Powerball Winners Want to Go to the Beach, Set Up Scholarships with $300 Million
Label: LifestyleCindy and Mark Hill
David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/Landov
Just in time for the holiday season the Hill family of Dearborn, Mo., got quite the gift: nearly $300 million, after winning half of the $587.5 million Powerball jackpot.
"We're still stunned by what's happened," Cindy Hill, 51, said during a press conference Friday alongside her family, according to an NBC News report. "People keep asking us, 'What are you going to buy with it?' I just want to go home and be back to normal."
Hill, who was an office manager until she was laid off in 2010, and her husband Mark, a mechanic, have three adult sons and a daughter, Jaiden, 6, whom they adopted from China.
On their list of possible purchases since their record win: a beach vacation for Jaiden (who has never visited the beach) and a red Camaro for Mark. The family has also spoken about possibly adopting again and setting up college funds for their extended family members, as well as a scholarship fund at their local high school.
As for their winning ticket, Cindy said she checked on Thursday morning after learning that one winning ticket was sold in Missouri.
"I didn't have my glasses, and I was thinking, is that the right number?" Cindy, who had bought five tickets, said, according to NBC.
The other winning ticket was sold in Arizona, and no winner has claimed the prize yet. On Thursday, however, a man in Upper Marlboro, Md., went into a gas station to check a handful of tickets (watch the CCTV video), reportedly presenting a ticket with the winning numbers (5-23-16-22-29-Powerball 6), CNN reports.
Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents
Label: HealthNYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.
Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.
Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.
"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."
In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.
"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."
As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.
Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.
"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.
Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.
The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.
The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.
"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."
He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.
But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.
For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.
Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.
Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.
"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.
When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.
"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."
___
On the Internet:
http://www.trees4children.org/
Wall Street ends flat as "fiscal cliff" focus lingers
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 wrapped up its fifth positive month in the last six on Friday, although it ended the day flat as politicians remain at odds about how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.
Trading has been choppy in the last two weeks as investors react to statements from policymakers on the state of discussions on how to avert a series of tax hikes and spending cuts that could pull the economy back into recession.
The S&P 500 was up 0.29 percent in November even as it suffered a slide of more than 6 percent from the month's high to its low.
"Given the 'on again, off again' fiscal cliff (negotiations), it's rather surprising how resilient this market has been," said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at St. Louis-based Wedgewood Partners.
"Between now and the end of the year, there's going to be an information vacuum outside the fiscal cliff, and I believe that resiliency will be tested."
In contrast to the apparent calm in equities, the CBOE Volatility Index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, jumped 5.4 percent, its largest daily gain in two weeks.
The VIX also rose for the week, but posted a whopping 14.7 percent decline for November.
On Friday, President Barack Obama accused a "handful of Republicans" in the U.S. House of Representatives of holding up legislation to extend tax cuts for middle-class Americans in order to try to preserve them for the wealthy.
Speaking shortly after the president, House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said: "There is a stalemate; let's not kid ourselves."
Despite the divisive language, many market participants are betting that a deal will be struck - if only at the eleventh hour.
Corporations continue to react to what is expected to be a harsher tax regime next year. Whole Foods Market
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 3.76 points, or 0.03 percent, to 13,025.58 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained a mere 0.23 of a point, or 0.02 percent, to finish at 1,416.18. But the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dipped 1.79 points, or 0.06 percent, to end at 3,010.24.
For the month of November, the S&P 500 rose 0.29 percent, its smallest monthly variation since March 2011. The Dow fell 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq gained 1.1 percent.
For the week, though, all three major U.S. stock indexes advanced, with the Dow up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 up 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq up 1.5 percent.
VeriSign
Yum Brands
After a close relationship for several years, Facebook
Zynga's stock fell 6.1 percent to $2.46. Facebook's stock gained 2.5 percent to $28.
Apple Inc's latest iPhone received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. Apple's stock fell 0.7 percent to $585.28.
The markets' reaction to data on Friday was muted.
U.S. consumer spending fell in October for the first time in five months and income growth stalled, leading some economists to cut already weak estimates of fourth-quarter economic growth.
Slightly more than 7 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, more than the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares and the largest in two weeks.
On the NYSE, roughly six issues rose for every five that fell, while on Nasdaq, the ratio was nearly 1 to 1.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Demographic Shifts Redefine Society in South Korea
Label: World
Woohae Cho for the International Herald Tribune
Assemblywoman Jasmine Lee of South Korea attended a joint wedding for 20 multicultural couples in Seoul.
