Saturday, February 07, 2009

02/07/09

* Kadima Still Trailing Likud, But Margin is Narrowing The final polls before Tuesday’s national election show the Likud losing support to Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party.

* Palestinian PM pessimistic ahead of Israeli elections Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Saturday he does not expect the winner of next week's Israeli election to offer a "reasonable solution" to the Middle East conflict.

* Russia rattles sabres in Obama’s direction Russia may face a grim economic downturn but one would scarcely think so to judge by the sound of sabre-rattling emerging from the Kremlin.

* High stakes for Obama at weekend security conference The Obama administration is facing its first big international test this weekend as Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. heads to a conference in Europe.

* Iran: US must rethink policies for reconciliation Iran sternly dismissed decades of U.S. policies targeting Tehran and declared Friday that the new American administration had to admit past wrongs before it could hope for reconciliation.

* Iran: Sanctions made us stronger Iran has achieved breakthroughs in nuclear and space technology despite international sanctions against it.

* Mini-incident marks EU-Russia meeting An EU-Russia meeting designed to improve post-gas crisis ties went wrong on Friday (6 January).

* Biden calls for 2-state solution in Middle East US Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday that the United States would work to achieve a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

* New Challenge to Iraqi Poll Results Some Shi'ite religious parties in Iraq are refusing to accept defeat in last weekend's elections.

* Turkey probes IDF 'war crimes' in Gaza Turkish prosecutors said Friday that they were investigating whether Israeli leaders should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity over the recent IDF offensive in the Gaza Strip.