MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1. 2004
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Sharon: Arafat won't be buried in Jerusalem
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday he would never let Yasser Arafat be buried in Jerusalem but would honor a commitment to allow the Palestinian leader to return to the West Bank when he finishes medical treatment in France.
Meanwhile, senior Palestinian officials held high-level meetings to prove the government was still functioning in Arafat's absence.
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, whose efforts to force Arafat to relinquish some power have largely failed, chaired a session of the Palestinian National Security Council, which commands the most important of the myriad Palestinian security forces.
Qureia asked the security chiefs to draw up a list of whatever they need to tighten security in the Palestinian areas and present it to his Cabinet for approval, said Palestinian politician Abbas Zaki.
The move apparently was meant to head off chaotic
infighting in a post-Arafat period of uncertainty.
In a symbolic gesture, Qureia refused to sit at the head of the table, Arafat's place.
The Palestinian Legislative Council also met Sunday and the PLO executive committee, which met Saturday, held a second meeting on Sunday night.
"In a commitment ... to our president, our national symbol, we are convening all our institutions as we used to do when he was present," said Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's top security adviser.
No concrete decisions were announced by any of the bodies from the flurry of meetings, and the leaders in Ramallah appeared to still defer to Arafat and his entourage in Paris.
Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said he held a five-minute telephone conversation with Arafat, during which the ailing leader instructed him to ensure salaries are paid on time for government employees to celebrate the feast ending the holy month of Ramadan.
Despite the show of unity many Palestinians have grown disillusioned with Arafat's rule
Arafat won't be buried in Jerusalem."
“
As long as I am prime minister,
Ariel Sharon Israeli prime minister
in recent years, accusing his government of favoritism and rampant corruption that has left the Gaza Strip in chaos and swathes of the West Bank under the control of local gangs.
Israel has long accused Arafat of fomenting violence and kept him confined to his headquarters in Ramallah for 2 1/2 years with threats to prevent him from returning.
However, when Arafat's health deteriorated last week, the government said he could leave for treatment and would be allowed to return, prompting Arafat to head to a French hospital. Doctors were still trying to determine what ails Arafat.
Despite pleas from several hardline Cabinet ministers to renge on his promise, Sharon
"As long as I am prime minister, Arafat won't be buried in Jerusalem," he told his Cabinet, according to participants in the meeting.
reiterated Sunday that Arafat would be allowed to return. But Sharon ruled out a Jerusalem burial for the Palestinian leader.
Arafat has said he wants to be buried in Jerusalem, at the holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. Israel has marked a possible burial site for Arafat in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis, in the West Bank, security officials said.
Israeli security officials have expressed concern that a funeral procession in Jerusalem could spin out of control. Israel also believes a Jerusalem burial would bolster Palestinian claims to the city and further polish Arafat's image.
Rajoub, speaking on Israel TV, called Sharon's comments a "shameful disgrace," saying it was inappropriate to discuss the burial matter while Arafat was alive.
Sharon's government has
shunned Arafat as a terrorist and refused to meet with him in recent years.
Saying the Palestinians had no leader interested in making peace, Sharon proposed his "unilateral disengagement" plan for leaving the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements with no input from the Palestinians.
Sharon told the Cabinet that Arafat's departure would not sway him from the plan, however he would not rule out new talks with an Arafat successor.
“If a different, serious Palestinian leadership will be formed to dismantle the terror infrastructure, we will renew negotiations on the basis of the road map (peace plan) and maybe it will be coordinated with the disengagement plan,” Sharon said. “Nothing has happened in the field until now, so no point in changing the plan.”
The departure of Arafat, 75, has left a gaping leadership hole among the Palestinians. Arafat has been their leader since 1969 and refused to groom a successor.
Despite the spate of official
meetings, it was clear the Palestinians had no potential replacement with Arafat's stature and certainly no one with the ability to assert control over his crumbling empire.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday that Israel hoped Arafat would be followed by a new, more moderate, Palestinian leadership that would be willing to crack down on militants and talk peace with Israel.
