Israel, Palestinians to meet Tuesday; prospects hazy (Reuters)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) ? Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet this week after more than a year of deadlock in peacemaking, officials said Sunday, but both sides played down prospects of any imminent resumption of talks.

Yitzhak Molcho of Israel and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat will meet Tuesday in Jordan alongside representatives of the Quartet of Middle East mediators - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

"This aims at reaching a common ground to resume direct talks between the two sides and to achieve a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord ... by the end of 2012," the official Jordanian news agency Petra quoted Mohammad al-Kayed, spokesman of the Foreign Ministry in Amman, as saying.

"It is essential that both sides take advantage of this opportunity," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement released in Washington.

Negotiations stalled in late 2010 after Israel refused to renew a partial freeze on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank as demanded by the Palestinians.

The Palestinians say they cannot hold talks while Israel cements its hold on land where, along with the Gaza Strip, they intend to found a state. Israel says peacemaking should have no preconditions.

The Israelis and Palestinians will meet bilaterally as well as with the Quartet in Amman, according to Kayed and Clinton.

Israel said Molcho would "take part in the Quartet meeting" yet made no mention of Erekat in its statement, or of direct contacts with the Palestinians.

Wasl Abu Yossef, a senior figure in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's umbrella PLO executive, described Tuesday's meeting as a forum for the sides to "offer their positions on security and borders" as requested by the Quartet in October.

UNDERSTANDINGS

"This is not a resumption of negotiations," Abu Yossef told Reuters in Ramallah, the seat of Abbas's administration.

Erekat said the meeting would be "part of ongoing Jordanian efforts to compel Israel to comply with its international legal obligations ... specifically its obligation to freeze all settlement construction."

Most countries deem the settlements illegal. Israel disputes this, and says it would keep settlement blocs under any peace deal in accordance with understandings reached in 2004 with then-U.S. president George W. Bush.

For its part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government criticizes Abbas for seeking a reconciliation with the Islamists of Hamas, who control Gaza and reject permanent coexistence with Israel. Abbas has also balked at Israel's demand that he recognize it as a Jewish state.

But both sides have been rattled by upheavals that have bolstered Islamists in Jordan and Egypt. Fierce pro-Palestinian sentiment in both countries, among the few Arab countries to have relations with Israel, often backs Hamas rather than Abbas.

Established a decade ago, the Quartet has in recent months taken a leading role in attempts to broker new negotiations, stepping in after U.S. President Barack Obama's administration failed to revive diplomacy.

"As the president and I have said before, the need for a lasting peace is more urgent than ever. The status quo is not sustainable and the parties must act boldly to advance the cause of peace," Clinton said.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120101/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel

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Talk:California Proposition 7, Interest Rate on State-Issued Bonds (June 1970)

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Turkey airstrike: mourners pummel local official (AP)

ISTANBUL ? Angry Kurds on Saturday assaulted a local official who sought to offer condolences in a village in Turkey where 35 civilians were mistakenly killed in a military airstrike meant to target Kurdish rebels.

The televised spectacle of men throwing punches and stones at Naif Yavuz, a district governor, was the latest eruption of fury over Wednesday's airstrikes, and it highlighted the deep gulf of trust between the Turkish state and large segments of its ethnic Kurd minority.

Clashes also broke out for a third day between police and protesters in several cities in the mainly Kurdish southeast, the state-run Anadolu agency reported. Thirty-six people were detained in the city of Sanliurfa. There were peaceful protests in several other cities.

The strikes by F-16 jets, guided by intelligence from drones, hit a group of Kurdish smugglers and resulted in one of the highest single-day civilian death tolls in Turkey's decades-old war with Kurdish rebels, setting off several days of violent demonstrations in mostly Kurdish cities.

The rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, labeled a terrorist group by Turkey and the West, threatened retaliation and urged protesters to mobilize. The group, however, is considerably weakened since the peak of its military powers in the 1990s and its influence is largely confined to the poor southeast, where calls for autonomy and an end to discrimination resonate most strongly.

"No one should have any doubt that their blood will be avenged. The Kurdistan freedom movement will make sure that this massacre is accounted for," Firat, a pro-Kurdish news agency, quoted rebel commander Murat Karayilan as saying.

