Three People Reported Dead In Gaza Airstrike

Gaza Attack: Cock-Up Or Conspiracy?

Updated: 8:45pm UK, Friday 16 November 2012

By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent

Why would Hamas fire a rocket towards Jerusalem?

The first explanation to be dealt derives from the cock-up theory of world affairs. This suggests that unintended events drive history as much as grand strategy.

So Hamas, or its radical allies, didn't shoot a missile towards Jerusalem - they were aiming somewhere else and it went awry.

Admitting this would have been embarrassing for a militant group which prides itself on efficiency and discipline.

After all, a misfire which landed on the West Bank close to Jewish settlements risked killing Palestinians more than it risked killing Israelis.

On top of that, hitting the Gush Etzion settler block raised the danger of international outrage if the missile had drifted off into Bethlehem nearby.

One could argue that Hamas made a hash of the launch of what they are now claiming is a new long-range missile. Then pretended the mistake was intentional, and sought to make the best of a bad shot.

Oddly enough, the effect of the cock-up theory would be the same as the effect of a conspiracy theory.

In that model Hamas got its hands on a new weapon. It fired it at settlers in the West Bank, not far from Jerusalem and hit its intended target - an illegal Jewish bloc in the Occupied Territories.

This sends a message to fellow Palestinians on the West Bank that there is a force among them to be seriously reckoned with.

It could lure many away from the moderate views of the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. It could help to trigger a Third Intifada.

And it is a psychological blow to the Jewish citizens of Jerusalem who have never considered themselves physically vulnerable to events on the Gaza Strip.

Cock-up or conspiracy?

In the Middle East, a modern concept forged in Roman, Greek and Byzantine Empires, tempered by the Ottomans and bent out of shape by Europe's colonial powers - every event is a conspiracy.

That is bad news for Israel, and very bad news for the 1.7 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza.

If Hamas has new rockets. If Hamas fired them at Jerusalem successfully. And if Hamas has more of these in an arsenal already estimated to have held 10,000 missiles - then Israel will launch a ground assault. Obviously.

Less obvious is the next level of conspiracy, or unintended consequences.

Is a ground assault in Hamas' interests?

Has Hamas - the militant group, trained by experts from Hizbollah who are probably the world's greatest insurgents, prepared a trap for Israel?

It has been re-arming itself. Israeli sources say it has state-of-the-art tank killing weaponry and Hizbollah's expertise with improvised bombs.

With the Arab street rallying to its cause in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan; Hamas under fire looks stronger than it did a few weeks ago.

Imagine Israeli troops ambushed in the maze of Gaza City. Groups of young men killed and captured. Israel forced into the use of devastating weapons or an ignominious retreat

So as he contemplates giving Israel's famed Golani, Givati and Paratroop brigades now on the start line outside Gaza the 'GO!' order, the Israeli Prime Minister must ask himself whether or not he is doing Hamas' bidding.

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Dozens Killed In Egypt School Bus Crash

Forty school children have been killed after a train collided with a bus south of the Egyptian capital Cairo.

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Dave Lee Travis Bailed By Savile Detectives

DJ Dave Lee Travis has been bailed after his arrest in connection with the Jimmy Savile sex abuse inquiry.

The former Radio 1 star, from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, was held at 7.45am on suspicion of sexual offences.

Police said the allegations made against the man do not directly involve Savile, and are classed under the strand of their investigation termed "others".

He was bailed to return on a date in early January.

Travis returned home at 9.15pm in the passenger seat of a silver car. He stared straight ahead as the vehicle was mobbed by photographers.

Three police officers stood nearby as the car drove slowly through the gates. One officer told reporters that Travis would not be making any comment for now.

His arrest came as the Metropolitan Police revealed they are now dealing with around 450 potential victims, the majority of whom claim they were abused by Savile.

This has risen from around 300 possible victims the force said they were dealing with last month.

Officers are looking at three strands within their inquiry: claims against Savile, those against Savile and others, and those against others.

Most of the "others" allegations have been made against people associated with the entertainment industry.

Ex-glam rocker Gary Glitter, comedian Freddie Starr and a 73-year-old man have already been arrested and bailed in connection with the investigation.

