Scotland vote to stay with UK

Majority of Scottish voters have chosen "NO" for independence and remain with United Kingdom. With the results in from all 32 council areas, the "No" side won with 2,001,926 (55.3%) votes over 1,617,989 (44.7%) for "Yes".

Mr Cameron said the three main unionist parties at Westminster would now follow through with their pledge of more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

From 1707 until 1999, Scotland and England alike were governed by the UK parliament. But Tony Blair's government established a separate Scottish Parliament and devolved authority over a number of important matters to the Scottish government — including health, education, and housing. Most of the funds for those things are determined by a budget set in London. Scotland has a limited ability to raise some extra tax revenue, but lacks any kind of borrowing authority. In short, even though Scotland has its own flag and World Cup team, it has less governing power than Rhode Island or New Mexico. Hence the appeal of devo-max proposals.

 

The prime minister also acknowledged that the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland must have a bigger say over their affairs.

And he promised a solution to the West Lothian question - the fact that Scottish MPs can vote on English issues at Westminster, and not the other way round.

In other developments:

• US President Barack Obama welcomed Scots' decision to stay in the UK. "Through debate, discussion, and passionate yet peaceful deliberations, they reminded the world of Scotland's enormous contributions to the UK and the world," he said.
• Police Scotland said Thursday's vote "passed off smoothly" with just six arrests across the country mainly for alleged breaches of the peace and assaults.
• Share prices rose as Scotland voted against independence.
• Polling officials said they were investigating 10 cases of suspected electoral fraud at polling stations in Glasgow.
• Royal Bank of Scotland said it would keep its headquarters in Scotland following the "No" vote.
• Wales's First Minister Carwyn Jones has called for more funding for his country after Scotland voted to stay in the Union.
• Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said a vote on the future of Northern Ireland's border was not necessary following Scotland's 'No' vote.
• Scotland rejected independence by 55% to 45%. For latest results and full coverage, go to bbc.co.uk/scotland-decides.

YES or NO for Scotland Independence Referendum

The Independent said that:-

Let’s face up to the facts – the majority of Scots want to be independent. They really do – whatever way they vote come Thursday. And this is dead clear from the poll of polls: which shows the Unionists winning to keep us together by only one per cent.

Let’s be honest: that one per cent lead is not really a majority for the Union. That one per cent lead is all the No Campaign could muster for the Union, despite throwing the entire arsenal of City of London financial fear at Scotland. Those terrifying threats of collapsing banks and mystery currencies and runaway businessmen – well, they have only convinced a mere one per cent of Scots we are better together.

It's clear that without fear, there would be a Scottish majority ready to go. And that means the current Union 1.0 looks illegitimate. That works the other way too: any sudden surge for the No Campaign  would hardly be lead to a legitimate Union either.

From what I can see, both options currently on the table look set to make millions angry. So what options are there that would work out in a way that made the most Scotsmen and Englishmen happy?
The main argument coming out of Scotland is they want to be a nation again – they want the symbolic side of independence – and they want complete freedom to build the more social Scotland the way they have always wanted. They hate neo-liberalism. And I’m convinced the majority of Scottish voters would choose to go if they knew there was a safe way to maintain a currency Union with England. And it’s fair to say: England doesn’t want to pay for this socialism.

Were both Edinburgh and London to be interested in working something out that would make the maximum number of happy Englishmen and Scotsmen they would probably do something like this. Whatever the result on Thursday they would declare a constitutional convention to dissolve Union 1.0 and set about creating a Union 2.0. But what might that United Kingdom look like?

I think this could take inspiration from the European Union – and take it much further. The outcome might look something like this. The old Union 1.0 would be dissolved and both England and Scotland would become independent. The new United Kingdom would then be founded again as a sort of super-tight European Union between two (or more, we’ll see) independent countries.

But what would we share in Union 2.0? To make it work, Westminster and Holyrood would both have to make a grand bargain. The Scots would get to keep the pound. That means there would be a currency union and a super-strict banking and fiscal union. The English would get to keep the British Army. That means there would be a super-tight defense, diplomatic and intelligence union. And of course, the Queen would still be the Queen, and everyone still British.

