*National Affaires
Political Headlines:
1. Mubarak holds talks with UK official(The Egyptian Gazette)
President Hosni Mubarak held talks in Cairo yesterday with William Hague, the British Shadow Foreign Secretary. The Mubarak-Hague talks focused on regional and bilateral
relations, as well as means to push forwards the Middle East peace process between the Palestinians and Israel, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported."Egypt plays a vital role in the Middle East peace process. Therefore, the Conservative Party is keen on getting a good idea about its vision on this issue," Hague told reporters after meeting Mubarak.
http://news.gom.com.eg/gazette/home/detail_2_22.shtml#
2. Egyptian-Moroccan talks next Thursday(The Egyptian Gazette
THE Higher Egyptian-Moroccan Commission will hold its meeting in Cairo next Thursday, May 22, to discuss ways of boosting trade ties between the two countries, Mohamed Ismail reports.
The meeting, to be co-chaired by President Hosni Mubarak and Moroccan King Mohamed VI, will discuss a set of new mechanisms to promote bilateral cooperation.Egypt and Morocco will cooperate in legal matters, social security, technological training and culture under accords signed between the two countries.The meeting will also cover economic planning, housing, and cooperation between the tow countries.
http://www.egyptiangazette.net.eg/
*Regional and International Affairs
Political Headlines:
1. Arab mediators expected to seal Lebanon deal(The Washington Post)
An Arab League delegation is expected to conclude a deal to end fighting in Lebanon on Thursday after the U.S.-backed government backed down in a conflict with Hezbollah.
The delegation is expected to announce talks in Qatar to resolve a broader political conflict that has paralyzed Lebanon for 18 months and is seen as a proxy struggle between the United States and Iran, which supports the Hezbollah movement.
Washington's allies in Lebanon's ruling coalition were dealt a severe blow by Hezbollah in a military campaign triggered by government decisions last week which the Shi'ite movement said were a declaration of war.
The government cancelled the measures on Wednesday, meeting one of Hezbollah's demands and easing tension in Beirut, which the group briefly controlled during the campaign that triggered fighting with Sunni and Druze government supporters.
At least 81 people were killed in the fighting, the worst among Lebanese since the 1975-90 civil war.
Hezbollah, which leads an alliance of opposition factions, also demanded the ruling coalition agree to talks as a condition for ending a civil disobedience campaign which has included roadblocks that have paralyzed the capital.
The roadblocks, including barricades on the airport road, are expected to be lifted on Thursday after the Arab League delegation, headed by the prime minister of Qatar, announces agreement on the talks to be held in Doha. The delegation was also to meet Hezbollah leaders at noon (0900 GMT).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051500524.html
2. Lebanese Cabinet reverses anti-Hezbollah decisions(The San Francisco Chronicle)
The U.S.-backed Cabinet on Wednesday reversed measures against the militant Hezbollah movement that last week set off Lebanon's worst violence since the 1975-90 civil war.
The decision was a major victory for the Iranian-allied Hezbollah and the latest sign that the Shiite militant group appeared to have gained the upper hand in the country's political power struggle after its fighters routed supporters of the government.
Seconds after the announcement, celebratory gunfire erupted south of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, but there was no immediate response from the movement's leaders to the government's decision.
Clashes between government supporters and opponents broke out last week after the Cabinet challenged Hezbollah with decisions to sack the airport security chief for alleged ties to the group and to declare the militants' private telephone network illegal.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that amounted to a declaration of war and sent his armed fighters to the streets for the first time since the civil war ended, demanding the government rescind its orders.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/13/international/i042605D42.DTL
3. Emotional Bush pledges support to Israel(The Washington Post)
An emotional President George W. Bush pledged that America would remain "Israel's best friend in the world" on Wednesday during a celebratory visit to Jerusalem to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.
His host, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, appeared to bring a tear to the president's eye when he called him "a great leader, a great friend." Olmert also held out hope of reaching a peace with the Palestinians before Bush steps down in January.
The warmth of Bush's welcome and his own words for Israelis on a day when Palestinians recall their sufferings at Israel's creation in 1948 will do little, however, to dispel many Arabs' conviction that Washington is too partisan to broker a deal.
A rocket attack from the Gaza Strip that wounded several Israelis at a shopping mall and prompted warnings of an Israeli offensive was also a reminder of problems facing negotiations which Bush helped relaunch toward the end of a two-term presidency marked by intractable conflicts in the Middle East.
Israel later killed two Hamas men in an air strike in Gaza.
Bush condemned "terrorists," including the Iranian allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. He said Washington would support those Palestinians "who don't share" Hamas's vision.
On a visit earlier this year, he called Israel's hold on the West Bank an occupation that must end. This time he spoke little of the peace process -- though he stressed his view that Israel's democracy should be a model for the whole Middle East.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051400385.html
4. Letting Iran Have Nuclear Arms "Unforgivable": Bush(The New York Times)
President George W. Bush will tell Israel's parliament on Thursday that letting Iran acquire nuclear weapons would be an "unforgivable betrayal of future generations."
"America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions," Bush will tell Israeli legislators on the second day of his visit to the Jewish state, according to an advance copy of a speech he was due to deliver later in the day.
Bush was in Israel to celebrate the Jewish state's 60th anniversary and try to shore up the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
In his speech to the Knesset, he planned to hammer home his view that democracy could prevail against extremism in the Middle East, where he has struggled to push his "freedom agenda."