A 1977 episode of Top Of The Pops featuring Travis was due to be shown on BBC4 on Thursday night but was pulled.

Last month Travis vigorously denied allegations that he groped two women while in BBC studios.

Dame Janet Smith, who is reviewing the corporation's practices during the Savile years, called on potential victims, witnesses, people who worked with the TV presenter and senior staff at the time to assist the investigation.

According to the inquiry's website, the review also wants to hear from people "who were familiar with the culture or practices of the BBC" in terms of "preventing or enabling the sexual abuse of children, young people or teenagers".

In addition, the Department of Health is investigating its own conduct after appointing Savile to head a task force at Broadmoor high-security hospital in 1988.

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Gaza Airstrikes: Israeli Truce As Egypt PM Visits

Israel's prime minister has called a halt to airstrikes on the Gaza Strip as Egypt's prime minister visits the territory.

However, the temporary truce comes after the Palestinian territory suffered a second night of heavy bombardment, with Israeli warplanes hitting targets in and around Gaza City.

"There have been 130 strikes overnight until now," Hamas interior ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan said.

He said the strikes destroyed a building belonging to the interior ministry, while there were also reports that training positions used by various Palestinian militant groups had also been hit.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said 11 Palestinian rockets had been fired from Gaza at Israel overnight.

Gazans also continued to be concerned that a ground assault remains a possibility as troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers massed near Israel's southern border with the Palestinian territory.

An interior ministry building in Gaza City comes under fire from Israel

It has given the green light to the call-up of up to 30,000 army reservists - another strong indication that Israeli troops are preparing to enter the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil is leading a delegation to Gaza to explore the possibility of brokering a ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said all offensive actions would be called off during the visit, as long as Palestinian groups refrain from firing rockets across the border.

A senior Israeli official said: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to an Egyptian request to cease all offensive operations in Gaza during the visit of the Egyptian prime minister there this morning, which is supposed to last for about three hours.

"In the answer that has been forwarded to Egyptians, we've said that the Israel Defense Forces will cease fire on the condition that there won't be fire from Gaza into Israel during that period."

An Israeli armoured vehicle moves towards the border with the Gaza Strip

Two days of Israeli air strikes have killed 19 Palestinians, including seven militants and 12 civilians - among them six children and a pregnant woman. A Palestinian rocket killed three Israelis in the town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday.

Two more rockets from Gaza landed near Tel Aviv in the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years. One fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited part of one of the suburbs south of the city.

Prime Minister David Cameron has blamed Hamas militants for the escalation of violence in a phone call to Mr Netanyahu.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: "The Prime Minister said that he was extremely concerned by the dangerous situation and deeply sorry for the loss of civilian life on both sides.

"He said the rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel by Hamas and other armed groups were completely unacceptable and that the increasing frequency of rocket attacks in recent days was the immediate cause of the situation.

"He made clear that Hamas bears the principal responsibility for crisis.

Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Kandil

"The Prime Minister said that the priority must be to de-escalate the crisis. He called on Mr Netanyahu to do all he could to avoid civilian casualties and emphasised that both sides needed to avoid a spiral of violence that would be in no-one's interest, particularly at a time of instability in the region."

Israel's "Pillar of Defense'' operation, which it said was in response to an escalating barrage of rocket fire from Gaza, began with the targeted assassination of Hamas' top military commander Ahmed al Jaabar on Wednesday.

The resurgent conflict has confronted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi with the biggest test yet of his commitments - to his fellow Islamists and to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

He is also under pressure to show Egyptians that his policies differ from those of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, who came under fire from the Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Mr Morsi to power.

Mr Morsi has rejected what he has called Israel's aggression in Gaza, saying that it threatens to destabalise the nation.

As his PM planned his trip to Gaza, Czech President Vaclav Klaus called off a visit to Israel at the weekend.

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China Unveils Xi Jinping As New Leader

Who Is Xi Jinping?

Updated: 7:25am UK, Thursday 15 November 2012

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent

He will lead the world's most populous nation of 1.3 billion people for the next 10 years and could be at the helm when China becomes the world's largest economy but who is Xi Jinping? And why should you care anyway?