SEOUL, South Korea — Jasmine Lee realizes just how Korean she’s become when she breaks out in the language, forgetting that her Filipino mother on the other end of the phone can’t understand her. But she is reminded of the limits of assimilation when Koreans, impressed by her fluency, comment: “You sound more Korean than Koreans do.”
Ms. Lee, 35, who was born Jasmine Bacurnay in the Philippines, made history in April when she became the first naturalized citizen — and the first non-ethnic Korean — to win a seat in South Korea’s National Assembly. Her election reflected one of the most significant demographic shifts in the country’s modern history, a change Ms. Lee says “Koreans understand with their brain, but have yet to embrace with their heart.”
Only a decade ago, school textbooks still urged South Koreans to take pride in being of “one blood” and ethnically homogeneous. Now, the country is facing the prospect of becoming a multiethnic society. While the foreign-born population is still small compared with countries with a tradition of immigration, it’s enough to challenge how South Koreans see themselves.
“It’s time to redefine a Korean,” said Kim Yi-seon, chief researcher on multiculturalism at the government-financed Korean Women’s Development Institute. “Traditionally, a Korean meant someone born to Korean parents in Korea, who speaks Korean and has Korean looks and nationality. People don’t think someone is a Korean just because he has a Korean citizenship.”
Among the factors driving this development is the influx of women from Southeast Asia who have come to marry rural South Korean men who have difficulty attracting Korean women willing to embrace country life. The number of marriage migrants grew to 211,000 last year from 127,000 in 2007, most of them women from Vietnam and other poorer Asian countries drawn to a better life in South Korea.
In industrial towns, young men from Bangladesh and Pakistan toil at jobs shunned by Koreans as too dirty and dangerous, providing cheap labor that South Korea’s export-driven economy needs to compete with China. The number of such workers almost doubled to 553,000 last year from 260,000 in 2007 — not counting those who overstay their visas and work illegally.
One of every 10 marriages in South Korea now involves a foreign spouse. Although overall numbers of schoolchildren in South Korea have been declining — to 6.7 million this year from 7.7 million in 2007 — as a result of one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the number of multiethnic students has been climbing by 6,000 a year in the same period.
“A multicultural society is not just coming; it’s already here,” Ms. Lee, a member of the governing Saenuri Party, said in an interview at her office in the National Assembly.
Still, her election exposed how far South Korea remains from that ideal, suggesting a rough road ahead as it grapples with the demographic changes.
After Ms. Lee’s election, anti-immigration activists warned that “poisonous weeds” from abroad were “corrupting the Korean bloodline” and “exterminating the Korean nation” and urged political parties to “purify” themselves by expelling Ms. Lee from the National Assembly.
Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik has condemned such xenophobic outbursts as “pathological,” and he urged South Koreans to take the transition to a multicultural society “not as a choice, but as an imperative.”
The role of ethnicity in South Koreans’ self-image explains why they take such pride in the success of ethnic Koreans abroad, like the new president of the World Bank, the Korean-American Jim Yong Kim. It also explains why they considered it a national shame that a Korean-born American resident, Seung-Hui Cho, 23, killed 32 in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 before killing himself, even though he had emigrated with his family when he was 8.
Given this cultural backdrop, Korean policy makers face a difficult task integrating multiethnic families while avoiding the social and economic turmoil often blamed on immigrants elsewhere.
“They bring religious and ethnic strife to our country, where we had none before,” said Kim Ky-baek, publisher of the nationalist Web site Minjokcorea and a critic of the government’s policy of admitting and providing social benefits to foreign-born brides and migrant workers. “They create an obstacle to national unification. North Korea adheres to pure-blood nationalism, while the South is turning into a hodgepodge of mixed blood.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 29, 2012
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Seung-Hui Cho. He was a permanent resident of the United States, but not a citizen.
