Monday International News

Livni calls for early Israeli poll 
Reuters/Bdnews24.com . Jerusalem 

Israel headed on Sunday toward an early election likely to kill any remaining chances for a peace deal with the Palestinians this year after ruling party leader Tzipi Livni dropped efforts to form a government.
  ‘When I had to decide between continued extortion and bringing forward elections, I preferred elections,’ Kadima chief Livni told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, in reference to budgetary demands from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
  Livni, foreign minister and chief peace negotiator in US-sponsored talks with the Palestinians, was expected to meet president Shimon Peres later in the day to inform him she had failed to put together a coalition after weeks of wrangling.
  Peres can then set into motion a process leading to an early election, which political commentators said would apparently be held on February 17, more than a year ahead of schedule.
  Opinion polls have predicted the right-wing party of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an opponent of wide-ranging territorial compromise, would win a national ballot.
  ‘We hope the Israelis will choose to stay the course with the peace process,’ Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said after Livni confirmed comments from aides that coalition talks had failed.
  The United States had hoped for at least a framework deal on Palestinian statehood before the president, George W Bush, leaves office in January.
  But with negotiations so far showing few signs of progress — with Israeli settlement expansion and the future of Jerusalem key stumbling blocks — and Israel’s political scene in turmoil, there appeared to be little chance of an agreement.
  While Israel gears up for an election, it will continue to be led by the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who resigned in September in a corruption scandal but stays on under law until a new government is formed.
  Livni’s comments on her failure to form a new government may indicate she intends to fight an election campaign that portrays her as a woman of principle to an electorate disillusioned with coalition haggling and suspicions of wrongdoing at the top.
  ‘I’m not here to survive, I’m here to lead,’ Livni, 50, told the Maariv newspaper, ruling out her other option of trying to run the country with a government that lacked a strong parliamentary majority.
  ‘You can’t extort me,’ she told Yedioth Ahronoth. ‘The good of the country is at the top of my agenda.’ Shas, which bills itself as a party representing Israel’s poor, has long been a maker and breaker of coalition governments. 
Malaysia releases 10 Hindu 
rights activists 
Agence France-Presse . Kuala Lumpur 

The Malaysian police on Sunday released 10 Hindu rights activists on ‘humanitarian grounds’ after they were arrested last week for demonstrating outside the prime minister’s office.
  The eight men and two women from the banned Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) were freed on 1,000 ringgit ( 279 dollars) bail each ahead of Monday’s Hindu Diwali festival of lights celebrations, state Bernama news agency said.
  They will have to report back to police on November 25 and their case was still being investigated.
  The police said they were released to enable them to celebrate Diwali, the New Straits Times reported in its online newspaper on Sunday. 
Kuwaiti lawmaker seeks to quiz PM 
Agence France-Presse . Kuwait City 

A Kuwaiti opposition lawmaker said Sunday he will file a request next month to grill the prime minister over his management of the economic crisis and claims of misappropriation of funds.
  Liberal-leaning MP Ahmad al-Mulaifi told a news conference that he will make the demand to quiz Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah, a nephew of the emir, on November 6.
  Mulaifi accused Sheikh Nasser of ‘failing to manage the economic crisis in the country.’
  He was referring to the fallout of the global financial crisis on oil-rich Kuwait, which on Sunday formed a task force to handle the impact of the turmoil after its second-largest lender incurred losses.
  The only time Kuwaiti MPs have previously filed a request to grill the prime minister was in May 2006, which resulted in parliament being dissolved by the emir.