He declined to specify who would be an acceptable alternative.
"It's their decision who they would like to choose after Arafat, but I believe that everyone after Arafat would be better than him," Shalom told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, an Islamic Jihad militant was killed Sunday in a fire fight with Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Jenin, where the army has been operating since last week, the army and Islamic Jihad said.
Another militant injured in the shootout and four other suspects were arrested, the army said.
Health organization discusses worldwide outbreak of flu
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The World Health Organization has called an unprecedented summit meeting of flu vaccine makers and nations to expand plans for dealing with the growing threat of a flu pandemic.
Sixteen vaccine companies and health officials from the United States and other large countries already have agreed to attend the summit next week in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 11, said Klaus Stohr, influenza chief of the United Nations' health agency.
With increasing signs that bird flu is becoming established in
Asia and several worrisome human cases that can't be linked directly to exposure to infected poultry, it's only a matter of time until such a virus adapts itself to spread more easily from person to person and cause a severe worldwide outbreak, he said.
"We believe that we are closer to the next pandemic than we ever were." Stohr said.
"We believe we are closer to
The world's total capacity for flu vaccine now is only 300 million doses, and it would take at least six months to develop a new vaccine to fight a pandemic.
"If we continue as we are now, there will be no vaccine available, let alone antivirals, when the next pandemic starts," Stohr
the next pandemic than we ever were."
Klaus Stolz Influenza chief of the United Nations' health agency
said. "We have a window of opportunity now to prepare ourselves."
pandemic, which occurs every 20 to 30 years, when a flu strain changes so dramatically that people have little immunity from previous flu bouts.
Flu kills about 36,000 people in the United States and a million worldwide each year by conservative estimates, Stohr said. But tens of millions die in a
There were three pandemics in the 20th century; all spread worldwide within a year of being detected.
The worst was the Spanish flu in 1918-19, when as many as 50 million people worldwide were thought to have died, nearly half of them young, healthy adults. More than 500,000 died in the United States.
The 1957-58 Asian flu caused about 70,000 deaths in the United States, followed by the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu, which
caused about 34,000 U.S.
deaths.
The current vaccine shortage in the United States, caused by loss of one of the country's two major flu shot suppliers, reveals how vulnerable the world is.
The United States is the only nation that has commissioned work on potential pandemic bird flu vaccines, Stohr noted. The National Institutes of Health has given Aventis Pasteur and Chiron Corp. contracts to produce prototype bird flu vaccines that are expected to be ready for human tests late this year.
Aventis already has made 8,000 doses at its plant in
Swiftwater, Pa.; Chiron is making its doses at a factory in Europe, not the one in Britain that regulators shut down last month, causing the U.S. vaccine shortage.
If a pandemic occurred and a vaccine wasn't ready, antiviral drugs could play a key role in slowing its spread, said Dr. Frederick Hayden, a University of Virginia virus expert.
It. too, is in short supply
"It's hard to get explicit numbers but the production capacity worldwide is very limited," making it difficult to develop an international stockpile that could be used in a pandemic, Hayden said.
PAUL DAVIS A LEADER WHO LISTENS
We need legislators in Topeka who are part of the solution, not part of the problem. In the past two years, State Representative Paul Davis has been a leader who has offered solutions to the difficult challenges that our state faces. He has tackled the tough issues because he listens to your concerns.
- Paul listened when you said schools should be properly funded.
- Paul listened when you said senior citizens and persons with disabilities should get the services they deserve from the state
- Paul listened when you said state government ought to run more efficiently and bureaucracy should be streamlined.
- Paul listened when you said the Legislature should keep its promises to KU and the other regents institutions.
Let's send Paul back to Topeka on Tuesday to keep fighting for us!
www.davisforlawrence.com
Paid for by Davis for State Representative, John Pepperdine, Treasurer PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT
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