Israel plans new Jerusalem settlements: report

Palestinians: A plan for a new Jewish settlement in the Israeli occupied Arab east Jerusalem has been submitted for approval to city hall, a newspaper reported on Sunday, which was likely to dominate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming talks with Western leaders.
The plan calls for the construction of about 104 housing units in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood, currently home to some 14,000 Palestinians, the Haaretz newspaper reported, quoting sources at the Jerusalem municipality.
"This plan for massive construction in a high-density Palestinian area is extremely dangerous for the urban equilibrium," Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of the Israeli settlement watchdog, Peace Now, told AFP.
Palestinian senior negotiator Saeb Erakat slammed the project, saying in a statement that "Israel’s continued settlement expansion in east Jerusalem is an out and out land grab that threatens the very possibility of a negotiated two-state solution."
Peace Now said that despite a government moratorium announced last week on approving new housing in the West Bank enclaves, more than 40,000 more homes could be built under plans already ratified.
The group said almost 600 housing units have been constructed in the West Bank since the start of the year, including 96 structures in wildcat outposts built without Israeli government approval.
"The construction continues with government support in the large settlement blocs and, in a roundabout manner, in isolated colonies," the report said...more

Beer-drinking model planning Mecca pilgrimage

Malaysian woman prepares for caning with prayer
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MALAYSIA: A Muslim model who is to be caned for drinking alcohol said she is planning a pilgrimage to Mecca, and seeking solace in prayer as she prepares to face her punishment this week.
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be the first Malaysian woman to be caned under Islamic laws applicable to Malaysia's Muslims, who account for 60 percent of the 27-million population.
She was sentenced to six strokes after pleading guilty to drinking alcohol at a hotel nightclub in Dec. 2007, and is expected to receive her punishment this week at a women's prison in Kajang, south of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Public caning
Kartika cried when the verdict was handed down last month but in an interview at her home in a small Malay village, the slim and soft-spoken Kartika was composed about her fate.
"Sometimes I feel sad and stressed as I have tarnished my family's name. But now after spending time reading the Quran, I feel calm and am not afraid of being caned," she said.
The part-time model and mother of two, who lives in neighboring Singapore, has called for her punishment to be carried out in public but it is not clear exactly how it will be conducted.
Officials from the sharia religious court are expected to detain Kartika on Monday and take her to prison where she will undergo a medical check.
Islamic scholars have backed the sentence, and said it would be carried out when she was fully clothed and with a cane that is smaller and lighter than the heavy length of rattan used in criminal cases.
Malaysia, a multicultural country with large Chinese and Indian communities, has a dual-track legal system and sharia courts can try Muslims for religious and moral offences.
Critics say the unprecedented caning will damage Malaysia's international standing as a progressive and moderate Islamic country.
“Mother of all sins”
Kartika said she never expected the court to impose the sentence.
"But I accept it as consuming alcohol is the mother of all sins for a Muslim," she said.
Sitting between her doting father Shukarno Mutalib, 60, and her 56-year-old mother Badariah Mior Salim, Kartika said her family and the 500 people of their village in Perak state have rallied around her.
Religious authorities caught her drinking at a hotel in Kuantan, the state capital of the central Malaysian state of Pahang.
Kartika said she had three glasses of beer before the hotel was raided in what she said was her second time drinking alcohol. She and the other patrons were asked to provide urine samples.
"I was initially angry. But I did not scold her," said Shukarno, who operates a lodge by the Perak river in nearby Jawa village.
"I believe my daughter is the chosen one by Allah to remind Muslims not to drink. I heard many (Muslims) were arrested for beer drinking that night but were mysteriously freed," he said with a smile.
She is strong and is ready to accept the caning. But many people warn me that she will be traumatized. So we have a plan to send her to Mecca to overcome her painful ordeal," he said.

Biggest-ever European lottery jackpot won

BAGNONE, Italy: Someone has won the biggest lottery jackpot ever in Europe -approximately $210 million in Italy's state lottery, Italian media reported Saturday.
The identity of the SuperEnalotto game winner hadn't been revealed but the winning ticket was purchased in the Biffi bar in Bagnone, a town of fewer than 2,000 people in Massa Carrara province, RAI News reported.
The BBC and Sky News said the winning numbers were: 10, 11, 27, 45, 79 and 88.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the jackpot had been building up since January without a winner.
The lure of winning such a huge pot of cash had turned into a tourist draw for Italy, the news agency said.
The Italian treasury rakes in just under half of the nearly $3 billion in lottery ticket sales since the jackpot was last won, making it a big winner, too.

