more than 120 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces over the past week in operations against Palestinian militants firing rockets at southern Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended a visit to the region on Wednesday by getting moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to peace talks with Israel that he had suspended because of the situation in Gaza. Thursdays attack appeared to be carefully targeted. The Merkaz Harav seminary is closely linked with the Jewish settler movement in the West Bank, and many settler leaders have studied there. Witnesses say many of the students at the seminary are on active military duty and are armed, and that the attacker was killed by such a student, possibly saving the lives of many others.20080307bSenator Barack Obama says his rival, Senator Clintons very negative attacks played a role in Clintons election wins earlier this week, wins which have pumped new life into her faltering campaign.The 46-year-old senator from Illinois stressed that he still leads in the all-important overall delegate count, and targeted Senator Clintons claim that she is more experienced on foreign policy because of her eight years in the White House as the wife of former President Bill Clinton. Was she handling crises during this period of time? My sense was No, said Barack Obama.On Thursday, Senator Clinton held a meeting with retired generals, admirals and other military officers in Washington, who said they are supporting her because of her foreign policy and national security experience. Clinton had words of praise for her Republican opponent, Senator John McCain for his national security and foreign policy credentials, but took a hard swing at Obama. Look I have said Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, I will bring a lifetime of experience, and Senator Obama will bring a speech he made in 2002, said Hillary Clinton.Clinton referred to a speech Obama made in 2002 opposing any U.S. invasion of Iraq. He often cites his opposition to the Iraq war as proof that his judgment on life and death security matters is better than Clintons, who voted for a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq.Clinton told the military leaders if she is elected president, she would pay a lot more attention to Afghanistan, calling it the forgotten frontline in the war on terror. Today I am announcing a new strategy, one that is both smart and tough, that uses all of the tools in our arsenal to win the war in Afghanistan, she said. We can no longer relegate Afghanistan to the bottom of our priority list.Clinton said she would ask the United States NATO allies to take greater responsibility for training the Afghan National Army, and hold a summit level meeting to revitalize international support for Afghanistans long-term reconstruction. She said she would also end what she termed President Bushs one dimensional Pakistan policy. 20080307cEight British aid organizations say the humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated to the worst point in 40 years and that it will likely get worse unless Israel eases its blockade of the territory. According to the report, more than one million people or 80 percent of Gazas population is now dependent on food aid and that Gazas power, water and sewage systems have collapsed. Michael Bailey of the Jerusalem OXFAM office says life in Gaza has always been a struggle, but after Israel closed Gazas borders last year following the Hamas takeover of the territory, things got dramatically worse. In four weeks, 65,000 jobs were lost. Ninety percent of the manufacturing industry was shut down, Bailey said. Forty thousand people in the agricultural industry are finding it very hard to maintain their jobs and eight out of ten families in Gaza are dependent on food aid. Bailey says 300,000 people in Gaza do not have regular supplies of water and 60 tons of raw sewage is discharged into the ocean every day because sewage treatment plants no longer work. He says many schools also do not have power. As a result he says Gazas educational system has broken down, and children there fail basic tests in rudimentary subjects. Bailey and the other groups behind the report say they blame Israel for the situation because it controls Gazas borders. We are saying that because Israel is still in control, it is still the occupying power even though they (Israel) are not inside Gaza; they control all the borders, the air and the sea space, Bailey said. Therefore whoever is in charge inside Gaza, they are really powerless to control and economy that depends 90 percent on imports for any manufacturing or productivity. The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization and have cut off all but humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip since the group seized power there last June.Israeli officials have strongly denounced the report, calling it biased. Major Peter Lerner, the spokesman for Israels military and civil authorities in the Palestinian territories says Hamas militants who seized power in Gaza last year are to blame for the situation. Lerner says Israel is committed to preventing a humanitarian emergency from developing in Gaza - and does so at considerable risk to itself. We, Israel actually, function the crossings under fire from Palestinian snipers and mortar fire, which no other state in the world would do, and for us is very problematic obviously, Lerner said.Since the beginning of this year the situation in Gaza has been at a boiling point. In January Hamas militants knocked down Gazas border wall with Egypt in a bid to break the territorys blockade. Since then, Palestinian militants have stepped up rocket attacks against towns and cities in southern Israel, leading to Israeli retaliatory attacks that killed many Palestinians, which led the moderate Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas to suspend peace talks with Israel. The talks were restored this week after direct intervention from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. There are signs that things may improve in Gaza. Israels Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel will abstain from attacking militants in Gaza if they stop their rocket attacks. Hamas leaders and other Palestinian militants have begun talks with Egyptian officials about establishing a truce with Israel. For the people of Gaza a truce would be the first good news in many months.20080307dA top foreign panel invited by Sri Lanka to oversee investigation into 16 cases of serious rights abuses says it is resigning because there is lack of political and institutional will to probe the cases.The 11-member International Independent Group of Eminent Persons was created by the government, two years ago.The panel says the governments investigation has fallen short of transparency and compliance with basic international norms.The cases being observed by the panel include the massacre of 17 local aid workers of a French charity in 2006. The panel quit as a new report by the American-based Human Rights Watch said hundreds of people disappeared or were abducted in Sri Lanka in 2006 and 2007, when hostilities with the Tamil Tiger rebels intensified.The group says the involvement of government security forces - army, navy or police - is indicated in a majority of these cases.The government says many people listed as missing went away without informing their family members. Anna Neistat researched the Human Rights Watch report. She disputes that position. In many cases, we have proof that, before people disappeared, before they went missing they were last seen in custody of army or navy officers, or they were arrested by the police. and since then all traces of them have been lost, she said. The report says many of the victims are ethnic Tamils and were targeted because of their alleged links to the rebels. It says others who have disappeared include journalists and aid workers. It says many of the victims are feared dead.It has called for a United Nations mission to monitor the rights abuses. The government has repeatedly denied security forces are involved in rights abuses and rejected previous calls for international monitoring. Some analysts say the governments credibility will suffer a serious blow with the departure of the international panel.Rights workers say the situation deteriorated after security forces and rebels resumed fighting, following a four-year lull in the long, drawn out civil war. 20080307eThe Amnesty International report zoomed in on the problems faced by school-age girls around the globe. Amnesty says that girls face physical and psychological abuse from classmates as well as from teachers. It adds that some girls are also threatened with sexual assault by other students, are offered higher marks by teachers in exchange for sexual favors and are even raped. Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice, in a speech to a group of influential women gathering in Brussels, said the International Womens Day is a day to focus on the problems women and girls still face in their daily lives. Addressing a European Union-sponsored conference on women, she said women play a crucial in todays globalized world and in development. Poverty is rampant where women lack education and economic opportunity, said Rice. Justice is thwarted when women are denied the right to play a political role in their nations; disease flourishes and spreads when womens perspectives are not taken into account in terms of disease prevention. In todays modern world, no country can achieve lasting success and stability and security if half of its population is sitting on the sidelines.The Amnesty International report says the abuse of girls is in one form or another found around the globe, but it is the worst in countries experiencing conflict. The report refers to a 2006 study of schoolgirls in Malawi where 50 percent of girls said they had been touched in a sexual manner without permission by either their teachers or a fellow student. Another study, this time in the United States, found that 83 percent of girls in grades eight through 11 (aged around 12 to 16) in public schools experienced some form of sexual harassment.Widney Brown, of Amnesty International, says societal attitudes at school must change.The reason we are targeting schools is because its the responsibility of the government directly, they cant say this happens behind closed doors we dont know anything about it, said Brown. A significant number of children are not getting access to even primary education and the majority of them are girls and we see violence as an obstacle to girls access to education.The report acknowledges that both girls and boys of school age can be the victims of violence. However, it says that girls are more likely to be the victims of certain types of abuse, such as sexual harassment and sexual assault. This, the report adds, undermines their self-esteem, educational success and long-term health and well being. 20080307fThe secretary-general said there is indisputable evidence that investing in women and girls enhances productivity and sustained economic growth. Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do, he said. I am deeply convinced that in women, the world has at its disposal the most significant and yet largely untapped potential for development and peace.Speaking at a conference in observance of International Womens Day, which is on Saturday, Mr. Ban urged the public and private sectors, as well as multilateral organizations and civil society to increase their role in investing in programs that empower women.He pointed to the success of programs that offer micro-loans to women, saying they have jumped from 10 million in 1999 to nearly 70 million in 2005. When women have access to finances, credit, technologies and markets, they are likely to expand their businesses and contribute effectively to sustained economic growth and development, he added.The United Nations has pushed for new policies for gender equality and financing for development, but there is still a long way to go. The World Bank estimates that 64 percent of the worlds illiterate adults are women, while girls account for the majority of the worlds 113 million children aged six to 11 who do not attend school. Celebrated on March 8, International Womens Day is the global day recognizing all women around the world and intended to inspire them to achieve their full potential. In many countries it is an official holiday. 20080307gCity officials say the small explosion happened shortly before four in the morning local time, causing some damage to a small kiosk used by the U.S. military as a recruiting office, but no injuries. Guests at hotels as far as several blocks away said they could feel the building shake.At a press conference, City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the device was not sophisticated and was in a small box. He said one witness reported seeing a man on a bicycle in the area of the explosion shortly before it happened, but the witness did not say that he saw the bicyclist plant, throw or detonate the device.He saw an individual riding on a bicycle right here on the island in what he described as a suspicious manner, said Commissioner Kelly. This individual was wearing a hood and dark colored clothing. He was also carrying a backpack, or wearing a backpack. He did not see this individuals face and was not able to give us a complete description.Commissioner Kelly said police are reviewing footage from video cameras from hotels and businesses in the area as part of their investigation. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg condemned the perpetrators and said such actions would not affect life in the city.Whoever the coward is that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, he said. We will not tolerate such attacks, nor will we let them destroy our freedom to live peacefully and safely in the greatest city in the world.Police and fire crews cordoned off Times Square and diverted subway trains for several hours, but normal traffic resumed by the start of the morning rush hour. 20080307hThe British government is set to begin issuing compulsory national identification cards later this year. During a speech in London, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith explained why. As a government we have a duty to ensure that the national identity scheme supports our national security and that it provides a robust defense against those who seek to use false identity to mask criminal or terrorist activity, explained Smith.Non-European foreigners will have to provide fingerprints and personal data for the ID cards by November. In 2009, migrants from other European countries and British nationals in certain security risk jobs, such as airline staff and baggage handlers will also be required to sign up for the new ID cards. Students and young people will be encouraged to voluntarily sign up the following year. By 2017 the government hopes to have most Britons enrolled in the plan, but new legislation will be required to make the ID cards compulsory. Smith repeated the governments argument that having national ID cards and an accompanying data base will protect citizens against identity theft, control illegal immigration, increase public security and guard against terrorism.Many of the terrorists convicted in recent years have routinely used multiple passports, bank accounts and other forms of identity, added Smith. The government argues that because each persons identification card will be linked to specific fingerprints, it will make it harder for terrorists or criminals to steal that identity.The ID card plan is estimated to cos