Ethiopian Jews protest in Israel
JERUSALEM – Israel’s black Jewish Ethiopian minority, plagued by poverty, crime, unemployment, racism and lack of opportunity, saw frustrations boil over Sunday into an unprecedented outburst of violent anti-police protests.
The unrest has laid bare the struggles of absorption and the rocky attempts of the state to integrate Ethiopian Jews into a society for which they were ill-prepared. Caught off- guard, Israel’s leaders are vowing to respond to the community’s grievances.
President Reuven Rivlin said Monday the outcry “exposed an open, bleeding wound in the heart of Israeli society.”
“We must look directly at this open wound. We have erred. We did not look, and we did not listen enough,” said Rivlin, whose largely ceremonial office is meant to serve as a moral compass.
On Sunday, protesters shut down a major highway in Tel Aviv, hurled stones and bottles at police and overturned a squad car. They were dispersed with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades. More than 60 people were injured and 40 arrested in the second such protest in recent days, and demonstrations are expected to continue.
Taliban wants U.S. out before peace talks
KABUL, Afghanistan – The Taliban declared Monday that it was open to peace talks with the Afghan government, but only if all U.S. and other international forces withdraw from Afghanistan and key Taliban figures are removed from a UN terrorism blacklist.
The lengthy statement, posted on one of the group’s known websites, came after two days of informal meetings with Afghan government representatives in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, where both sides were swift to clarify that they were not holding peace negotiations. The discussions ended with no agreement except to hold a second meeting in the near future.
The delegates, however, did agree that the Taliban should reopen a political office briefly set up in Qatar in 2013 in a step toward possible peace talks, according to the meeting’s organizer, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization dedicated to promoting peace. The insurgent group’s statement also reflected that intent.
Bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table, and possibly into the government, has become a cornerstone of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to end the conflict in his country. Expectations were raised this weekend by the discussions in Qatar, the latest in a series of efforts over the years to jump-start a peace process.
Theft of valuable book stuns Colombia
BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombian police are investigating the theft of a valuable first-edition copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The book disappeared over the weekend from a guarded display case at Bogota’s book fair, which this year is honoring the late Nobel Prize-winning author.
The first edition is just one of 8,000 copies published in 1967 by an Argentine editorial house Sudamericana, and a signed copy, like the one stolen in Bogota, can command as much as $23,000 online.
But the book’s owner, Alvaro Castillo, says the true value is sentimental. The rare book collector says he spent years hunting for the copy before finding a copy in Uruguay. He then managed to get Garcia Marquez, who died last year in Mexico City, to sign a dedicatory note.
“It’s a very painful loss,” Castillo told The Associated Press.
Tradition guides naming new princess
LONDON – It’s a name that immediately evokes British royal history: Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana.
Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, on Monday announced the name they picked for Britain’s newborn princess, a choice seen as a tribute to both Prince William’s parents and grandmother, the queen, as well as a link to Kate’s family.
The princess, the second child of William and Kate, will be known as Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, royal officials said.
The birth of Princess Charlotte marks a new chapter for William and Kate, widely seen as the monarchy’s most modern, popular couple. But the names they chose are firmly rooted in royal family history. Charlotte, the feminine form of Charles, appears to be a nod to the newborn’s grandfather, Prince Charles. The baby’s middle names honor Queen Elizabeth II, the infant’s 89-year-old great-grandmother, and the late Princess Diana, William’s mother and the baby’s grandmother.
Associated Press and Washington Post
