US urges restraint over Jericho jail raid (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(Condi Rice, shifting blaime for another screw up...)

US urges restraint over Jericho jail raid

Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:31 PM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that the United States had been in touch with Israel and the Palestinians to urge restraint after Israeli forces raided a West Bank jail this week.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday condemned Israel's raid on a Jericho jail to seize a militant leader as a crime that would not be forgiven and accused British and U.S. monitors supervising the prison of complicity with Israel. "We have, in the face of the recent actions and difficulties in Jericho, been in touch with all the parties to urge calm and restraint," Rice told reporters during a trip to Australia.

Across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Palestinians went on strike over an Israeli military operation that has boosted the standings of interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of March 28 general elections. Israeli security forces were on high alert after Ahmed Saadat's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamist militant group Hamas promised retaliation for his seizure from the prison in Jericho.

Rice said the United States and Britain agreed to monitor the prison back in 2002, but overall security at the prison was the responsibility of the Palestinians. She said the United States and Britain had grown increasingly concerned for the safety of monitors over the past 12 months, and Palestinian authorities were told on March 8 that the monitors would be withdrawn unless security was improved.

(more at link below)

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=11548369&src=rss/topNews>

[Up2Late]

1. It gets worst: US urges China to explain military build up (AFP)

(She's going to get us all killed, I swear.)

US urges China to explain military build up

16/03/2006 05h12


Condoleezza Ric ©AFP - Jewel Samad

SYDNEY (AFP) - The United States is concerned about China's military build-up and Beijing should make its intentions clear, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. Rice was speaking at a news conference here after meeting Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and ahead of a new trilateral security dialogue with Japan on Saturday, at which China's growing power is top of the agenda.

"We've said we have concerns about the Chinese military build-up. We've told the Chinese that they need to be transparent," she said. "I heard there's going to be a 14 percent increase in the Chinese defence budget -- that's a lot -- and China should undertake to be transparent about what that means."

China announced earlier this month that its military budget for this year would rise 14.7 percent to 35 billion dollars, the latest in a series of double-digit annual increases dating back to the early 1990s.

Her remarks come amid a renewed rise in tensions between China and Taiwan after Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian moved to suspend an advisory council set up to look at eventual reunification with the mainland. Beijing was infuriated by the decision, calling it a dangerous move toward Taiwan's "independence" and a threat to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.

(more bad news at link below)

<http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060316040148.yg30vkbj.html>

[ShockediSay]

2. China is pretty transparent to anyone w/ a brain

burying BushCo as a world economic and military power,

and US along with them.

[sarcasmo]

5. When we invade Iran who will China invade?

[Up2Late]

3. kick n/t

:kick:

[baby_mouse]

4. Pathetic. Transparent as glass. NT.