Sony sells over half a million PlayStation 3 consoles over Black Friday week
Label: TechnologyBoth Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo (NTDOY) had a big week of console sales during Black Friday’s week of shopping madness in the U.S. So how did Sony (SNE) do in comparison? Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton announced on Thursday that the company sold 525,000 PlayStation 3 consoles and 160,000 PS Vita handhelds during the Black Friday week. Overall PlayStation sales of hardware, software and accessories are up 9% over the same period last year. Tretton was also happy to reveal that subscriptions to its PlayStation Plus grew 259% since last year with customer satisfaction flying high at 95% after Sony added the Instant Game Collection to the service earlier this year.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PS Vita sales were largely bolstered by $ 199.99 bundles packaged with free games that the company pushed to retails on Black Friday. The sell-out of the bundles within minutes at retailers such as Amazon (AMZN) is a good indicator that there is huge demand for a sub-$ 200 PlayStation 3. Currently, the lowest-priced PS3 is a second-gen 160GB slim model with an MSRP of $ 249.99. The redesigned third-gen PS3s start at $ 269.99 with a 250GB hard drive.
In terms of which home console did the best over Black Friday, it looks like the Xbox 360′s 750,000 consoles took first place, while Sony came in second with 525,000 PS3s and Nintendo came in third with 400,000 Wii U systems.
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Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Stephen Fishbach Blogs: Abi-Maria Gomes Has 'Subtlety of a Wounded Walrus' on Survivor
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
Survivor
Abi-Maria Gomes (left) and Lisa Whelchel
Monty Brinton/CBS (2)
Stephen Fishbach was the runner-up on Survivor: Tocantins and has been blogging about Survivor strategy for PEOPLE.com since 2009. Follow him on Twitter @stephenfishbach.
"You need to pick one side or the other. You can't keep flipping."
– Amanda Kimmel, Survivor: Micronesia
Hey guys – I have a secret. It's a really, really big secret. You'll never discover it. Not even if you follow me around all day. Look – just follow me a little. Please? For your sake. This secret is frickin' huge. It's going to change everything.
Okay, here's a hint. Starts I. Ends with DOL.
It's an immunity idol, alright?! And I have this secret paper here, which proves it. But I'm going to rip it up into little pieces. Because it's soooo secret.
Poor Abi. Is there anything more heartbreaking in this broken world than someone pretending that they have a secret? The dreamy Malcolm said it best on Survivor: she's like a wounded ex-girlfriend.
As much as Abi is playing at strategy, she really craves attention. Everyone wants to feel wanted. Who hasn't done the whole "I have a secret immunity idol in my pocket, so you'd better be my friend" trick?
Abi's "hints" reminded me of Heroes vs. Villains, when Amanda "hinted" to Parvati about 18 times that she was a target. At the time, I said that Amanda "clobbered Parvati with the Amanda bat."
Okay, so she has the subtlety of a wounded walrus. Nevertheless, Abi wins her first Fishy Award for showing impressive discipline at the food auction. While Denise and Skupin blow their cash on cheap carbs, Abi saves up for that special something. She buys a valuable advantage in the immunity challenge, and wins three more days on the island. In Survivor, three days can change everything.
On Wednesday's episode, Abi also lost her title as the season's most annoying player. Lisa Whelchel turned in another weepy, woe-is-me performance – and let me be the first to say, "Enough!" I threw up a little in my mouth when Lisa went sobbing to Penner ... that she had to vote out Penner. Tears might win you Emmys, Lisa, but on Survivor they only win you enemies.
She's even starting to repeat the same lines. Did you notice she trotted out her old remark about how "Survivor is bigger than I am?" I get that she was a sitcom star, but that doesn't mean she needs a catch phrase. Moreover, the remark basically makes no sense, since Survivor is an abstract concept and Lisa is a physical being. It's just a lazy excuse for not having the will to play the game.
The real victim of Lisa's hemming and hawing is poor Jonathan Penner. With only a couple episodes left, I already miss the lovable goon. What makes Penner such a great player is that, at every moment, he's willing to do whatever it takes to advance himself.
He makes mistakes; he misjudges people's motivations; he fails to make alliances when he needs to most. But he is always scheming, always evaluating. He is always ready to completely rewrite the rulebook of the entire game, so long as it advances Jonathan Penner one space further on the board.
And he always engages his fellow contestants. I loved Penner's brief conversation with Abi after the auction. Abi was feeling petulant and abused. Penner didn't placate her, but by simply representing his intentions, he managed to foster a bond with the outcast Brazilian.
I can't think of many contestants who are better talkers than Penner. Even when he's making mistakes and uttering nonsense, he sounds brilliant.
And is there any more perfect summation of the experience of Survivor than Penner's closing remarks? "It's been fun – and extremely painful," he says. I'm sorry for his pain, but watching him has been a real pleasure.
Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.
"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.
"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.