"If the Kurdish people do not want their children to die, they must now say 'enough' and they must rise up everywhere and go out in the streets," said Karayilan, who is based in the mountains of northern Iraq.

Kurdish rebels have routinely used the border region to launch attacks on Turkish targets, slipping into Turkey on some of the same rugged paths used by fuel and cigarette smugglers for years.

Turkish officials have promised a full investigation into the botched airstrike, and said those responsible will be held to account. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned the families of the victims in the village of Gulyazi in Sirnak province to express condolences, and his voice was broadcast through a loudspeaker.

"We share your grief, your pain is our pain," the Anadolu agency quoted Erdogan as saying. "Everyone must rest assured that all kind of work is under way in relation to the issue."

The Show TV channel showed one man telling Erdogan on the telephone: "They didn't deserve to die in this way."

Erdogan replies: "The issue is not that they were smugglers. You know the area, it is a very sensitive area, it is not possible for them (the military) to recognize each and every person."

Footage from the Dogan news agency of the visit of Yavuz, the district governor, revealed the bitter feeling toward figures representing the state in a province where the conflict has long disrupted life.

The images show men booing, lunging forward and pummeling Yavuz as his aides try to hustle him down a road lined with parked cars and bleak, snow-covered slopes. At one point, dazed and disheveled, he runs down an embankment to get away from the crowd. Yavuz was taken to a hospital for a checkup, according to reports.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay visited bereaved families in a house and told Anadolu that members of a "party," an apparent reference to political activists, provoked the attack on Yavuz and that the families were disturbed by the incident and apologized for it.

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who plans to visit the region on Sunday, said the government has yet to explain how the intelligence that led to the airstrike was compiled, and who exactly was involved.

"It seems that the incident was caused by incorrect intelligence," he said. "Who provided this intelligence to the military headquarters? They say no country would bomb its own people, but it has. Who will account for this?"

Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, known by its Turkish acronym MIT, has denied reports it provided the information that led to the airstrike.

The United States recently deployed four Predator drones to Turkey from Iraq to aid Ankara in its fight against the rebels.

Also Saturday, Turkish media reported that two suspected Kurdish rebels were killed in a police raid in Diyarbakir, the main city in southeastern Turkey. The Anadolu agency said the rebels ignored calls to surrender and threw hand grenades at police surrounding their hideout. A firefight ensued, and the suspects died after jumping out of the building.

The Turkish government has sought to reconcile with disaffected Kurds, allowing Kurdish-language institutes and private Kurdish courses as well as Kurdish television broadcasts. But Kurdish activists cite police roundups of Kurdish politicians, journalists and others suspected of rebel links as a sign of intolerance toward the minority.

___

Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111231/ap_on_re_eu/eu_turkey_airstrikes

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Halperin's Take: Santorum's Prospects (TIME)

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Will Google Plus Put Facebook Out of Business? | Search Engine ...

I?m seeing similar usage behaviors on Google+ that I saw on Facebook while MySpace was still the leader. That is, while looking at the Nielsen numbers above for Google+, the number of fans that popular celebrities have, and the number of people I personally know who have a Google+ profile, I?m noticing that although the number of sign-ups and users per month are apparently growing nicely, the majority of people in my circles aren?t yet fully active on Google+ (the average date of last posting is mid-October from my non-SEO circles), and if these people are active on Google+, they exhibit different social media behaviors than they do on Facebook.

What now seems like ancient history, Remember that most Myspace users migrated over to Facebook over the period of a year or so, and during this time they were active on both websites, but maintained slightly different personas on each (many people matured and changed their social media usage and behaviors once on Facebook, most probably due to Facebook?s more mature and professional environment ). I?m seeing a similar thing happening with users migrating over to Google+ from Facebook: The method of transition, and the change in user behavior (Google+ is different than and once again more mature than Facebook?almost to a fault, more on that in a bit?and I?m seeing the similar transition effects happen).

