theSun | MONDAY JANUARY 5 2009 13

news without borders

Palestinian supporters
gather on the steps of the
State Library in Melbourne
yesterday to protest against
the attacks by Israel in Gaza.
EPAPIX

US thwarts Libyan push

for Gaza truce demand
NEW YORK: The United States thwarted an
effort by Libya on Saturday to persuade the
UN Security Council to call for an immediate
ceasefire in Gaza after Israel launched a ground
invasion, diplomats said.
French UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Rip-
ert, currently Security Council president, told
reporters after a closed-door session “there was
no agreement, but there (were) serious conver-
gences to express serious concern” about the
crisis.
The “convergences” of opinions among
council members included the need for an im-
mediate and permanent ceasefire and easing the
humanitarian crisis Gazans are in, Ripert said.
British Ambassador John Sawers said he was
“very disappointed” about the council’s failure to
agree on a statement during Saturday’s 4-hour
emergency meeting.
Libya, the only Arab member of the council,
had circulated a draft statement expressing “se-
rious concern at the escalation of the situation
in Gaza, in particular, after the launching of the
Israeli ground offensive” and urged all parties
“to observe an immediate ceasefire.”
But diplomats said the United States refused
to back the Libyan-drafted text and killed the
initiative, since council statements must be
passed unanimously. Later the United States
refused to back a watered-down call for a truce,
the diplomats said.
The United States, one of five permanent
Security Council members, insists that any
statement or resolution state that the Palestinian
militant group Hamas is a terrorist organisation
that seized power in Gaza from the legitimate
Palestinian Authority. US envoy Alejandro Wolff
said there was no point in issuing statements
that Hamas, which unilaterally declared an end
to a 6-month old ceasefire last month, would
ignore.
“I don’t think it does the council any good
... to issue statements that aren’t going to be
observed,” Wolff said. “Israel’s self-defence is
not negotiable.”
Libya and other Arab states oppose the US
view, leaving the 15-nation Security Council
deadlocked on the Gaza crisis.
Israel launched the ground offensive in the
Gaza Strip on Saturday, sending tanks and in-
fantry into battle with Hamas fighters, who have
defied eight days of deadly air strikes with salvos
of rocket fire into Israeli towns.
Israel insists its Gaza action aims to halt
Hamas rocket attacks. The strip is home to 1.5
million Palestinians.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian
observer to the United Nations, said it was the
council’s responsibility to demand that Israel
“stop this aggression immediately.”
“Israel cannot continue to behave as a state
above international law – this is the law of the
jungle,” he said.
The United States and Libya have clashed
repeatedly on the Israeli-Palestinian issue since
Libya joined the council a year ago, and Wash-
ington has tried to keep the topic off the agenda
whenever possible.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called
for an immediate end to Israel’s ground opera-
tion in Gaza. Speaking by telephone with Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Ban conveyed his
“extreme concern and disappointment,” his
press office said in a statement.
At least a quarter of the 453 Palestinians
killed have been civilians, a UN agency said.
Four Israelis have been killed by rockets that
continue to pound southern Israel. – Reuters

Thai club fire 35 missing in

briefs
Five drown after
boat capsizes
BANGKOK: Five Thais drowned
over the New Year’s holiday
after their boat capsized when
returning from a merit-making
trip to a Buddhist temple near
a reservoir, news reports said
yesterday.
Divers on Saturday retrieved
the five bodies from the muddy
bed of the Siyad reservoir in
Chachoengsao province, 80km
east of Bangkok.
The accident occurred on
Friday evening when a boat
packed with 11 people, all re-
lated, were returning from a trip
to make merit for the New Year
at a temple on the reservoir and
visit a famous Buddhist monk,
the Bangkok Post newspaper
reported. Six of the passengers
survived by clinging to the over-
turned boat – dpa
death toll hits 62
BANGKOK: The death toll from
the New Year’s fire that tore
through a Bangkok nightclub has
risen to 62, emergency services
said yesterday, as police tried to
track down the disco’s owners for
questioning.
The 62nd victim was a woman
who succumbed to her burns on
Saturday, the services said in
a statement. Of the 229 people
injured when the blaze engulfed
the Santika club in the Thai capital,
32 are in intensive care fighting for
their lives, they said.
Early police reports suggested
the fire might have been caused
by a pyrotechnics display during
the countdown to 2009, but offi-
cials are also investigating wiring
in the club and sparklers handed
out to guests.
Police said they had sum-
moned 13 directors of the club
for questioning.
“So far none of them have
appeared, but they have until
Wednesday,” Colonel Sutin Sab-
phaeung said, adding that more
than 100 eyewitnesses were being
questioned. – AFP
ferry accident
KATHMANDU: At least 35
people were missing after a
crowded ferry capsized yes-
terday in a river in eastern
Nepal, a local official said.
“At least 35 people are
missing after the boat
turned over in the Koshi
river early Sunday,” said lo-
cal official Yubaraj Bhattarai
by telephone from Sunsari
district, 230km southeast of
Kathmandu. – AFP
Former Japan MP
commits suicide
TOKYO: A former Japanese MP
who resigned after making ac-
cusations of government cor-
ruption that were never proven
has jumped to his death from
an apartment block, a police
source said yesterday.
Hisayasu Nagata, once a ris-
ing star in the Democratic Party
of Japan, committed suicide on
Saturday in the southwestern
town of Kitakyushu. Nagata, 39,
left behind a suicide note, the
police source said. – AFP