His strongest criticism will be aimed at Iran, Israel's main foe in the region.
"Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Bush will say.
Bush has led an international campaign to isolate Tehran diplomatically over its nuclear ambitions. He says there is a danger that Iran will use nuclear technology to build a bomb. Tehran says its program is for peaceful civilian purposes.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran-bush-speech.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
5. Gates: U.S. Should Engage Iran With Incentives, Pressure(The Washington Post)
The United States should construct a combination of incentives and pressure to engage Iran, and may have missed earlier opportunities to begin a useful dialogue with Tehran, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.
"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."
In the meantime, Gates told a meeting of the Academy of American Diplomacy, a group of retired diplomats, "my personal view would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth." Noting that "a fair number" of Iranians regularly visit the United States, he said, "We ought to increase the flow the other way . . . of Americans" visiting Iran.
"I think that may be the one opening that creates some space," Gates said.
The Bush administration has said it will talk with Iran, and consider lifting economic and other sanctions, only if Iran ends a uranium enrichment program the administration maintains is intended to produce nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. Although the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Baghdad met three times last year for discussions on Iraq, Iran has refused to continue that dialogue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403553.html
6. Bush denounces extremists in the Middle East(The Washington Post)
President Bush on Thursday criticized the deadly tactics of extremist groups like al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas and said he looks toward the day when Muslims "recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause."
In a speech prepared for delivery to the Knesset, or parliament, Bush pledged that the United States has an unbreakable bond with Israel.
"Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away" Bush said in his prepared address. "This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you."
Bush took special aim at Iran and said the United States stands with Israel in opposing moves by Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons.
"Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations," the president said. "For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Bush previously has set a goal of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement before the end of his term. But with just eight months remaining in his presidency, Bush's speech offered no suggestions on how to resolve the thorniest disputes over the borders of an eventual Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and its contested holy sites and the rights of Palestinians to return to land inside present-day Israel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051500263.html
US:
1. Election losses stir Republican fears for fall(The International Herald Tribune)
The Republican defeat in a special congressional contest in Mississippi sent waves of apprehension across an already troubled party Wednesday, with some senior Republicans urging congressional candidates to distance themselves from President George W. Bush to head off what could be heavy losses in the fall.
The victory by Travis Childers, a conservative Democrat elected in a once-steadfast Republican district on Tuesday, was the third defeat of a Republican in a special congressional race this year. In addition to foreshadowing more losses for the party in November, the outcome appeared to call into question the belief that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois could be a heavy liability for his party's down-ticket candidates in conservative regions.
Republicans had sought to link Childers to Obama in an advertising campaign there. Republican leaders said they were looking to Senator John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican nominee, as a model whose independent reputation appears to allow him to rise above party in a year when the Republican label seems tarnished.
But McCain's advisers said the Mississippi race underlined his intention to distance himself as much as possible from congressional Republicans. McCain has already been openly critical of some of Bush's strategies.
The level of distress was evident in remarks by senior party officials throughout the day.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/15/america/15repubs.php
2. Election losses stir Republican fears for fall(The International Herald Tribune)
House Republicans yesterday said Sen. John McCain is the cure to what ails them and that they're essentially pinning their electoral hopes on his coattails and credentials as a straight-talking spending-cutter.
But even as the leaders of the party's caucus tried to show unity and downplay Tuesday's stinging special election loss in another conservative district, they were contradicting each other on a key spending issue.
Briefing reporters yesterday afternoon, Rep. Adam H. Putnam, chairman of the House Republican Conference, and Rep. Eric Cantor, Republicans' chief deputy whip, said they need to draw clearer distinctions with Democrats on issues such as spending and taxes — just minutes before they split with each other, with Mr. Cantor opposing and Mr. Putnam voting for the massive farm bill.
President Bush has promised to veto the bill for breaking the budget, but Mr. Putnam defended it, saying it's already smaller than the 2002 version Mr. Bush signed — in effect giving credit to Democrats who wrote the measure for paring it down from the Republicans' last attempt.
Mr. Putnam of Florida and the Republicans' whip, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, voted for the measure, along with 98 other Republicans and most Democrats. Voting against it were Mr. Cantor of Virginia, Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and 89 other Republicans, as well as 15 Democrats.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080515/NATION/904058300/1001
3. US disputes IMF on food prices(The Washington Post)
The Bush administration on Wednesday was downplaying the role of biofuels production in rising food prices.
The debate involves questions of blame for rapidly inflating prices for staple crops that have led to famine and riots in many parts of the world.
Some economists and food scientists have argued that biofuel production should be scaled back because it is a major factor in rising food costs, particularly corn.
The IMF recently estimated that biofuels accounted for almost half the increase in consumption of major food crops in 2006-2007.
"Biofuel demand has propelled the prices not only for corn, but also for other grains, meat, poultry, and dairy" the IMF wrote in a report last month.
Anti-poverty groups and food scientists have called on governments to rethink policies to boost biofuel production at a time that the IMF estimates that global food prices rose by 43 percent in the 12 months ending in March.
But the Bush administration's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Edward Lazear, told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee Wednesday that biofuel production has played only a small part in food inflation.
The United States has mandated increased production of ethanol, mostly from from corn, to reduce oil consumption and dependence on foreign energy sources.
Lazear told the Senate panel that the administration estimates that U.S. ethanol production from corn accounts for about 20 percent of the rise in corn prices over the last 12 months, but only about 3 percent of increases in overall food prices.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051401562.html