World University Rankings 2014

Improvements in research have seen Cambridge University and Imperial College London surpass Harvard University in the latest authoritative annual ranking of the world's top universities, published on Tuesday, with four British institutions in the top six.

The QS ranking of world universities, regarded as the most rigorous of its type, places Imperial and Cambridge as second equal, behind only the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the international stage in 2014, thanks to a year of impressive citations measured by QS's survey of academic output.

Harvard dropped from second to fourth overall. It was followed by Oxford and University College London in joint fifth place, with Stanford, Caltech, Princeton and Yale of the US filling out the rest of the top 10.

"These rankings support what our students, alumni, staff, friends and collaborators know, that Imperial is one of the world's great universities," said Professor Alice Gast, Imperial's new president of Imperial College and a leading chemical engineer. "Imperial has a rare ability to turn outstanding research into discoveries that have a real impact on the world."

 • The top 200 university rankings in full

Of the top 200 higher education institutions ranked by QS, the UK is represented by 29 and the US by 51, while Germany is the next best performer with 13. London has five in QS's top 100, compared with three for Boston and Hong Kong, and two for New York, Paris and Tokyo.

Graduates of Oxford and Cambridge were rated as the world's most employable, with LSE graduates also highly regarded. Cambridge was the best performing British institution for total research citations, an area heavily dominated by the more wealthy US universities.

"This ranking, like all the others, reflects the fact that the University of Cambridge is among a small group of the most respected and influential higher education institutions in the world," a university spokesperson said.

MIT in Boston retained top spot as the world's best university for the third year in a row, helped by another impressive rise in research citations.

The strides made also meant that both Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (259th) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (294th) are now in the Top 300. They were 269th and 355th, respectively, in the 2013 ranking of the top institutions of higher learning across the world.

The country’s premier university, Universiti Malaya, also improved upon its performance that saw it break the Top 200 barrier previously, climbing 16 places to weigh in at 151st this year.

Universiti Sains Malaysia improved by 46 places but missed out on going under the Top 300 bar, landing at 309th. It was joined in the tier by Universiti Putra Malaysia, which went to 376th from the 411-420 tier last year.

The International Islamic University of Malaysia did not better its position and remained in the 501-550 group, while Universiti Teknologi Mara went from the 701+ level to the 651-700 category.
 
 

South Korea increase 100% Tax for cigarette

Move to increase tax by 100 percent marks government attempt to reduce one of the world's highest smoking rates.

South Korea has proposed a tax hike that would nearly double cigarette prices as the government tries to reduce one of the world's highest smoking rates among adult males.

The proposal on Thursday was immediately criticised by the main opposition party, highlighting the difficulty in implementing anti-smoking regulations in a country where the health risks associated with smoking are not widely publicised.
The proposal calls for a more than 100 percent tax increase on a pack of cigarettes, which would double current prices that range between $1.9-$2.4 - far less than the $12 per pack that smokers pay in Australia, which recently toughened its anti-smoking laws.

The price of a pack of 20 cigarettes will rise by about 2,000 won ($1.93) from January, almost double the current average price of 2,500 won. That will help lower the smoking rate for adult males to 29 percent by 2020 from 44 percent now, Health and Welfare Minister Moon Hyung Pyo said in Seoul today. 

The initiative also suggested banning cigarette advertisements in convenience stores and making graphic warning
labels on cigarette packs mandatory.

KT&G, which sells 60 percent of all cigarettes bought in the country, declined to comment on the tax proposal. Shares of KT&G Corp. (033780), the former state-run company that accounts for 62 percent cigarette sales in South Korea, fell 5.6 percent, the most in almost four years.

Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) has 19 percent share and British American Tobacco Plc (BATS) has 13 percent, according to data from the Korea Tobacco Association for 2013. 

KT&G declined to comment on the announcement, according to text message sent by the company. 

Shares in GS Retail Co. (007070), the country’s largest convenience store operator, rose 1.8 percent. The benchmark Kospi stock index fell 0.7 percent.

