Obama gives deadline to Israel for Palestine'

US President Barack Obama gives Israel a two-year deadline for the finalization of a two-state solution amid sharply opposing positions in Washington and Tel Aviv over the issue of Palestinian statehood.

President Obama raised the issue of an independent Palestinian state with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli official's visit to Washington last month, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

According to the report, the plan envisions a Middle East peace deal by 2011.

Haaretz quoted a source in Cairo as telling the London-based A-Sharq al-Awsat that Israel's Netanyahu is expected to respond to the proposal within six weeks.

President Obama, who was in Egypt last week to address the Arab and Muslim world, discussed his proposed plan with Egyptian intelligence chief Omer Suleiman and Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

The US president has urged the Netanyahu government to set up a Palestinian state and has been "very clear about the need to stop building settlements, to stop building outposts" on occupied Palestinian territories.

Snubbing international calls to halt its settlement expansion, Israel seems adamant to stubbornly pursue the activities.

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared on Sunday that he would use all resources in the Interior Ministry, "its branches and its influences over local government" to expand Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli premier, for his part, has halted all Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at the creation of an independent Palestine and has called previous US-backed agreements into question.

In April, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sparked controversy by saying that Tel Aviv is not bound by the 2007 US-sponsored Annapolis deal, under which Israel agreed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Poll: Israeli gov't most corrupt in world

Poll: Israeli gov't most corrupt in world
A poll conducted by an anti-Corruption organization has revealed that the majority of Israeli's believe their government is not seriously fighting against Corruption.

The annual Global Corruption Barometer report released by Transparency International shows that 86 percent of Israelis --the highest level in the world--say the government's efforts to fight Corruption are ineffective.

Only 13 percent of Israelis believed that the government is taking the necessary measures to fight Corruption, Haaretz reported.

In 2006, 66 percent of those questioned did not believe in their government's anti-Corruption efforts.

The global public opinion survey represents the views of citizens from 69 countries around the world, including 500 in Israel.

The survey asks people about their attitudes toward local Corruption and their own personal involvement in such corrupt acts as bribery.

Senior Israeli officials including Israel's incumbent Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are charged with being engaged in several cases of financial Corruption.

Many other Israeli former officials including former president Moshe Katsav, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, former Israeli finance minister Avraham Hirshson and Knesset (Parliament) member Shlomo Benizri have been involved in corruption cases.

Doron Navot of the University of Haifa and the Israel Democracy Institute says in Israel "not only do the government and elected officials not fight political Corruption, but in recent years they see politicians and elected officials fighting the guardians - those battling against Corruption - and trying to weaken them and advance reforms that harm the fight against Corruption."

Refugee funds 'running short' in Pakistan

The UN warns that humanitarian efforts for Swat war refugees would have to be scaled down if the international community does not come up with financial assistance.

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad said it had received only 22 per cent of the $543 million international aid appeal they had made for the internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The office also added humanitarian efforts would be facing severe problems in a couple of weeks if more money was not received.

The developments come after Pakistani army launched an operation named 'Black thunder' early this month claiming to be aimed at flushing out the militants from the restive valley and its adjoining districts.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates nearly 126-thousand people flee the fighting in the troubled northwest every day.

The clashes in Swat have pushed millions of terrified civilians into camps set up in various parts of the North West Frontier Province since May 2.

More than three million internally displaced people are now residing in temporary camps in the country's northwest.

UN officials in Islamabad have warned that a fund to help the refugees remained woefully short.

UN officials also on Thursday warned against potential disease outbreaks among millions of Pakistanis displaced by an army operation against the militants in Swat.

The massive displacement is Pakistan's biggest movement of people since the country secured independence from Britain in 1947.

Pakistan claims more than 1,350 militants and 86 soldiers have been killed in the over a month conflict.

Thousands of civilians are believed to be still trapped in the conflict zone. Human Rights Watch has warned of a large-scale human tragedy in the conflict-torn region.

Pakistan's army warns that the battle against insurgency in the troubled valley could take longer than previously thought. "It may be another two months when we can say the complete area is fully secured," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said Wednesday.

Sadr: Obama has subtle plans to control world

Iraq's senior cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says Barack Obama's speech indicates that the US wants to take a different avenue to bring the world under its control.

"The honeyed political speech expressed only one aim -- America wants to take a different avenue to bring the world under its control" compared to the former US president George W. Bush's strategies, Sadr said in a statement released to journalists in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday.

"Obama cannot change the American policies... which were and are still hostile to Islam, and that will continue," he added.

The Iraqi cleric further pointed out that he would trust the US president "only after their (the US) withdrawal from our beloved Iraq and Muslim Afghanistan and their withdrawal of support for the Israeli enemy, and I hope for this from him."

"Let him know that the resistance and the opposition will continue. We don't believe his words," he noted.

The US president pledged to forge a "new beginning" for Islam and America in his speech in Cairo, vowing to purge years of "suspicion and discord."

The American leader vowed to end mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Thursday that US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech had signaled no real shift in US policy in the Arab world.

Obama seeks fresh start with Muslim world

US President Barack Obama calls for a "new beginning" between the US and the Muslim world, saying that his roots come from a Muslim generation.

"I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims," Obama said Thursday in a speech in which he touched on the story of his life and religious beliefs.

Addressing a cheering crowd of Egyptians and Muslim dignitaries at Cairo University, the American president called for an end to ongoing tensions between the US and the Muslim world.

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles."

Obama went on to say that some extremists have fueled tensions between the West and the Muslim world to further their agenda and have managed to build up hatred toward Muslims in the West.

"Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust."

Obama quoted passages from the Qur'an, Talmud and the Bible and called for peace while praising peacemakers.

"There is one rule that lies at the core of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples," Obama continued. "The people of the world can live together in peace."

While acknowledging that Islam is a religion of peace and compassion, Obama promised to do his utmost to fight against all efforts to create "negative stereotypes of Islam".

My experience, he said, "guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't... And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Obama's Middle East tour is viewed as an effort by the 44th US president to reach out to the Muslim world.

On the first leg of his trip, the American president visited Saudi Arabia Wednesday.