Israel Gaza raids kill 14, Arabs urge policy review

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed 14 Palestinians on Saturday and destroyed the Hamas government headquarters, prompting Arab leaders to call for a review of their entire policy on the Middle East peace process.

Medics said 44 Gazans have been killed and more than 390 wounded since Israel launched its aerial campaign on Wednesday afternoon, with at least eight militants among the 14 people killed on Saturday.

As the toll rose, sirens sounded in Tel Aviv for a third day, sending people scuttling for cover a day after a rocket hit the sea near the city centre, AFP correspondents said.

Israeli officials said one rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system while a second hit somewhere in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. The attack was claimed by Hamas' armed wing.

Nine people in Israel were injured by militant rocket fire.

Warplanes carried out 180 air strikes on Gaza overnight, Israeli television reported, with attacks levelling the headquarters of the Hamas government.

In Egypt, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel would be held to account for the children killed.

"Everyone must know that sooner or later there will be a holding to account for the massacre of these innocent children killed inhumanely in Gaza," he said in a speech in Cairo.

So far, six children have been killed, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said.

Both Turkey and Egypt have publicly shrugged off US bids to get them to exert pressure on the Islamist Hamas into ending rocket fire, instead blaming the Jewish state for the violence.

Arab foreign ministers at an emergency meeting in Cairo roundly denounced Israel's Gaza campaign and demanded a review of what they called their futile diplomacy towards the Jewish state.

Member states should "reconsider all past Arab initiatives on the peace process and review their stance on the process as a whole," said Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.

In 2002, Arab states offered Israel diplomatic recognition in return for its withdrawal from all occupied territory and an equitable settlement of the Palestinian refugee question, a cornerstone of Arab diplomacy ever since.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal was also in Cairo on Saturday to meet Egypt's intelligence chief, Erdogan and Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, a senior Hamas official said.

US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said both President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree that de-escalation is preferable, provided that Hamas ceases firing on Israel.

"We believe that the precipitating factor for the conflict was the rocket fire coming out of Gaza," Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One.

"We believe that Israel has a right to defend itself, and they'll make their own decisions about the tactics that they use in that regard."

Since the start of Operation Pillar of Defence, the Israeli army says militants have fired more than 600 rockets over the border, of which 430 hit and 245 were intercepted by Iron Dome missiles.

Over the same period, three Israelis have been killed and 18 injured, including 10 soldiers, with the army saying the air force had hit more than 950 targets in Gaza.

The Israeli military in a statement on Saturday said the air force had targeted "a senior Hamas operative in charge of the terror organisation's smuggling operations.. and the senior member of Hamas' air defence unit, Mohammed Kaleb."

Four Israeli soldiers and five civilians were hurt in separate rocket attacks on Saturday, police and the army said. Hamas claimed the attack on the soldiers, while Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets which injured civilians in Ashdod.

Multiple Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Saturday killed 14 people, including at least eight militants.

Late on Friday, the military sealed off all main roads around Gaza in the latest sign it was poised to launch its first ground offensive on the territory since its 22-day campaign over New Year 2009.

Israeli ministers approved the call-up of as many as 75,000 reservists on Friday after Hamas militants said they fired a rocket at Jerusalem, and another hit the sea off Tel Aviv, causing panic but no casualties.

Meanwhile, online activist group Anonymous said it had downed the websites of dozens of Israeli state agencies and the Bank of Jerusalem in protest over the deadly air assault on Gaza.

- AFP/de

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His network cut across party lines

NEW DELHI: It is said that every contract or business Ponty Chadha eyed became his — and much before the charade of auctions was played out.

Ponty was known for his ability to turn the free-flowing liquor from his vends into a viscous glue that bound him to politicians across ideologies and parties. And make him flourish.

No wonder, on the cusp of winning power in Uttar Pradesh this March, the first family of the Samajwadi Party didn't hesitate to show up at the same ill-fated Chhatarpur farmhouse hours after Akhilesh Yadav had barely come off the microphone promising to end Chadha's illegalities under Mayawati. Not just them, former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh too never shied away from acknowledging his ties with the liquor baron.

Politicians of all hues, bureaucrats of all dispensations, brokers of all shapes bowed to this master of the liquor trade — and as years went by, of much more.

Only someone confident of his ability to negotiate the Mulayam-Mayawati political minefield of UP would have risked investments of that scale in the state.

The story of how Ponty lost an arm as a young man in Bareilly speaks volumes about his obsessiveness.

He was flying kites with a metal string which got entangled with a live electric wire. But Ponty didn't let go. He rolled back the string while trying to untangle the kite from the main power line. The continuing electric shock from the live wire forced an amputation.

Target-obsessed

The incident showed his obsession with the target on hand. Very early in his career, Ponty realized that political patronage was the key to success in business. And decided he would cultivate politicians better than anyone else.

So, the man who made it big under Mulayam Singh Yadav also went on to capture liquor business under his arch-rival Mayawati, and while at it, snapped up five sugar mills belonging to the state government for a song. Ponty's business had morphed into a behemoth with massive investments in liquor, sugar, malls, paper, and real estate in UP.

It's said he knew what made political leaders happy, what were their passion, love and weaknesses. "That is why he was close to both SP and BSP in UP, and both Akali Dal and Congress in Punjab," said a political researcher. Mulayam Singh Yadav gave him a foothold in UP. But that did not stop him from spreading his wings under Mayawati regime. It's said that when faced with problems in the BSP regime, he bypassed the most powerful bureaucrat of the regime, known as single-window clearance, to connect with the chief minister through a junior IAS. And went on to thrive.