"It is a trick to make up for the revenue shortage by emptying the pockets of working-class people and smokers."

Kim Young-geun, New Politics Alliance for Democracy Party

South Koreans are among the heaviest smokers in the world: just under half of all adult males smoke, government data shows, compared to an average of 25.4 percent in the 34 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The government said it expected higher cigarette prices to deter teenagers from picking up the habit, as research showed youth were up to four times more price-conscious than adults.

The proposal, however, is likely to face an uphill battle in parliament after the main opposition party, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, dismissed it.

"It is a trick to make up for the revenue shortage by emptying the pockets of working-class people and smokers," party spokesman Kim Young-geun told reporters in parliament.
The tobacco tax could boost tax revenue by $2.7bn per year, the government said.

A Seoul-based official at a foreign tobacco company also criticised the proposed price increase.

"The one-off drastic price hike like this is unlikely to result in the [intended] drop in the smoking rate while at the
same time creating many side-effects such as smuggling and fake tobacco products," the executive said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

  
Smoker Lobby 

The increase is “taxation of the working class,” said the Korea Smokers Association, a group that advocates for smoker rights.
It will raise the consumer price index by 0.62 percentage point, with the impact on inflation likely to be limited, the government said in a statement. 

“The government always picks on ’salarymen’ when they are short of revenue,” said Lee Sung Kyu, a 28-year-old department-store worker who said he has smoked for eight years. “It’s unfair to shift the tax burden on a certain class of people. It’s not an offense to smoke, is it?”

MH17: High-velocity objects hit plane

Dutch interim report says multiple high-speed objects hit cockpit, leaving multiple holes and leading to breakup of jet.

 

A Malaysian Airways passenger jet destroyed over the Ukraine conflict zone was hit by multiple high-velocity objects and broke up in the air, according to a Dutch interim report into its destruction

Dutch investigators said in the report, released on on Tuesday, that a large number of high-speed objects hit the cockpit area of MH17, leaving multiple holes and leading to the plane's destruction.

The Boeing 777 exploded while travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board including 193 Dutch citizens.

The West has accused Russian-backed separatists of shooting down the plane with a Moscow-supplied surface-to-air missile. Russia has blamed Ukrainian forces.

According to the report, pieces of aircraft structure were found over a large area - indicating it broke up in the air.

The report said: "The pattern of damage observed in the forward fuselage and cockpit section of the aircraft was not consistent with the damage that would be expected from any known failure mode of the aircraft, its engines or systems."

The findings also suggested that all crew was properly licenced and had medical certificates. The plane was also in airworthy conditions to make the flight from the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
The report also stated that there was no evidence or indication of manipulation of the flight recorders on the plane, adding that no aural alerts or warnings of aircraft system functions were heard in the cockpit. 

"The communication between the flight crew and members gave no indication of any malfunction or emergency prior to the occurance," Dutch investigatiors said, adding that engine parameters were consistent with normal operation during the flight.

Washington and Ukraine's government accused Russian-backed rebels of shooting down the jetliner with an advanced Russian missile system in the mistaken belief it was a Ukrainian military plane.
Russia and the rebels denied the accusation.

Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic reportedly said that pro-Russian rebels do not have the military equipment that could bring down a passenger aircraft.

"I can say only one thing: we just don't have the [military] equipment which could bring down a passenger Boeing, including this Malaysian plane," he was quoted as saying by Ukraine's Interfax news agency.

Experts did not visit site 

Al Jazeera’s Tim Friend, reporting from The Hague in the Netherlands, said that the investigators needed to get access to the wreckage in order to get more in-depth findings on the incident.

"They also need to see the satellite images in order to pinpoint the place where a missile, if it is a missile, hit the plane," Friend said.

The Dutch investigators have been unable to visit the site in the war-torn Donetsk region due to the continued fighting and have relied on information from Ukrainian crash specialists for information from the scene.

Sara Vernooij, OVV spokeswoman, earlier told the AFP news agency: "It is certainly possible to draw meaningful conclusions without having been to the scene."

