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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (15683)	11/9/2003 3:42:42 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793931

Arafat Prevails in Standoff Over Cabinet Post Prime Minister Korei backs down on choice of interior minister, leaving his boss in charge of security forces. By Megan K. Stack LA Times Staff Writer November 9, 2003 JERUSALEM — Yasser Arafat appears to have won again. A weeks-old stalemate between the Palestinian Authority president and his handpicked prime minister, Ahmed Korei, apparently came to an end Saturday with Arafat still in charge of the troops that he regards as his last stronghold of power. After weeks of negotiations, Korei failed to name Nasser Yousef, a Palestinian general who was expected to stand up to the ailing Arafat, to the key position of interior minister. Instead, Korei and Arafat struck a murky compromise that Korei said will "most likely" leave an Arafat ally as interior minister — and the militias under the control of the National Security Council, which is headed by Arafat. The struggle over the security force is the same issue that drove Korei's predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas, to resign after just a few months on the job. It's unclear why Korei held out for so long, only to relent in the end — but the battle of wills has had a powerful effect. By standing firm, Korei brought the government to a stop and forced a crisis so deep that many Palestinians came to believe that his Cabinet had no legal claim to power because of the manner of its formation. "There is no government now," said Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday, after Arafat extended the life of the emergency Cabinet on Tuesday by a week. "It's illegitimate and opens us to a legal challenge." The former International Monetary Fund official said he would not go back to work until he was invited to join a legitimate Cabinet with parliamentary approval. With their government ground to a halt, dozens of academics and lawmakers gathered last week in a Gaza City hotel to mull over the fate of the Palestinian Authority. The ensuing debate was frank, contentious — and wholly pessimistic. "We are suffering because of this special, unchangeable group," complained former Information Minister Nabil Amr, who served under Abbas until his government collapsed in September. Amr called Arafat and his loyalists "sacred cows" who should finally step aside. "We have to break the taboo — we can't accept that the leader can be the leader forever," he said. "Even if we have to have elections under occupation, we must do so." Korei's standoff against Arafat won the prime minister some sympathy from Israel, where most officials dread the mere suggestion that the Palestinian government might fall. When Korei was tapped by Arafat in September, he was dubbed an Arafat loyalist by Israeli press and officials, who said he would have to prove his worth. By last week, however, the Jewish state seemed to be scrambling to shore up Korei's rule. Palestinians were granted a batch of permits to leave the impoverished Gaza Strip for day jobs in Israel, and some of the checkpoints and closures in the West Bank were eased. Most importantly, Israeli officials said abandoned peace talks could resume once Korei seated a government. REST AT latimes.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (15683)	11/9/2003 6:01:58 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793931

MARK STEYN: The 50/50 nation of the 2000 election is gone. A small but significant sliver of the electorate shifted Right after September 11: we can argue about whether it's four per cent or 12 per cent, but not whether it exists. Who are these voters? They seem to be young, hitherto natural Democrats who aren't as hung up as their wrinkly parents on Vietnam nostalgia. A lot of them are female, which is why the so-called Republican "gender gap" the media like to harp on about was wiped out in 2002, while the Democrats' own gap with white male voters has widened to a chasm. __________________________________________ America's liberal media bias does their darling Democrats no favours whatsoever By Mark Steyn (Filed: 08/11/2003) Now that Beebwatch is gone, I thought I'd say something about America's famous "liberal media bias": bring it on, baby! After the US elections a year ago, I decided that "liberal media bias" was far more harmful to liberals than conservatives. In fact, if I were a Democrat, I'd be getting a little miffed at the recurring pattern of the past two years: throughout the election campaign, my newspaper produces a poll showing my guy way ahead; finds "typical voters" (choreographers of environmentalist dance companies, etc) anxious to blame Bush for the worst recession since Hoover; runs front-page features on how Clinton's flown in to campaign with my man, exuding the rock-star glamour that so enthuses the base, etc. And then the morning after election night, I wake up to discover that, in a stunning upset utterly predictable to anyone but the expert media analysts, the Democrat got hammered. But not to worry. Just as your rattled Democratic supporter is beginning to feel a harsh jab of reality in what Slate's Mickey Kaus calls the "liberal cocoon", the media rush to lull him back to the land of make-believe, assuring us that the Democrat defeat is attributable to strictly local factors and is definitely not part of a trend. REST AT telegraph.co.uk