In Mayawati's reign, Ponty grew his liquor business - he became the sole distributor of liquor in UP, and acquired distilleries and sugar mills. It's said despite his aversion for publicity, Ponty was known to every tippler in the state. Vends in UP charged Rs 20 above the sale price on every bottle, fully aware that consumers had no choice in the face of Ponty's monopoly. Even small change of Rs 5 and 10 was returned to buyers in the form of small packets of munchies, the brand called "khao pio". The salted mixture is also produced by Chadha bros!

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Lonesome George Not the Last of His Kind, After All?

The tide may be turning for the rare subspecies of giant tortoise thought to have gone extinct when its last known member, the beloved Lonesome George, died in June.

A new study by Yale University researchers reveals that DNA from George's ancestors lives on—and that more of his kind may still be alive in a remote area of Ecuador's Galápagos Islands.

This isn't the first time Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni has been revived: The massive reptiles were last seen in 1906 and considered extinct until the 1972 discovery of Lonesome George, then around 60 years old, on Pinta Island. The population had been wiped out by human settlers, who overharvested the tortoises for meat and introduced goats and pigs that destroyed the tortoises' habitat and much of the island's vegetation.

Now, in an area known as Volcano Wolf—on the secluded northern tip of Isabela, another Galápagos island—the researchers have identified 17 hybrid descendants of C.n. abingdoni within a population of 1,667 tortoises.

Genetic testing identified three males, nine females, and five juveniles (under the age of 20) with DNA from C.n. abingdoni. The presence of juveniles suggests that purebred specimens may exist on the island too, the researchers said.

"Even the parents of some of the older individuals may still be alive today, given that tortoises live for so long and that we detected high levels of ancestry in a few of these hybrids," Yale evolutionary biologist Danielle Edwards said.

(See pictures of Galápagos animals.)

Galápagos Castaways

How did Lonesome George's relatives end up some 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Pinta Island? Edwards said ocean currents, which would have carried the tortoises to other areas, had nothing to do with it. Instead, she thinks humans likely transported the animals.

Crews on 19th-century whaling and naval vessels hunted accessible islands like Pinta for oil and meat, carrying live tortoises back to their ships.

Tortoises can survive up to 12 months without food or water because of their slow metabolisms, making the creatures a useful source of meat to stave off scurvy on long sea voyages. But during naval conflicts, the giant tortoises—which weighed between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) each—were often thrown overboard to lighten the ship's load.

That could also explain why one of the Volcano Wolf tortoises contains DNA from the tortoise species Chelonoidis elephantopus, which is native to another island, as a previous study revealed. That species is also extinct in its native habitat, Floreana Island.

(Related: "No Lovin' for Lonesome George.")

Life After Extinction?

Giant tortoises are essential to the Galápagos Island ecosystem, Edwards said. They scatter soil and seeds, and their eating habits help maintain the population balance of woody vegetation and cacti. Now, scientists have another chance to save C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus.

With a grant from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, which also helped fund the current study, the researchers plan to return to Volcano Wolf's rugged countryside to collect hybrid tortoises—and purebreds, if the team can find them—and begin a captive-breeding program. (National Geographic News is part of the Society.)

If all goes well, both C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus may someday be restored to their wild homes in the Galápagos. (Learn more about the effort to revive the Floreana Galápagos tortoises.)

"The word 'extinction' signifies the point of no return," senior research scientist Adalgisa Caccone wrote in the team's grant proposal. "Yet new technology can sometimes provide hope in challenging the irrevocable nature of this concept."

More: "Galápagos Expedition Journal: Face to Face With Giant Tortoises" >>

The new Lonesome George study was published by the journal Biological Conservation.

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GOP Mourning for Mitt Romney? Not So Much

Republicans are over it.

And most of them aren't doing much mourning for Mitt Romney.

Just over a week since the two-time Republican presidential hopeful failed to deny President Obama a second term, instead of offering up condolences for a candidate who garnered 48 percent of the popular vote, GOP leaders seem to be keeping Romney at arm's length.

"I've never run for president -- I've lost elections but never for the presidency -- and I'm sure it stings terribly," New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie said in an interview Friday morning with MSNBC, but added: "When you lose, you lost."

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, an early endorser and a frequent presence by Romney's side on the campaign trail, echoed Christie.

"The campaign is over," she said in an MSNBC interview on Thursday, "and what the voters are looking for us to do is to accept their votes and go forward."

A period of blame and soul-searching was inevitable for Republicans after Nov. 6, but Romney hastened it with his candid comments on a conference call with donors this week in which he attributed President Obama's win to the "gifts" he gave to key voting blocs.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Specifically, Romney told some of his top campaign contributors that he lost because, in his words, "what the president's campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked."

According to Romney, some of the best "gifts" went to Hispanic voters, who overwhelmingly supported President Obama.

"One, he gave them a big gift on immigration with the Dream Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters, and then No. 2 was Obamacare," Romney said on a conference call, audio of which was obtained by ABC News.

It took almost no time for GOP leaders to disavow Romney's assessment.

"I don't think that represents where we are as a party and where we're going as a party," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, said at a press conference at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Las Vegas earlier this week. "If we're going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and second, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream."

Ayotte also refused to give Romney any cover: "I don't agree with the comments."

Neither did former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, one of Romney's primary rivals who went on to become one of his most ardent surrogates.

"I don't think it's as simple as saying the president gave out gifts," he said in an interview with C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program that is set to air this weekend.

Pawlenty said that President Obama "just tactically did a better job getting out the vote in his campaign" and "at least at the margins, was better able to connect with people in this campaign."

His view is backed up by the national exit polls, which show that 53 percent of voters said that President Obama was "more in touch" with people like them compared with 43 percent who said the same of Romney.

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