EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Despite the carnage wrought by Israel on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, the Jewish state's ambassador to the European Union, Ran Curiel, has said that the conflict should not have any effect on the planned upgrade of relations between Israel and the EU.

"I don't expect any change to the process of upgrading relations," he told a group of journalists in Brussels. "The positions of Israel and the EU are actually converging."

Israeli flag: it was announced in June last year to take relations between the two sides to a higher level

In June last year, the EU-Israel Association Council - the body headed by foreign ministers that conducts the bilateral relations between Israel and EU - announced an upgrade in relations between the two parties.

Accelerated negotiations were subsequently launched on the specific nature of the upgrade in three areas; increased diplomatic co-operation; participation in European plans and agencies; and possible Israeli integration into the European single market.

"We have done this [the assault on Gaza] reluctantly and without a choice," he said. "Our citizens are daily exposed to a sort of game of Russian roulette from the Hamas rockets. I don't know of any country that could allow its citizens to be subjected to such imminent danger without reacting."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Union member states authorised the export of €200 million in arms exports to Israel in 2007, the latest figures from Brussels disclose, with France far and away the Jewish state's biggest European weapons supplier.

According to the EU's 2008 report on arms export licences, published in December for the 2007 calendar year and consolidating the accounts that member states must annually submit, 18 member states authorised a total of 1,018 such licences to Israel worth €199,409,348.

Machine guns: the EU sold €200 million of weapons to Israel in 2007

France, Germany and Romania were the top three exporters. France issued export licences worth €126 million, Germany authorised €28 million and Romania €17 million, the EUobserver can reveal.

In response to calls from opposition politicians that the UK government halt its arms exports to Israel and push all other EU member states to do the same, a British foreign office spokesperson said: "We do not approve any defence related exports if we judge that there is a risk that they will be used for external aggression or internal repression.

Incoming US President Barack Obama has said he will tackle the conflict in the Gaza Strip but only after taking office on Jan. 20. But many in the world think he should say now what he intends to do in the Middle East.

With pressure mounting on Obama to break his silence on the Gaza conflict, the President-Elect did issue a statement on Wednesday, January 7, if only to say concrete policies would be forthcoming.

 

"I am doing everything that we have to do to make sure that the day that I take office we are prepared to engage immediately in trying to deal with the situation there," Obama said at a news conference. "Not only the short-term situation but building a process whereby we can achieve a more lasting peace in the region."

 

When pressed by reporters, Obama repeated his justification that he was unable to do more before being officially sworn in.

GAZA (Reuters) - Hundreds of embattled Palestinians ventured outside to shop for food on Wednesday during a three-hour Gaza truce, a first step toward an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire under discussion by Israel and Hamas.

"Food and milk -- what else can we hope for in three hours," said Ahmed Abu Kamel, a father of six who lives near the city of Gaza. "We want it all to end."

Violence resumed in the area soon after the 1 p.m.-4 p.m. truce expired, and Palestinians returned to the precarious safety of their home after stocking up on food and visiting family and friends.

Israel said it would cease attacks in the Gaza Strip during those hours every day to ease the flow of aid to the Hamas-run territory's 1.5 million residents.

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - India said on Wednesday it would keep all options open to dismantle "terror outfits" after the Mumbai attacks and Pakistan finally confirmed the lone surviving gunman was Pakistani.

Pakistan's Prime Minister dismissed his national security adviser shortly afterwards. India had been saying for weeks that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, who was captured after the November attacks, was from Pakistan.

The prime minister's office said Mehmood Ali Durrani had been sacked "for his irresponsible behavior for not taking the prime minister and other stakeholders into confidence, and a lack of coordination on matters of national security."

Indian officials have shown increasing frustration at what they see as Pakistan's unwillingness to fully investigate the attacks in November by 10 gunmen that killed 179 people.

Barack Obama has asked the CNN medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta to join his fledgling administration as the US surgeon general, according to reports.

According to washingtonpost.com, the 39-year-old doctor is "the Obama team's first choice" to become America's most senior public health official.

Although Gupta has not commented on the matter, the Post claims that he wants the job and is undergoing final vetting. CNN has confirmed Gupta has been approached by the president-elect's transition team.

ohn Atta Mills has been sworn in as Ghana's new president following a cliff-hanger election victory.

Mr Atta Mills, 64, took his oath of allegiance in front of thousands of people in Independence Square for the inauguration in the capital, Accra.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate beat the ruling party's Nana Akufo-Addo in a hotly contested poll by a margin of less than 0.5% of votes.

President John Kufuor has stood down after serving the maximum two terms.

He is the second elected head of state in Ghana's history to hand over to an opposition politician.

The sharp slowdown in the US economy will push the federal budget deficit to more than $1 trillion, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says.

The deficit of $1.186 trillion for the fiscal year ending on 30 September would be the largest on record.

The projected deficit does not include the extra $800bn spending being planned by US President-elect Barack Obama.

But it highlights the deep economic difficulties facing Mr Obama when he is inaugurated on 20 January.

The CBO says that the slowing economy will lead to the US budget deficit more than doubling from last year's figure of $455bn.

There's been a lot of griping recently from the Right about how there are no web-native news outlets on the right, or that they aren't seen as having a lot of credibility or that the people who write for them get no respect. And then you read that Pajamas Media, the right-leaning blog outfit started a few years back with a crazy amount of VC money just hired Joe the Plumber to be their new war correspondent in Israel.

The affected blogs include American Liberalism Project, BeThink, Blue Hampshire, Blue Jersey, Blue Mass. Group, Minnesota Progressive Project, My Left Wing, Never In Our Names, Pam's House Blend, RadicalRuss, Swing State Project and West Michigan Rising and other mostly state-focused political blogs of note.

"I wish I could see a bright side to this," blogger Pam Spaulding, founder, editor and publisher of Pam's House Blend, told PageOneQ. "It's incredible that years of hard work can be destroyed in a flash, but we're in the digital age and there are people motivated to silence voices through malicious acts. I'm hopeful that data will be recovered..."

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be "a central part" of his administration's efforts to contain federal spending, signaling for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics of entitlement programs.

As the Congressional Budget Office projected a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit for this year even before the costs of the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package being taken up by the House and the Senate, Mr. Obama stepped up his effort to reassure lawmakers and the financial markets that he plans a vigorous effort to keep the government's finances from deteriorating further.

HONG KONG -- China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers.

The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.

On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama predicted the possibility of trillion-dollar deficits "for years to come," even after an $800 billion stimulus package. Normally, China would be the most avid taker of the debt required to pay for those deficits, mainly short-term Treasuries, which are government i.o.u.'s.

In the last five years, China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. In September, it surpassed Japan as the largest overseas holder of Treasuries.

But now Beijing is seeking to pay for its own $600 billion stimulus -- just as tax revenue is falling sharply as the Chinese economy slows. Regulators have ordered banks to lend more money to small and medium-size enterprises, many of which are struggling with lower exports, and to local governments to build new roads and other projects.