Indonesian volcano erupts again, many evacuated

SUKA NALU: An Indonesian volcano, inactive for four centuries, erupted again on Monday, pitching ash two km (1.5 miles) into the air and sending nearby residents scurrying from their homes.

Villages were emptying fast near Mount Sinabung on the north of Sumatra island, leaving behind only officials from the bureau of meteorology and the police. Short-haul flights skirting the volcano were delayed.

Surono, head of Indonesia’s vulcanology centre, told Reuters Monday’s eruption was more powerful than the first a day earlier.

“Earlier today was another eruption at 6.30 a.m., sending out smoke as high as two km, more or less,” he told Reuters.

A Reuters photographer said he saw plumes of smoke rising from the 2,460-metre volcano after the second eruption. Inactive since 1600, it had been rumbling for several days.

“I saw some hot pieces of

Israel PM denies offer made to freeze settlements

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he never told the US administration a settlement freeze would be renewed after Middle East peace talks restart this week, an official said on Monday.

“We have not presented any proposal to the Americans on an extension of the freeze … the government has not taken any decision on the issue,” the official quoted the premier as saying at a meeting of his Likud party.

Under US pressure, the Israeli government in November imposed a partial, 10 month moratorium on new construction in West Bank settlements, with the exception of east Jerusalem.

Palestinians insist the measure must be extended beyond its term on September 26, while the government faces strong pressure from the right to allow construction to resume.

“We have said the future of settlements will be taken up with other questions in

Abbas Sticks to Demand for Settlement Freeze

Abbas Sticks to Demand for Settlement Freeze, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Monday he was open to peace negotiations with Israel, but that as agreed with Egypt talks could only resume when Jewish settlement activity ends.
“There is no objection to returning to the negotiating table or holding any meetings in principle,” Abbas told reporters in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “We have said, and we will continue to say, that when there is a halt of settlement activity and recognised terms of reference, we are ready to resume negotiations,” Abbas said.
He said Egypt agreed with his views, contradicting reports in Israel’s Maariv newspaper which said Mubarak was to press Abbas to accept a US peace plan to restart the talks immediately. “President Mubarak has stressed that (the status of) Jerusalem be included in the negotiations, that settlement activity must end and there must be clear terms of reference,” Abbas said.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his Likud party that the time was ripe for resuming the peace process. “Since the formation of this government, I have called for restarting negotiations with the Palestinians without preconditions,” he told the Likud members in parliament on Monday. “I believe the negotiations about entering negotiations have held us up long enough. In recent weeks I got the impression that there is something of a change in the air. I hope there is a ripening that will allow the peace process to start,” Netanyahu said.
Abbas arrived on Sunday and met with Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman before heading to Sharm el-Sheikh. He will later travel to Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey. His visit to Egypt comes almost a week after Netanyahu met Mubarak in Cairo about the stalled peace process and as diplomats said Washington was drafting letters of guarantee for the peace talks. Meanwhile Jordan’s King Abdullah II also arrived Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh where he held talks with Mubarak, the Egyptian news agency MENA said.
According to a statement from the royal palace in Amman, the discussions will centre on “efforts to start serious and effective peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
Earlier the Israeli paper Maariv said Washington is pushing a plan to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that foresees reaching a final deal in two years. Under the plan, the Israelis and Palestinians will immediately start final status talks that were suspended during the Gaza war a year ago and Mubarak would press Abbas to agree to the deal, Maariv said.
US President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on the two sides to resume peace talks, but the Palestinians have demanded Israel first freeze all settlement activity and commit to a framework for the talks, to include that the borders of a future Palestinian state encompass all of their land Israel occupied in 1967.
The Palestinians have insisted that mostly Arab east Jerusalem — occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community — be the capital of their future state. Abbas suspended peace talks with Israel after it entered a 22-day war with Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza, that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and left swathes of Gaza devastated. Thirteen Israelis were killed.
Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007, which shrank Abbas’s powerbase to the West Bank, left a deep rift between Palestinians that have also hampered peace talks with Israel. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and Suleiman are meanwhile planning to visit Washington on January 8 for talks with officials there.

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Abbas Sticks to Demand for Settlement Freeze was first posted on January 4, 2010 at 8:52 pm.