Investigators came to their findings based on information from the aircraft's black boxes, and pictures and video taken at the scene, as well as information supplied by Ukrainian air traffic control.
The "black boxes" have been shipped to Farnborough in Britain to be examined by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

The OVV had said the preliminary findings would be "factual information based on sources available to the OVV".

A full report is not expected until mid-2015, it said. "We investigate the cause of the accident and not who's responsible," Vernooij told AFP.

Shortly after the crash forensic experts travelled to the site to collect body parts, but that search has also been suspended due to heavy fighting in the area. So far 193 victims of flight MH17 have been identified.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

 

Rare, menacing roll cloud moves across northern Virginia

A cloud shaped like a giant rolling pin or sideways tornado had people craning their necks for a better look in Washington DC yesterday.

The unusual weather phenomenon, known as a roll cloud, stretched in a long line low in the sky at about 7.30am. This cloud type is known as a roll cloud or arcus cloud.

As it crept across the region, many people snapped pictures of the odd-looking cloud, which they posted to Twitter and Facebook. 


It is such an unusual sight that even meteorologists at the National Weather Service's offices in northern Virginia took a picture of it as it loomed over their offices.

The rare cloud type is caused by changes in air temperature and wind, which roll the cloud into its unusual shape, according to the Washington Post.

Although it may have looked ominous, the formation, also known as an arcus cloud, was a sign of nothing more than a few showers.

'Sinking cold air causes warm, moist air on the planet’s surface to climb to higher altitudes, where the moisture condenses into cloud form,' according to Live Science.

'Winds from the storm "roll" the cloud parallel to the horizon, creating an effect that looks much like a horizontal tornado.'

The cloud moved quickly over Virginia and the Washington DC area, with some people reporting gusts of wind as it passed over them.

These clouds are relatively rare, less common than its cousin the shelf cloud, which often can be found along the leading edge of thunderstorms, forming along their gust fronts. Roll clouds seldom produce violent winds, whereas shelf clouds are sometimes a harbinger of severe weather.

Here is a large assortment of the roll cloud pictures, photographed by readers across northern Virginia this morning.

 

Long road ahead for Cambodian human rights

Quarreling political factions have reached a deal ending a year-long crisis, but human rights concerns continue.

Cambodia's two main political parties, Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and Sam Rainsy's opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP),  signed an agreement  on July 22 heralding the end of a year-long political crisis.

The deal includes replacing the controversial National Election Committee with a new institution that will include four members each from the CPP and CNRP, and a ninth independent member, Dr Pung Chiv Kek, president of the human rights organisation LICADHO.

In a statement released by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi noted the agreement "only marks the beginning of the true work of reforming the state institutions", and expressed hope that reforms would be undertaken on "principled grounds", hinting they might be guided by political interests rather than a desire to improve the human-rights situation.

 'Tenuous human rights situation' 

The deal comes in the midst of an increasingly tenuous human rights situation. Just a week earlier, a demonstration -spearheaded by several key CNRP leaders aimed to "retake" Phnom Penh's Freedom Park -  turned violent . During the clash several municipal security guards were severely beaten by protesters, in retribution for the excessive violence used by security forces over the past year, resulting in the arrest of four CNRP elected Members of Parliament .

[The] human rights situation continues to worsen because persons with power get away with a host of actions that include killing activists, seizing land, busting up labor unions, attacking peaceful protesters with deadly force, and rounding up people and placing them in prisons on trumped up charges. - Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch Asia Division

By the next day, eight CNRP lawmakers and one party activist were charged with leading an insurrectional movement, inciting to commit a felony, and instigating others to commit acts of violence. The charges illustrated what many continue to see as deteriorating human rights in the country. 

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division, said the "human rights situation continues to worsen because persons with power get away with a host of actions that include killing activists, seizing land, busting up labour unions, attacking peaceful protesters with deadly force, and rounding up people and placing them in prisons on trumped up charges or administratively committing them to abusive detention centres ". 

Over the past year, at least six people were shot dead by the security forces during protests, and dozens injured. In early January, a massive government crackdown on protests by garment workers in Phnom Penh led to 23 people being arrested. The trial was ultimately criticised by many non-governmental organistions as being a farce.