Claims of violence, fraud at Afghan polls

WASHINGTON: Reports of fraud and intimidation in Afghanistan's presidential election continued to mount Saturday, with anecdotal, but widespread accounts of ballot-box stuffing, a lack of impartiality among election workers and voters casting ballots for others.
Director Jandad Spinger, Foundation for free and transparent elections in Afghanistan said that over 7000 observers of his group told that the ballot boxes were already stuffed, while bogus voting and other irregularities continued.
US newspaper said that European groups have also pointed out many discrepancies, while in several provinces the polling stations remained shut fearing violence.
Karzai government has denied any sort of fraud committed in the elections.

Swine Flu Campaign Waits on Vaccine

Government health officials are mobilizing to launch a massive swine flu vaccination campaign this fall that is unprecedented in its scope and in the potential for complications.
The campaign aims to vaccinate at least half the country's population within months. Although more people have been inoculated against diseases such as smallpox and polio over a period of years, the United States has never tried to immunize so many so quickly.
But even as scientists rush to test the vaccine to ensure it is safe and effective, the campaign is lagging. Officials say only about a third as much vaccine as they had been expecting by mid-October is likely to arrive by then, when a new wave of infections could be peaking.
Among the unknowns: how many shots people will need, what the correct dosage should be, and how to avoid confusing the public with an overlapping effort to combat the regular seasonal flu.
To prepare, more than 2,800 local health departments have begun recruiting pediatricians, obstetricians, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics and even dentists, along with a small army of volunteers from churches and other groups. They are devising strategies to reach children, teenagers, pregnant women and young and middle-aged adults in inner cities, suburban enclaves and the countryside.....more

$2.5bn deal to fuel Zain growth

Saudi Arabia: Zain (KSA) announced last week the closing of a $2.5 billion Murabaha financing facility.
“The funds will be used to repay its existing Murabaha, facilitating the mobile telecom operation’s ongoing network expansion and future growth,” Zain said in a statement issued from its Manama headquarters.
The term of the facility is two years with options of extending for a further twelve months. Al-Rajhi Capital, Banque Saudi Fransi and Calyon acted as financial advisers, with a total of eight regional and international financial institutions participating in what is one of the largest Islamic financings this year.
“This is an enormous vote of confidence by the International financial community in Zain KSA’s performance to date and its future expansion plans in the region’s largest economy,” said Saad Al-Barrak, CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia and Zain Group. “The growth and success of this mobile operation is critical to Zain Group’s 2011 ambition of being a top ten global mobile telecommunications company. The Murabaha facility, which comes at a vital stage of Zain KSA’s business growth cycle, will play an important role in achieving this goal.”
In less than 12 months, and despite the very competitive nature of the mobile telecom market in the Kingdom, Zain Saudi Arabia has acquired 4 million customers. For the first half of 2009, Zain KSA reported gross revenues of $342 million with average revenue per user per month (ARPU) of $19. Zain KSA’s marketing and customer acquisition strategy paid off in the first half of 2009, capturing over 50 percent of total net additions in the mobile telecom market.

DPRK seeks better ties with S Korea

SEOUL: North Korean envoys called on Saturday for an improvement in inter-Korean ties as the South confirmed the group would meet its leader in the highest-level talks between the neighbours in years.
The delegation sent from Pyongyang to mourn former South Korean leader Kim Dae-Jung will visit President Lee Myung-Bak in Seoul on Sunday, a unification ministry spokeswoman told AFP. The group said they were carrying a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il that they wanted to convey to Lee, Yonhap news agency reported.
“The North Korean delegation will pay a visit to President Lee on Sunday morning,” spokeswoman Lee Jong-Joo said late on Saturday.
Relations between the two Koreas, who never signed a peace deal following the 1950-53 Korean War, worsened sharply after Lee came to power last year and pledged to take a firmer line with Kim and his isolated communist regime.
“While meeting many South Koreans here, I came to believe that inter-Korean ties must be improved at the earliest possible date,” said Kim Yang-Gon, the North’s official in charge of inter-Korean ties, according to pooled reports.
“We’ve had little opportunity to talk... I hope that these first high-level official talks under the Lee Myung-Bak administration will provide a chance to have frank talks,” he told South Korea’s Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek.
The six-member delegation was originally in Seoul only to mourn the death of former president Kim Dae-Jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize after he held the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
However, amid recently improving ties with Seoul and its ally the United States, South Korean officials and the delegation held 90 minutes of talks on Saturday.
Hyun was holding a private dinner meeting with the North Koreans on Saturday evening at their Grand Hilton hotel. His ministry said they would discuss “practical issues”. The rare encounters on Saturday and planned meeting with Lee have raised hopes for better ties after more than a year of tension, worsened by the North’s nuclear and missile tests in early summer. The visitors called for the resumption of regular talks and economic exchanges, said Chung Dong-Young, a former South Korean unification minister. “Times have changed.
Legacies from the Cold War must be buried... I’ll meet with everyone for frank talks,” Chung quoted the North’s chief envoy, Kim Ki-Nam, as saying.