With this said, there?s two big things I see right now that are keeping Google+ from growing and displacing Facebook the same way that Facebook displaced MySpace and other (including foreign) sites:

1) First and foremost, Facebook is a platform, whilst Google+ is just a website. It?s true. 3rd party apps and 3rd party integration isn?t what kick-started Facebook and it isn?t what?s keeping them alive (although Farmville?s 80 million monthly users and billions of hours spent online by users in its prime was certainly not peanuts) all the various business and entertainment possibilities that Facebook has, Google+ still lacks and will lack for the foreseeable future. Myspace started the social platform idea with its music and musician support (remember the embeded music player on profiles and the link to the artist?s MySpace page? Brilliant), but then dropped the ball and Facebook quickly picked it up and expanded to every other area besides music. Here?s a brilliant (accidently published) blog post about platforms by a slightly disgruntled Google and ex-Amazon employee. You must read this:

Also, before attacking the other reason that I think is limiting Google+?s growth, it?s worth mentioning that Facebook is currently the defacto sharing and social feature of most websites throughout the world (think ?Like? button and ?Like box? along with Facebook?s Open Graph integration which provides invaluable data to website owners), and at the time of Myspace?s demise, Myspace didn?t have such massive-scale 3rd party website integration (actually it didn?t have any). Changing over to Google?s ?+1? isn?t very fruitful for most sites, and certainly not for brands which have a large presence and marketing efforts invested into facebook with the abovementioned integration (custom landing pages, custom aps, tabs, iframes etc.)

2)The second greatest thing limiting Google+?s growth is that it?s borderline too professional and ?mature? for most users. Facebook did the world a favor by ridding the web of immature browser-crashing Myspace pages with all their bad JavaScript, CSS and animated GIF hacks, but Google+ offers no such advantage to new users and the Internet as a whole. I?m running out of time (and probably maximum comment character limits on SEJ), but to me Google+ comes across as more of a professional networking tool, ala LinkedIn, rather than a fun social tool that Myspace was, and Facebook still is. I think society as a whole has reached a ?maturity peak? with regards to social media, and Google+ can?t really raise the bar anymore, at least not for a few years. There really isn?t anything attracting people to be active and transition over to Google+, and the only way Google can overcome it is to simply get most Facebook users to sign up and try Google+, and hope they stick. Good luck, we shall see their approach.

That?s it, end of my rant? Some parting advice to anyone who?s read this far and seems a bit gloomy about the future of social sites and whether they?ll be fun any more, do yourself a favor and sign up to Pinterest and see just how amazingly addictive, fun and free a different type of social sharing can be, and more importantly, if you have a website or are an SEO, how much traffic and conversions it can send your way. E.g., they?ve grown 2000% in the last 6 months, as a testament to their awesomeness (It?s invitation only still, and if you don?t know anyone who is a member, just visit my site (link at top of comment) and send me an email and I?ll send you an invite). Thanks for reading.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-google-plus-growth/38337/

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The worst political gaffes of 2011 (The Week)

New York ? Only one GOP candidate will get to face off with Obama in 2012's general election. But plenty participated in 2011's contest for biggest goofup

After long months of speeches, town halls, cable news segments, newspaper interviews, and a seemingly endless string of debates, the Republican presidential hopefuls (and the Democratic incumbent) have had plenty of chances to stick their feet in their mouths in 2011. Of course, they didn't disappoint. As the year draws to a close, we remember 10 of the most memorable political gaffes of 2011:

1. Michele Bachmann: The Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly" to end slavery
In January, the Minnesota congresswoman said "we know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." Then in June, Bachmann doubled down on her claim that the slave-owning authors of the Constitution worked to end slavery, citing the efforts of John Quincy Adams ? who was 9 when the Declaration of Independence was signed. "I hate to be a stickler for reality," said Steve Benen at?Washington Monthly, but "to use the possible beliefs of a 9-year-old boy as evidence that the Founding Fathers 'worked tirelessly to end slavery' is simply absurd on its face."

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2. Newt Gingrich: The GOP budget is "radical... right-wing social engineering"
The GOP hopeful?nearly killed his campaign in its rollout May weekend, telling NBC's Meet the Press that Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) controversial Medicare-voucherizing plan was "radical," adding that "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering." Republicans were "outraged" by Newt's kneecapping of the GOP plan, said Steven Hayward at?PowerLine. Gingrich's "face plant on Meet the Press" suggests there's "something fundamentally wrong with him."

