Foreign Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WESTERN EUROPE
CAMERON ELECTED NEW TORY LEADER
David Cameron cast aside the legacy of Margaret Thatcher yesterday and promised to rebuild a “modern, compassionate” Conservative Party that would recapture the center ground from Prime Minister Blair.
Mr. Cameron, 39, defeated David Davis by 134,446 votes to 64,398, a margin of more than two to one, in a postal ballot of party members.
He said that gave him a decisive mandate to change the way the party looked, thought, and behaved.
The Tories had to end the “scandalous under representation of women, show they were concerned about public services and the quality of life; and abandon the Punch and Judy style of politics.”
Mr. Cameron, the party’s fourth leader since Labor came to power in 1997, promised to lead the Tories back to Downing Street.
– The Daily Telegraph
TENSE ENCOUNTER FOR THE WORLD’S TWO MOST POWERFUL WOMEN
BERLIN – The world’s two most powerful women had probably been hoping for a more relaxed encounter yesterday, even if Catherine the Great stared down at them from a portrait.
Secretary of State Rice was on the defensive as never before since taking office.
Chancellor Merkel was pretty tense too and was hardly in a state to put her guest at ease. It was painful to watch both of them squirm as they tried to sustain a mood of diplomatic tact, despite the scandal over CIA flights in Europe.
When Mrs. Merkel said she was “happy” Ms. Rice had admitted “mistakes,” the chancellor pursed her lips and appeared determined not to make eye contact with the visitor.
Ms. Rice clasped her hands and nodded in agreement as Mrs. Merkel listed their shared values in their common fight: “close partnership,” “friendship,” and “respect for democracy.”
– The Daily Telegraph
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA’S DEMANDS DELAY ISRAEL’S JOINING OF THE RED CROSS
Approval of a new emblem allowing Israelis to join the Red Cross movement was held up yesterday by Syria’s demand that Israel allow its humanitarian workers into Golan Heights.
The move could delay until at the earliest today a decision by the 192 signatories of the Geneva Conventions on a “red crystal” emblem that Israeli paramedics could use in place of the red cross or Muslim red crescent.
Israel’s Magen David Adom – or Red Shield of David – and the Palestine Red Crescent struck a mutual recognition deal last week allowing each other’s paramedics to operate unmolested. Now Syria wants a similar arrangement allowing the Syrian Red Crescent to help an estimated 30,000 Syrians in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
“We want to get a similar Israeli commitment to us, similar to what they did with the Palestinians,” Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said during a break in a conference aimed at bringing Israel into the Red Cross after nearly six decades of exclusion.
– Associated Press
ISRAEL IMPOSES CLOSURE ON WEST BANK AND GAZA FOLLOWING BOMBING
JERUSALEM – Israel clamped an open-ended closure on the West Bank and Gaza yesterday, banning virtually all Palestinian Arabs from Israel, and arrested 15 Palestinian terrorists in a first response to a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis outside a shopping mall on Monday.
Israeli officials also said the army would target Islamic Jihad operatives in the West Bank, both through arrest raids and targeted killings of operatives, and renew air strikes in the Gaza Strip in response to any Palestinian rocket attacks.
The army said the 15 arrests took place throughout the West Bank, with eight Islamic Jihad members rounded up in Tulkarem, near the village of Monday’s bomber. The bomber’s father and brother were among those detained.
– Associated Press