Meanwhile, during the opposition's 10-month boycott of parliament, CPP parliamentarians took significant steps towards passing, re-introducing and drafting new laws, including the Cybercrime Law and three judicial reform laws - all of which could negatively impact human rights and freedoms. The International Commission of Jurists lambasted the move saying"these bills don't 'reform' the judiciary in any positive ways, instead they actually hurt the judiciary's independence and its status as a separate and equal branch of the Cambodian government".

Political deal doesn't address human rights
Although many have, by and large,  expressed relief at seeing the political deadlock finally broken, the agreement between the opposing parties remains far from satisfactory. One of the main issues with the deal is that there is "hardly any mention of human rights [and that it] will not have a major impact on the situation of human rights now or in the future,"  Ou Virak, chair of the Board of Directors of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera.

Steadfast within the debate on human rights is the tenuous issue of minimum wage. In a country where still 20.5 percent of the population lives on less than $1.15 per day, according to a 2013 World Bank Report , low salaries, coupled with insufficient training and job opportunities, remain a hurdle to development. The topic of minimum wage for garment factory workers, an issue that concerns about 400,000 people and which the opposition has campaigned on over the past year, has also been left out of the political deal. 

According to Moeun Tola, head of the Labor Program at the Community Legal Education Center, "garment workers have been disappointed since the election and do not expect to see an increase in the minimum wage as long as the CPP is in power".

The lack of security of land and property has also affected more than half a million people, according to the Cambodian human rights organisation  LICADHO . The issue remains particularly problematic in a country where a majority of the population remains dependent on land for their income. While evictions are not necessarily illegal, the lack of compensation for affected communities has exacerbated the problem.

" The loss of a plot of land affects the ability of the residents to earn income, to ensure the well-being and education of the family, and to protect its members from harm and violence," Sia Phearum, director of the Housing Rights Task Force, told Al Jazeera.

 "A forced eviction generates food insecurity, increases poverty, the rate of homelessness, as well as migration from rural to urban areas or to foreign countries."
In addition, sexual and gender-based violence remains high. A  study released last year by the United Nations found one-in-five Cambodian men had committed rape, with alarmingly high rates of gang-rapes.

The level of representation of women in politics remains low; statistics from last year's elections indicate that only 22.55 percent of candidates were women.
While the lack of independence of the judicial system is apparent during high-profile trials, violations of fair trial rights occur at all levels of the court system. Data recently released shows in 81.6 percent of hearings at the Court of Appeal, defendants were neither informed of nor explained their rights to legal representation.

Many other problems continue to underpin the human rights situation, such as deforestation and its impact on indigenous communities; racism and ethnic hatred; prison conditions; access to quality education; malnutrition; and discrimination against people with disabilities and sexual minorities. Endemic corruption also persists. Transparency International's 2013 Corruption Perception Index ranks Cambodia 160 out of 177 countries.

What's next? 

The question remains "whether the CPP allows the CNRP to play an effective political opposition role, for instance as a rights watchdog role in the National Assembly by calling ministers and other government officials to publicly testify and account for their policies and their actions", said Robertson. "There are serious doubts that the National Assembly will be permitted to play an important role as a checks-and-balances role on the government's power." 

However, with institutional reform cited by many as a key step towards increasing transparency, the distribution of the National Assembly's commissions equally between each party and the appointment of a human rights leader to the NEC are seen as positive steps forward. "The deal allows for the opposition to join parliament and put forward their own policies," Virak told Al Jazeera.

However, Mu Sochua, a CNRP parliamentarian and one of Cambodia's most prominent female politicians, sees the current situation as a "new culture of real bi-partisanship in parliament," saying she will work across "party lines " to improve human rights in the country. 

Follow @jrousselot and @OmarHavana on Twitter.

 

Men wrongly jailed over NY rape on 1989 receive $41m

US judge approves settlement between New York City and five men wrongfully convicted over 1988 Central Park jogger rape.

A US federal judge has approved a $41m settlement between New York City and five men wrongfully convicted of the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park, ending a decade-long civil rights lawsuit.

