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Hamas Rejects Palestinian Authority Call for Summer Municipal Elections
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Hamas has rejected the decision by the Palestinian Authority to hold crucial municipal elections this July. PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced the elections for the West Bank in what is being seen as a bid to boost his Fatah faction. It would be the first major vote since Fatah was pummeled by the Islamic Hamas movement in the 2006 national elections. But Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, said elections, even municipal ones, should not be held until a reconciliation agreement is reached between the deeply split Hamas and Fatah. It remains to be seen whether Hamas will boycott the move, thus guaranteeing that Fatah candidates will reclaim areas where Hamas won. While this may be good for Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas would probably prevent them from taking place in Gaza, thus keeping Fatah from gaining strength there. Repeated attempts at reconciliation have failed and Israeli security sources have said they don’t believe any elections will take place this year.
Egypt Begins Building Sea Barrier Blocking Gaza
Reports from Cairo say that Egypt has begun extending its robust barrier between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip out to sea. The daily Dustur said that bulldozers began forming a breakwater near the coast of Rafah along the international border and that it would be used as a continuation of the steel wall it has been erecting to completely block the border. The maritime sea wall will probably not mirror the more sophisticated one erected 40 kilometers to the north along the border separating the coastal strip from Israel. That barrier, which is primarily aimed at thwarting Palestinian terrorists swimming up to the Israeli coast, consists in its first 150 meters of cement pilings burrowed into the sandy bottom. Beyond that, the barrier extends for a further 800 meters, in the form of a 1.8-meter-deep fence floating beneath the surface.
Iraqi Prime Minister Agrees to Judicial Review of Blacklisted Election Candidates
Democracy appears to have been given a reprieve in Iraq after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to a judicial review of candidates who had been blacklisted from participating in the country’s elections. Under pressure from the United States and the United Nations, Maliki has retracted his opposition to the judicial appeals committee arbitrating on the issue. This may pave the way to reinstate some 500 candidates, many of whom were barred on the grounds of being Baathist sympathizers. The compromise will apparently begin to allow liberal participation in elections, but with the condition that authority to block someone elected from taking their seat in parliament will be maintained if they do not conform to Iraqi election laws. The condition is thus being seen as aimed at purging Baathist from the government. With Washington hoping to withdraw its 100,000 troops before the end of next year, it is desperate for the election to be seen as legitimate.
Al-Shabaab Declares War on Kenya
As violence threatens to escalate in Somalia, the Islamic al-Shabaab group has declared a jihad, or holy war, against Kenya for reportedly training rival Somali troops. Al-Shabaab’s commanders made the threat in a statement that units made up of Kenyans and Somalis were massed on the border between the two east African nations and were about to launch an offensive against them and other anti-government Islamist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. Al-Shabaab controls much of Somalia’s southern regions and large tracts of the capital Mogadishu. The Western-backed Somali Transitional Government has been battling various Islamist insurgency groups like al-Shabaab for years.
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