Grim Mideast events leave road map out of date -UN

[Englander]

By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS, April 24 (Reuters) - The three-year-old road map to Middle East peace has been overtaken by events and needs updating to reflect the grimmer situation on the ground, a top U.N. diplomat told the Security Council on Monday.

The refusal of the Palestinians' new Hamas government to reject violence and Israel's continued pursuit of settlement expansion and its barrier cutting deeply into Palestinian territory are among the developments making the road map unlikely to achieve its goals, said Alvaro de Soto, the U.N. special envoy for the Middle East peace process.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has invited the quartet of international mediators, the plan's creators, to New York on May 9 to discuss next steps, de Soto said.

"We must deal with the new situation with the right mixture of firm adherence to basic principles and creativity to meet a rapidly evolving reality," he said.

>snip

During the first two weeks of April, the Israeli military fired 2,415 artillery shells and 62 F-16 missiles inside the Gaza Strip, while Palestinian militants fired at least 113 rockets toward Israel, according to a U.N. count, he said.

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[Englander]

1. AP;

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas visits Norway to meet top officials

By The Associated Press

OSLO - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas called Wednesday for an international conference aimed at reviving negotiations in the Middle East conflict.

Abbas was speaking from Norway, where he was to meet top Norwegian officials for talks expected to focus on the Palestinian aid deficit in the wake of Hamas' rise to power.

He said that an international group should serve as a broker, possibly the Quartet of Middle East peace makers, comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

"An international conference should be summoned immediately, in which direct negotiations take place, on the basis of international UN resolutions and signed agreements," Abbas said through a translator.

"The international group, whether it is the Quartet or any other international framework, would play the role of the broker and arbitrator at the same time," he said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/709684.html