The settlement's details had been previously reported but were publicly disclosed for the first time on Friday, when US Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis signed off on the deal in New York.

The brutal attack, known as the "Central Park Jogger" case, drew national headlines and was cited as evidence that the city's crime rate had spiraled out of control.

The five men, all black or Hispanic teenagers at the time, were arrested soon after the assault on 28-year-old Trisha Meili, a white investment banker.

The men confessed following lengthy interrogations but later recanted, claiming their admissions were the result of exhaustion and police coercion.

The men were eventually exonerated after Matias Reyes, a serial rapist and murderer, confessed in 2002, with DNA tying him to the scene. By then, however, all five had served prison terms.

Korey Wise, who at 16 was the oldest at the time of the attack, served 13 years and will receive $12.25m.

The other four - Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam - will be paid $7.125m each, or roughly $1m for each year of imprisonment.

The settlement appears to be the largest in a wrongful conviction case in the city's history and is in line with some of the biggest recent jury verdicts in such cases, suggesting the city did not receive a significant discount by settling.

A deal seemed a foregone conclusion after Mayor Bill de Blasio was elected last year, following a campaign in which he vowed to end the litigation.

His predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, had fiercely fought the lawsuit.

'Long overdue justice'

"This settlement is an act of justice for those five men that is long overdue," de Blasio said in a statement on Friday.

The city did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement. 

The city's top lawyer, Zachary Carter, said in a statement that a review of the record suggested the detectives and prosecutors who handled the original investigation "acted reasonably, given the circumstances".

In an email, Wise's lawyer, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen, said her client hoped to work with charities that help former inmates.

"I am grateful that Korey has come to the end of this very long road," she said.

The agreement is one of several major civil rights settlements under de Blasio, indicating he may take a less combative approach to such cases than Bloomberg did.

In February, the administration agreed to pay Brooklyn man David Ranta $6.4m for his wrongful conviction for murdering a rabbi in 1990.

Jabbar Collins, a Brooklyn man erroneously convicted in the 1994 killing of another rabbi, will get $10m under a deal reached last month.

In July, the city agreed to pay $2.75m to settle claims that a Rikers Island jail inmate died in 2012 after guards beat him.

 

Gaza war strengthens Palestinian unity

Rival Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have united in celebration of the end of the war, but will it last?

Gaza City - Raef had never been to a demonstration before. But after the announcement of the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian factions, the 13-year-old borrowed a green Hamas flag from his neighbours, and ran to the centre of Gaza City to cheer on the Palestinian faction at a victory rally. 

"I started to know more about Hamas over the last 53 days," he said, explaining that surviving Israel's recent seven-week military operation in Gaza, which killed at least 2,100 Palestinians and injured more than 10,000 others, has made him a Hamas supporter.

"I like them because they defend us," said Raef, adding that witnessing the destruction of the 12-storey Zakfer apartment tower made him realise the importance of Palestinian resistance fighters.

"My mom and dad support Fatah's Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] but they have sympathy for Hamas," he added, before disappearing into a sea of green at the rally

As prices soar, Gaza food crisis looms 

In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. The victory caused political tension with the PA, which refused to acknowledge the new Hamas-led government because of pressure from the international community and Israel to discount the results.

After the two sides failed to come to a power-sharing agreement, violence quickly ensued, leading to a bloody attempted coup in Gaza in 2007. The occupied Palestinian territories were then divided along factional lines, with the PA controlling the West Bank and Hamas governing Gaza, and political institutions were paralysed as a result of the split.

In June, Fatah and Hamas unveiled a consensus government and announced forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. In response, Israel said it would pursue punitive steps, including withholding Palestinian tax revenues and stopping peace negotiations.

According to a recent Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research poll, which surveyed 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza after the Gaza war ended, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would win twice as many votes as Abbas in a presidential election. Hamas had an 88 percent approval rating, while the PA had only 36 percent of support.

Despite this, Hamas' rivals in Fatah - the faction that dominates the PA - have garnered increased support in Gaza after the war: yellow Fatah flags and photos of Abbas can be seen throughout the strip. The support for both major factions has contributed to the sense of unity in Gaza, according to Dr Ahmed Yousef, the chairman of the Palestinian Reconciliation Committee, a body established to urge Palestinian reunification.

