theSun | WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 11 2009
news without borders
Ban to set up UN Gaza inquiry panel
NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-
moon told the Security Council on Monday
he was about to set up a commission to look
into Israeli damage to UN premises during the
recent Gaza conflict, diplomats said.
Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, cur-
rent council president, said Ban had promised
the council during a closed-door briefing he
would give it the names of the members and
terms of reference of the panel in the next few
days.
Several diplomats said it would be led by
Ian Martin, a Briton who until recently was
UN special envoy to Nepal and from 1986-92
served as secretary-general of human rights
group Amnesty International.
Several UN buildings were damaged during
Israel’s 22-day offensive in December and Janu-
ary that was aimed at stamping out rocket fire
against Israel from Gaza, which is controlled by
the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas.
On Jan 15 Israeli shells that UN officials
said contained incendiary white phosphorus
demolished a warehouse in a Gaza compound
belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Shells also hit a vocational training centre
there, wounding three people. Earlier, on Jan
6, Israeli fire killed more than 40 people just
Israel votes in tight contest
JERUSALEM: Israelis began voting yesterday
in an election that pollsters say is too close to
call, with right-wing opposition leader Ben-
jamin Netanyahu bidding to oust the centrist
party of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
The short campaign was overshadowed by
Israel’s January war with Palestinian militants
in Gaza. The key issue facing voters is which
leader can best assure the security of the state
while chances of a peace deal seem remote.
Some 5.3 million people are eligible to
vote, in 9,000 polling stations nationwide.
The campaign generated little enthusiasm,
and cold, rainy weather across the country
increased the possibility that there would be
a low turnout.
Likud party leader Netanyahu, once a clear
frontrunner in opinion polls, has lost ground
to Livni since the 22-day war last month in
which 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were
killed, locking the two in a statistical dead
heat.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak, a third
prominent candidate, trails both Netanyahu
and Livni, though his poll numbers have more
than doubled since the Gaza war that ended
with each side calling a truce on Jan 18.
The race could be determined by how
Octuplets’ mom looks for divine help
LOS ANGELES: The California mother of newborn said she also was hoping for help from “volunteers,
octuplets said on Monday she was counting on
God to help provide for her family but acknowl-
edged that she already was “struggling” financially
to raise her first six children.
Nadya Suleman, 33, widely criticised for under-
going fertility treatments when she already had six
children, expressed confidence in her ability to care
for her brood during a nationally televised interview grandmother said. “Now I’m struggling to look after
on NBC’s Today show.
In addition to the six boys and two girls she gave
birth to on Jan 26, Suleman is the mother of four the house.”
older boys and two girls, including one set of twins,
ranging in age from 2 to 7.
Divorced and living with her mother in suburban
Los Angeles, she said all 14 were conceived with in
vitro fertilisation from a single sperm donor, identi-
fied only as a friend.
“I will feed
them. I will
ft) bein g interviewed by
do the best I Suleman (le
er on Feb 6.
possibly can,” a NBC report
Suleman said
of her newly
expanded
family. “And in
my own way, in
my own faith,
I do believe
wholeheart-
edly that God
will provide in
his own way.”
Suleman
REUTERSPIX
11
outside an UNRWA school in Gaza. The Israeli
military said in all cases that it was responding
to fire by Palestinian militants.
Ban, who strongly protested the Israeli ac-
tions at the time, already had said there would
be a UN inquiry but diplomats said he now was
ready to announce details.
At least two inquiries already are underway
– one by UNRWA itself and one by Israel. The
Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council has
announced a plan for a broader investigation
of rights violations in Gaza.
Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour
told reporters he understood the commission
would consist of four members plus a member
of the UN secretariat. Another diplomat said
the inquiry would last for one month.
“We believe that what (Ban) did is a positive
and responsible development and significant
step in the right direction of investigating the
crimes committed by Israel and keeping the
Security Council engaged,” Mansour said.
Takasu said the commission would report
back to the Security Council, which would then
decide how to respond.
Diplomats said they thought it unlikely that
Israel’s ally the United States, which has a veto
in the council, would allow the 15-nation body
to adopt the report as its own. – Reuters
many votes the smaller parties garner or the
ballots of 10-to-15% of as yet undecided voters,
pollsters said.
“The trend we’ve seen the last few days
indicates a very close battle,” said pollster Rafi
Smith of the Smith Research Centre. “No one
has jumped ahead and it’s tough to call.”
Ultra-rightist Avigdor Lieberman, a po-
tential spoiler for Netanyahu, has seen his
popularity soar since the war that has focused
public interest in the campaign on security
concerns.
Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party pledges
to get tougher with Palestinians, including
Israeli Arab citizens and supports Jewish set-
tlement building in the occupied West Bank.
Israelis vote by party, and parliament seats
are allocated by proportional representation
to national party lists. The party garnering the
most votes traditionally has its leader desig-
nated to form a government or become prime
minister.
The political haggling involved in forming
a new government could take weeks. Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, the outgoing leader
who quit in a corruption probe in September,
would stay on as caretaker premier until a
new cabinet is sworn in. – Reuters
friends and family,” adding that her mother, Angela,
deserves much of the credit.
But Angela Suleman was far less sanguine
in a separate interview she gave to the website
RadarOnline.com, calling her daughter’s continued
childbearing “unconscionable.”
“How she’s going to cope, I don’t know,” the
her six. We had to put in bunk beds, feed them in
shifts, and there’s children’s clothing piled all over
Suleman has said the octuplets, including two
sets of identical twins, were the product of six
implanted embryos – the same procedure used to
conceive her six other children.
Specialists in reproductive medicine say
such high-number
multiple births
are to be avoided
because of health
risks to mother and
offspring.
Under estab-
lished guidelines
for in vitro ferti-
lisation, doctors
normally implant
no more than
two or three of
the resulting em-
bryos back in the
mother’s uterus.
– Reuters