President Barack Obama echoed that promise.
"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.
Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.
Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.
That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.
Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.
The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.
Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.
Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."
The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.
In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.
Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.
"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.
His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.
Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.
"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.
Wall Street ends higher after swings on 'fiscal cliff'
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished higher on Thursday as investors bought on sporadic dips in a market roiled by conflicting comments from Washington about negotiations on an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff."
Tech shares, including Research In Motion
Reflecting the uncertainty surrounding U.S. budget talks, trading was choppy. Wall Street reversed early gains and fell shortly after House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, dashed hopes that lawmakers were getting closer to a budget deal that would avert automatic tax increases and spending cuts set for early 2013 - the fiscal cliff - that could push the U.S. economy into a recession next year. But the market rebounded by afternoon and the three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded to near their session highs.
"There is an emotional part in buying on the small dips here. Investors are more worried about missing the rally than losing money as they believe that the 'fiscal cliff' will be solved eventually," said James Dailey, portfolio manager at TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
"Until the fiscal cliff is solved, the madness of the crowd will not subside."
Discussions on Capitol Hill are aimed at avoiding big automatic spending cuts and tax hikes, known as the fiscal cliff, that will start taking effect beginning in January.
Boehner's comment about a lack of progress in talks with the White House was one of a series of contrary pronouncements by lawmakers and the Obama administration over whether Washington will finally cut a deal.
There have been some signs that leaders are moving closer to a fiscal agreement. The S&P 500 has gained about 5 percent recently after a sell-off that took it down almost 8 percent following the U.S. election on November 6. But investors remain wary that politicians' ad hoc statements can spark quick reversals in the market.
U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion rose 4 percent to $11.54 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral" on optimism ahead of the launch of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc shares gained 4.1 percent to $2.04 on plans to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas. The sale and lease-back will raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as Advanced Micro Devices diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 36.71 points, or 0.28 percent, to 13,021.82 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 6.02 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,415.95. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 20.25 points, or 0.68 percent, to close at 3,012.03.
So far this week, the Dow is up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 is up 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq is up 1.5 percent.
But shares of top retailers retreated in the wake of data showing a weak start to November sales after Superstorm Sandy. Kohl's Corp
Tiffany
Supervalu
Data showed the U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses restocked, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the economic recovery's underlying weakness.
Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose more than expected in October, a sign the housing market recovery advanced into the fourth quarter despite a mammoth storm and concerns over looming tax hikes. Homebuilders' shares rose. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> rose 0.8 percent.
About 6.15 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.
On both the NYSE and the Nasdaq, roughly three stocks rose for every one that fell.
(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)
U.N. Will Vote on Status for Palestinians, Defying U.S.
Label: World
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority spoke at the United Nations before the General Assembly voted on Palestine's status as a “nonmember observer state” on Thursday.
UNITED NATIONS — An overwhelming majority of countries are expected on Thursday to vote to recognize Palestine as a “nonmember observer state” at the United Nations. Palestinian leaders say the step advances a two-state solution with Israel, but Israeli and American officials condemn it as detrimental to peaceful coexistence.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly before the vote, called the moment a “last chance” to save the two-state solution and said that the window of opportunity was narrowing.
“The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine,” he said just before the vote was scheduled to take place.
The resolution is expected to win backing from a number of European countries, among them France, Spain and Switzerland — a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. Others, like Germany, say they will abstain, and a tiny handful of countries are expected to join Israel and the United States in voting no.
The resolution comes shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at reducing the arsenal of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, a part of the territory that the United Nations resolution expects to make up a future state of Palestine.
Mr. Abbas directed harsh criticism toward Israel, saying that the “aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence.”
“This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities toward the Palestinian people and toward peace,” Mr. Abbas said early in his speech.
The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, was politically weakened by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that some Western countries give for backing the United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.
“We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process,” Mr. Abbas said.
“On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.”
“The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation,” he said.
The vote is taking place exactly 65 years after the General Assembly voted to divide the former British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab — a vote that Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.
At the time, Arabs rejected the division of the land and the creation of Israel. But since the late 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization has officially endorsed two states, with the state of Palestine defined as comprising the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — areas beyond Israel’s pre-1967 borders that it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Mr. Abbas said the Palestinians wanted to breathe new life into the negotiations. He said the Palestinians would accept “no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel,” adding they were also seeking a solution to the refugee issue based on the resolutions.
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