• Official PA radio news - The P.B.C. VOP (Voice of Palestine)January 19

In the news programs, VOP ignored the murder of the young Israeli near Ramallah.

PA ministers and officials said great gaps still existed with Israel, and they were quoted criticizing the International Commission of Inquiry for delaying its visit to the region until after the Israeli election.

Morning Headlines -- 7am news bulletin

• Israeli occupation forces close Salahadin Road that links north and south Gaza;
• And a night-time Israeli shelling of the houses of citizens near the Palestinian-Egyptian border;
• And other Israeli attacks throughout the homeland;
• Mr. Ahmad Qreia says that the gaps between the two sides, the Palestinian and Israeli, remain great. He made his comments after a Palestinian-Israeli political meeting held last night;
• Minister of Information and Culture Yasser Abd-Rabbo expressed his disappointment with the performance of the investigating commission into the implementation of the understandings of the Sharm al-Sheikh summit, (particularly) delaying for three weeks its visit to the region. And Abd-Rabbo said that the commission was being subjected to pressures by Israel;
• In a message sent to the Voice of Palestine, President Bill Clinton sends a message to the Palestinian people at the end of his term, in which he asserts the steadfastness, bravery and resistance of our people, and re-affirming that it (the people) must have self-determination in its land and the establishment of an independent state;
• Resigning Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposes a special regime for the occupied city of Jerusalem under which Israel would continue its control over the Jewish Quarter and the Buraq Wall (i.e. The Western Wall sometimes known as the Wailing Wall, regarded by Muslims as the "Buraq" or "Burak" wall, where some Islamic traditions say the Prophet Muhammad tethered his mythic steed, Buraq), but Barak stressed his refusal to execute an agreement that consolidates sovereignty over Haram al-Sharif (in the hands of) to the Palestinian side;
• The special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Anan in Southern Lebanon, Steven Stora, supported an investigation into Israeli use of depleted uranium in Southern Lebanon;
• A Vietnamese delegation visits Iraq on a humanitarian mission, and this is the first time Vietnam initiates a humanitarian visit to Baghdad, following its occasionally expressed support for Iraq and for the lifting of the siege on the Iraqi people;
• A summit between the North Korean leader Kim il-Jung, who is visiting China, and Chinese President Jiang ze-Min in Peking (Beijing) yesterday." (Apologies for spelling errors here: Arabic rendition of Chinese and Korean names is no picnic.)

8 a.m. Friday news round-up

• "At this hour, Israeli occupation forces storm Silwad near Ramallah and place a curfew on it;
• The American President Bill Clinton says in a message to the Palestinian people at the end of his term tomorrow that the Palestinian people had never been so close to the realization of its goals; (remaining items similar to 7 a.m.)
  
  

  Attitude to Violence

  The murder of the sixteen-year-old israeli boy whose body was found near Ramallah (the discovery of whose unidentified body was mentioned in VOP broadcasts two days ago) was not mentioned in any of the morning VOP broadcasts. Similarly there was no condemnation.

  However, in palestinian newspapers and in the WAFA news service, the PA issued a statement disapproving of such actions, "despite the continuation of Israeli aggression". (In Arabic, the term used for disapproval was rafd which literally means "refuses" or "rejects".)

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