3. President Obama: What year is it again?
Obama visited Britain's Westminster Abbey in May and left a touching note in its VIP guestbook: "It is a great privilege to commemorate our common heritage and our common sacrifice." Then, inexplicably, he backdated his entry by three years, to "24 May 2008." The White House "is pleading jet lag, but c'mon," said Allahpundit at?Hot Air. With hope and change all but gone, "it's only natural for a man to revert to thoughts of his glory days when everything around him is falling apart."

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4. Bachmann: Confusing John Wayne and a serial killer
"John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa," Bachmann said in June during her official campaign launch, in the city of her childhood. "That's the kind of spirit that I have, too." The only problem, commentators quickly pointed out, is that the actor John Wayne was born a few hours away in Winterset. Waterloo's John Wayne was John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer who dressed like a clown and raped and murdered 33 boys and men in the 1970s. This "hilariously inept comment" is what she gets for "tempting fate by launching her [campaign] in a place called Waterloo," said James Fallows at?The Atlantic.

5. Sarah Palin: Paul Revere warned the British
Palin hadn't formally taken herself out of the 2012 race yet when she launched an apparently political bus tour of historic sites in June. During the trip, Palin?said that during his famous midnight ride, Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere warned?"the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells." It's bad enough that Palin "bollixed up the account of Paul Revere in such an obvious and excruciating fashion," says Andrew Sullivan at?The Daily Beast. But what's creepy is that she stuck to her guns, and her fans reacted to her "perfectly predictable gaffe by trying to edit the Wikipedia entry on Revere to align it with Palin's ramblings."

SEE MORE: The 5 best fiction books of 2011

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6. Rick Perry: Ben Bernanke is guilty of "treason"
The Texas governor was a little late to the race, but "he made a valiant effort to catch up in his first week on the trail" in August, said David A. Graham at?The Daily Beast. The gaffe that "many commentators felt crossed the line from baffling or humorous into downright scary" was when Perry said it would be "treasonous" for the Federal Reserve chairman to keep up his loose monetary policy. "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas," Perry said, drawing rebukes from both the Left and Right.

7. Obama: Riding in a Canadian-made U.S. jobs bus
The president took a shiny new black bus across the Midwest in August to promote his plan to bring new jobs to America. Unfortunately, as the New York Post "gleefully" pointed out, Obama's?bus was mostly built in Canada. The Post dubbed Obama "Canucklehead." And you have to admit, said Ed Morrissey at?Hot Air, "buying two buses from a Canadian company while promising to create jobs in the U.S. is the worst kind of optics imaginable."

SEE MORE: 7 unexpected health benefits of 2011

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8. Mitt Romney: "Corporations are people"
Romney didn't soften his image as a Wall Street corporate raider when he told a heckler at August's Iowa state fair: "Corporations are people, my friend... Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people." Okay, "we think we understand what Mitt Romney meant," said Frank James at NPR. But "he gave his Democratic opponents an early Christmas gift by uttering those words," making "their goal of pushing the narrative that he is a tool of corporate America much easier."

9. Perry: "The third one. I can't. Sorry. Oops."
The Texan was already losing altitude due to widely panned debate performances when he had an "epic" memory lapse at a November face-off in Michigan, coming up with only two of the three federal departments he would try to eliminate: "Education, the, uh, Commerce, and let's see. I can't. The third one. I can't. Sorry. Oops." Oops, indeed, said Nolan Finley in The Detroit News. Perry is "the worst debater since Dan Quayle," and after this "stunning" extended meltdown, he's "toast."

SEE MORE: The 7 biggest political downfalls of 2011

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10. Herman Cain: "I got all this stuff twirling around in my head"
Drawing unflattering comparisons with Perry's "oops" moment, Cain had his own "baffling" brain freeze while speaking on camera with the editors of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Asked an open-ended question about Obama's Libya policy, Cain replied: "OK, Libya. [pause] President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Gadhafi. I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same thing before I say, 'Yes, I agreed' or 'No I didn't agree.' I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason ? nope, that's a different one. [pause] I gotta go back and see. I got all this stuff twirling around in my head." That "supergaffe" should be a dealbreaker, said?Hot Air's Allahpundit. Or, I guess we'd be alright "as long as President Cain never gets a phone call at 3 a.m."

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Obama signs defense bill 'with reservations' (CNN)

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