The Philippine Online Chronicles

Israel announces lifting of Gaza blockade

Israel agreed to lift the land blockade of Gaza Strip on Thursday amid international outrage over the deadly May 31 attack on a flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies for the Palestinian territory, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The lifting of the blockade means that food coming into Gaza will no longer be regulated and that much-needed construction materials will now be allowed to enter the Hamas-controlled territory. The naval blockade against smuggling of weapons, however, will remain in place.

The decision, which was made after consultation with the US and the European Union, came one week after US President Barack Obama said the blockade was unsustainable and must be scaled down drastically. It was hailed as “an important step towards easing the lives of Palestinians in Gaza” by the envoy of the so-called Quartet for Middle East Peace, Tony Blair.United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, meanwhile, said that he was “encouraged” by the Israeli decision.

Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza with the cooperation of Egypt in 2007 after the militant group Hamas seized control of the territory during a conflict with the more moderate Fatah faction. Hamas has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and used Gaza as a launching pad for several artillery attacks against the Jewish state. The blockade was meant to prevent Hamas from acquiring weapons and to pressure the group into releasing a captive Israeli soldier. It worsened the situation in Gaza during the past three years but it did little to weaken Hamas.

Death toll rises in Kyrgyz clashes

Over 2,000 people may have died in the ethnic violence that rocked Kyrgyztan, according to Interim President Roa Otunbayeva. The violence was directed mainly at Uzbek minority living in the southern part of the country.

According to a report by the Associated Press, around 100,000 people of Uzbek ethnicity fled to nearby Uzbekistan to seek refuge, overwhelming the border with the said country. The United Nations has announced that over one million people may eventually need aid in Kyrgyztan and Uzbekistan.

A UN has chartered two Illyushin-76 cargo planes to deliver 80 tons of food, water, and medicine. They are due to arrive in the city of Osh this weekend.

Meanwhile, hundreds of ethnic Uighurs have fled the capital, Bishkek, after receiving threats that they would be the next targets of attacks, suggesting that further instability would continue to rock this Central Asian nation, which hosts both American and Russian military installations.

Kyrgyz authorities have blamed the violence to elements associated with Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the president who was ousted by a Russian-backed coup in April.

Finland's Vanhanen resigns premiership.

Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen resigned after seven years in office on Friday, according to the Agence France Presse. He will be replaced by Mari Kiviniemi, who would become Finland's second woman prime minister.

Vanhanen, whose premiership is among the longest in Finland's history, is known for his decentralized management style that rarely meddled with the business of his cabinet ministers. He cited a recent leg operation as the reason behind his resignation but analysts say he is stepping down due to a drawn-out campaign financing scandal that dogs him and his party.

His succesor, 41-year-old Minister of Public Administration and Local Government Mari Kiviniemi, has been a member of parliament from 1995 and had served as Minister for Foreign Trade and Development from 2005 until she took up her present post in 2007. She will serve the remainder of Vanhanen's second term, which will last until April 11 next year. The ruling Centre Party is counting on her clean, scandal-free reputation to boost its prospects in next year's parliamentary elections.

The opposition parties, however, have issued a joint call for snap elections, saying a change of leadership only on the prime ministerial level was not enough in the current economic climate."The problems cannot be genuinely addressed with a completely out-of-date programme and a more than three-year-old mandate," the Social Democratic Party said in a statement

Japan's Kan urges Karzai to spend aid wisely

In Tokyo, visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai was pointedly reminded by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan of the need for better governance in his graft-ridden country on Thursday, according to the Agence France Presse.

Kan urged Karzai to assure that the five billion dollars in Japanese taxpayers' money that was allotted to Afghanistan by the world's second-biggest economy would not be put to waste. He reiterated concerns made earlier by Japanese officials on the graft and corruption that infest Karzai's government. Anti-graft international watchdog Transparency International has reported that Afghanistan has the world's worst corruption except for Somalia, which does not have a functional government.

Japanese aid projects in Afghanistan have built 650 kilometers of highway and a new airport terminal for the capital Kabul. It has also paid for more than 300 dollars worth of wages for the impoverished country's 80,000 police officers.

Karzai also met with Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and the Emperor of Japan on Thursday, and delivered a policy address in Tokyo on Friday. He is scheduled to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on Saturday to pay tribute to victims of the US atomic bombing of that city during World War II. His visit to Japan came amid reports of ransom demands for a Japanese journalist who has been held captive by the Taliban insurgent group since March this year.

Photo: “ShelterBox - Gaza Strip - March 2009” by shelterboxuk c/o Flickr. Some rights reserved.