Mr Xi is a "princeling" -  the son of one of the founding members of the Chinese Communists, Xi Zhongxun, a guerrilla commander who went on to form the party alongside Chairman Mao.

Mr Xi's father and Mao fell out. Xi Senior was tortured and placed in jail for several years.

During the Cultural Revolution - when millions of Chinese died under Mao's leadership - the Xi family were sent to live in communes as peasants along with so many others.

In recent and rare interviews Xi Jingping talks about this difficult time in his life which he refers to as a "struggle" which helped develop him into a stronger man.

Mr Xi and those around him now represent the first generation of leaders to experience first-hand the struggle of being a child through the Cultural Revolution. Many speculate that this could mould his leadership, especially in terms of how he deals with the widening gap between rich and poor in China.

After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Mr Xi moved back to Beijing to continue his education. He was educated into Communist Party and quickly rose through the ranks, first in Hebei Province and then in Fujian Province.

In 2000 he was made governor of Fujian Province followed by acting governor of Zhejiang in 2002. He built economies in those two provinces which have become larger than both Hong Kong and Taiwan.

He has a daughter who studies at Harvard and a wife who is more famous than he is.

Peng Liyuan is a folk singer, fluent in English and a Major-General in the People's Liberation Army. She is, by all accounts, a beautiful woman - her name even means "beautious beauty".

Ms Peng will be far more of an American-style first lady when compared with her elderly and reclusive predecessor, Hu Jintao's wife.

In public, Mr Xi also contrasts with his stiff and formal predecessor. He is a charismatic and a relaxed public speaker.

He is well travelled too, having lived in the United States for a short time as a young man. In recent years, in preparation for his rise to the very top, he's been to a number of Western capitals.

Mr Xi's inner thoughts, aspirations for his country's direction and attitude towards the West are not widely known.

A comment he made on a 2010 visit to Mexico is often used as an example of his true colours.

"Foreigners with full bellies, and nothing better to do than point fingers at China. China does not export revolution, or famine, or poverty or mess around with other countries. So what else is there to say," he said.

But his first speech to the media on Thursday as leader was more conciliatory.

"Just as China needs to learn more about the world, so does the world need to learn more about China," he said.

However, despite all that, walk down any street in Beijing and you'll find the Chinese know very little about their new leader. And in the West it would not be an embarrassment to admit to not having ever heard of the man.

The reason for this is simple. China operates what can be called a black-box system of government. It is a system closed to its subjects. It is extremely hard to see how it operates and who is pulling the levers.

The Communist Party runs or contributes to almost every facet of life in China. Its 80 million or so members make it the largest political party in the world. And yet China is so large, they represent just 6% of the country's population.

It is that 6% who have some say over who in community rises up each of the thousands of different party organisations.

With a pyramid effect fewer and fewer people endorse those who will sit above them - and that is why very few people know who Mr Xi is, what he is like, what he stands for and in what direction he will take the world's most populous nation.

Reform is the buzzword for China's next 10 years. Many had believed that following the country's economic reforms in the 1990s, political and social reform would come under Mr Hu and Mr Wen. It didn't happen.

China is now at a crossroads. Past Chinese leaders have lifted the country economically beyond all expectations; it is now the world's second wealthiest country.

But its economic explosion coupled with a downturn in exports to the West has produced a long list of explosive problems.

The wealth gap is wider than ever. Corruption is rife. The cities are the most polluted in the world. Factory production is slowing. Now mix all that in with an increasingly restive population which is more technologically connected and geographically mobile than ever: this is the China Xi Jinping must lead.

He has never really revealed whether he is just a moderniser or a genuine reformer. The direction he chooses will determine China's fate.

And remember, China's fate matters to the West.

China has holdings of more than $1trn (£631bn) of US debt. It is buying up Western companies and increasingly Western companies are investing in China.

If further reform comes, think of the opportunities which could help lift the West out of economic crisis.

But if China crashes, it could bring the rest of us down with it.

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Gaza Rocket Attack Kills Three Israelis

Three Israelis have been killed after a rocket fired from Gaza hit a building in the south of the country, according to police.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rocket struck an apartment building.