"Hamas has now emerged as part of the broader political spectrum, it no longer stands alone," Yousef, who served as an adviser to former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told Al Jazeera. "It is the steadfastness and survival of people which gives a flavour of victory. We are not a superpower … The message we are telling Israel is that we love life."

Israel and Hamas claim victory as truce ends

Both Abbas and Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' political chief, met with the Emir of Qatar on August 21, in what analysts described as a sign of Palestinian unity, shortly before the ceasefire agreement was unveiled.

Under the deal, the PA has been charged with administering Gaza's borders and coordinating reconstruction efforts in the Palestinian enclave with international donors like the European Union, Qatar and Turkey. Long-term issues, such as Israel's push to demilitarise the strip and Hamas' demand to reopen Gaza's seaport and airport, will be negotiated next month.

Meanwhile, after the announcement of the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas had suffered a "very hard blow", and did not achieve any of its demands in the agreement.

"I think that Hamas is also isolated diplomatically," Netanyahu said. "I think that we also instilled in the international community the fact that Hamas, [Islamic State group] and Al-Qaeda and other extremist Islamic terrorist organisations are members of the same family."

But according to Dr Khalil al-Hayyeh, a Hamas leader who was part of the Cairo delegation, the indirect talks between Palestinian factions and Israel was evidence of the end of internal Palestinian divisions.

"Today we are in a new era of unity and have adopted [the rhetoric of] resistance," he said in a speech delivered during prayer last Friday, adding that all the Palestinian factions would continue fighting Israel if it did not respond to all Palestinians' demands.

The Palestinians were not defeated, but can yet defeat themselves if they do not invest their achievements into a coherent national project and instead return to the pattern of seeking petty factional advantages. - Mouin Rabbani, senior fellow at the Institute of Palestine Studies

Addressing the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip following the seven weeks of war, al-Shayyeh said that the only body responsible for the strip's reconstruction, including managing the border to allow the necessary materials in, would be the Palestinian consensus government.

 

 

Ebola death toll increase in West Africa

WHO says at least $600m needed to fight Ebola outbreak, as death toll rises to more than 1,900 people.

At least $600m is needed to fight West Africa's Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organisation has announced, as the death toll shot up by about 400 in a week to more than 1,900 people.

There have now been about 3,500 cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, WHO Director Margaret Chan confirmed on Wednesday.

The UN said that fresh fears emerged in Nigeria after the the government announced that a seventh person died of the virus.

"This is not an African disease. This is a virus that is a threat to all humanity,'' Gayle Smith, special assistant to US President Barack Obama and senior director at the National Security Council, told reporters.

Experts warn Ebola could spread beyond the five West African countries that are already hit.
The virus has directly impacted the economies of these nations with farmers and miners fearing that they will contract the infection if they step out to work in areas where cases were recorded.

The African Development Bank said that the outbreak could cost the affected countries up to four percent of their GDP.

Health workers infected

The top priority is providing protective gear to health workers in the affected areas and ensuring that they receive hazard pay, said David Nabarro, who is coordinating the UN response to the unprecedented outbreak.

A large number of health workers have been infected in this outbreak and many of them have expressed concern over the shortage of protective suits.

The key to solving the outbreak will be implementing measures used in all previous outbreaks: isolating and treating the sick, monitoring their contacts for signs of disease and safely burying the dead, said Tom Kenyon of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"There is a window of opportunity but it's closing with each and every day that we delay in getting measures in place," he said.

Kenyon said experimental vaccines and treatments would not be available in time to make a difference.

On Tuesday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that authorities were "losing the battle" against Ebola, and that the world had ignored the gravity of the epidemic.

The medical charity's president Joanne Liu called for a global biological disaster response, including funding for more field hospitals, trained civilian or military medical personnel and mobile laboratories in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a separate strain of the virus killed at least 31 people, the government said. The WHO said that the Zaire strain is "distinct and independent" with no relationship to the outbreak in West Africa.