World leaders have urged Israel to show restraint after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to "expand" military operations in the Gaza Strip following its assassination of a Hamas leader.

US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon both telephoned Mr Netanyahu ahead of an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the deteriorating situation.

According to the White House, Mr Obama reiterated US support for Israel's right to self-defence against rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip but urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties in the Palestinian territory.

They agreed that Hamas must stop the attacks, which have seen more than 120 rockets fired into Israel over the last five days, in order to allow tensions to ease.

Head of Hamas' military wing Ahmed al Jaabari was killed

Mr Ban told the Israeli PM of his expectation that "Israeli reactions are measured so as not to provoke a new cycle of bloodshed," the UN said.

He also expressed his concerns about "an alarming escalation of indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza into Israel".

So far, at least seven people, including the head of Hamas' military wing, Ahmed al Jaabari have been killed in more than 50 airstrikes - codenamed Operation Pillar Of Defence. Two young children were also among the dead.

The Israeli military said it was ready, if necessary, to send ground troops into Gaza, according to its official Twitter account. It has also been authorised to call up army reserve units.

In a televised address, Mr Netanyahu said: "If it becomes necessary, we are prepared to expand the operation.

"We will not tolerate a situation in which Israeli citizens are threatened by rocket fire."

Defence Minister Ehud Barak, appearing with the prime minister, said: "We are at the beginning of the event, and not the end."

A car destroyed by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants

Palestinian militants said the airstrikes had opened "the gates of hell" for the Jewish state.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said another 55 rockets had been fired at Israel in the aftermath of the airstrike that killed Mr Jaabari.

Gaza's Hamas government welcomed the decision of Egypt, one of only two Arab countries to have a peace treaty with Israel, to pull out its envoy and urged Arab leaders to take "decisive action".

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said: "The occupation committed a dangerous crime and crossed all the red lines, which is considered a declaration of war."

The emergency Security Council meeting came at the request of Egypt, Morocco and the Palestinians.

"Once again the international community is witness to Israel's malicious onslaught, using the most lethal military means and illegal measures against the defenceless Palestinian civilian population," the Palestinian Authority's UN envoy, Riyad Mansour, told the Council.

"A direct firm message must be sent to Israel to cease immediately its military campaign against the Palestinian people and to abide ... by its obligations under international law."

Speaking to reporters, Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor urged the international community to condemn "indiscriminate rocket fire against Israeli citizens - children, women".

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Toyota Issues Another Massive Recall

Toyota has announced its second huge recall of vehicles in as many months in a move affecting almost 2.8 million cars world-wide.

The company blames problems with steering mechanisms and its hybrid system water pump.

The Japanese firm said it was recalling 1.5 million vehicles in Japan, 670,000 in the United States and 496,000 in Europe to correct  steering intermediate extension shafts which can be damaged at slow speed.

But it insisted that the problem, seen in cars such as the second-generation Prius and certain Corolla models, could be fixed in about 50 minutes.

Separately, the car-maker is recalling 630,000 vehicles worldwide, including 350,000 in the US and 175,000 in Japan, to fix water pumps in hybrid vehicles.

Toyota UK told Sky News there were 75 thousand British cars affected by the two recall issues in total and there had been no reported accidents in the UK as a result of the steering problem.

Customers whose cars are subject to the recall will receive a letter to that effect within 6 weeks, the company said, though anyone concerned could enter their car's registration into a special search database on the Toyota UK website to check whether their vehicle is affected.

The move is the latest in a series of embarrassing recalls for the firm.

In October, Toyota said it was pulling back more than 7.4 million vehicles worldwide to fix faulty power window switches, the industry's biggest single recall since Ford took 8 million vehicles off the road in 1996.

A previous series of Toyota recalls involving more than 10 million vehicles between 2009 and 2011 damaged the firm's image but it recovered and earlier this month raised its full-year net profit forecast to $9.7 billion (£6.1bn), citing solid sales.

This year's profit forecast comes despite a big drop in car sales in China since September, when anti-Japanese protests erupted over a diplomatic row.

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