beyond the gate
Palestinian PM Vows Cooperation With Abbas
by Sarah EL Deeb
Associated Press Writer
Hamas formally took power
Wednesday, March 29, with the
Palestinian president swearing
in its 24-member Cabinet,
including 14 ministers who
served time in Israeli prisons.
The ceremony, which came
just a day after Israel’s nation
election, ended a two-month
transition period of ambiguity
since Hamas’ election victory
in January.
At a news conference in
Gaza after Palestinian Presi
dent Mahmoud Abbas swore in
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
of Hamas and his Cabinet,
Haniyeh said his relations
with Abbas would be “coop
eration and harmony, based
on the supreme interest of the
people.”
Haniyeh said that together,
they would confront “Israeli
aggression against the people”
as well as internal chaos.
With a Hamas government
installed, the lines of confron
tation with Israel were clearly-
drawn. Hamas insists it won’t
soften its violent ideology.
Israel’s presumed prime min
ister-designate, Ehud Olmert,
has countered that if Hamas
won’t bend, he’ll set the bor
ders of a Palestinian state by
himself and keep large areas
of the West Bank.
With Hamas at the helm,
the Palestinian Authority also
faces a crippling inteniational
economic boycott.
“With Hamas taking over
now, you can’t have business
as usual,” said Israeli Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mark
Regev.
Israel suspended tens of
millions of dollars in monthly
tax transfers to the Palestin
ian Authority after the Hamas
election victory, and Regev
said the Israeli Cabinet would
decide on additional sanctions
next week.
Abbas, a moderate from the
defeated Fatah Party, adminis
tered the oath to some of the
Cabinet ministers in a brief
ceremony at Gaza City’s par
liament building. With Israel
banning the travel of Hamas
leaders between the West Bank
and Gaza, the remainder of the
ministers held a separate cer
emony in the West Bank. The
two settings were hooked up by
videoconference.
The first to be sworn in was
Haniyeh, who walked along a
red carpet, then placed his hand
on a copy of the Muslim holy
book, the Quran, laid out on a
low table. Haniyeh pledged to
be “loyal to the homeland and its
sacred places.” Abbas looked on,
his face expressionless.
India Sex Selection Doctor Is Jailed
BBC News Press Release
A doctor in India and his
assistant have been sentenced
to two years in jail for reveal
ing the sex of a female fetus
and then agreeing to abort it.
This is the first time medical
professionals have been jailed
in such a case. Under Indian
laws, ultrasound tests on a
pregnant woman to determine
the gender of the fetus are
illegal. It has been estimated
that 10 million female fetuses
may have been terminated in
India in the past 20 years. Drs.
Anil Sabhani and Kartar Singh
were caught in a sting opera
tion in the northern state of
Haryana. Government officials
sent in three pregnant women
as decoy patients to find out
if the clinic would carry out
abortions based on sex selec
tion. Audio and video evidence
showed the doctor telling one
woman that tests had revealed
that she was carrying a “female
fetus and it would be taken
care of’. A cultural preference
for sons over daughters has
skewed India’s sex ratio. But
convictions are rare due to
lax and corrupt officials and
the slow judicial system. The
government brought in laws 12
years ago to stop the practice of
aborting female fetuses.
The president of the Indian
Medical Association (IMA), a
grouping of doctors. Dr. Vinay
Agarwal said the convictions
were “historical”. “The medi
cal profession is doing all it can
though we have to address this
as a social evil. People should
be proud to have a girl child,”
he said.
The northern states of Punjab
and Haryana have some of the
worst gender ratios in India.
There are about 861 women for
every 1,000 men in Haryana,
according to the census. The
national average is 927 women
to 1,000 men. The national
average has gone down from
972 in 1901 to just 933 in 2001,
according to reports.
Earlier this year researchers
in India and Canada said in the
Lancet journal that prenatal
selection and selective abortion
was causing the loss of 500,000
girl births a year. If this is true,
10 million female births may
have been lost in India over
the past two decades. Indian
doctors, however, disputed the
report saying pre-birth gender
checks had waned since a
Supreme Court crackdown in
2001.
Leading campaigners say
many of India’s fertility clin
ics continue to offer a seem
ingly legitimate facade for
a multi-billion dollar racket
and that gender determination
is still big business in India.
Experts in India say female
feticide is mostly linked to
socio-economic factors. It is
an idea that many say carries
over from the time India was a
predominantly agrarian society
where boys were considered an
extra pah;j&f hands on the farm.
The'^ifl child has traditionally
been considered inferior and a
liability - a bride’s dowry can
cripple a poor family finan
cially.
Mar. 31,2006 Page 7
The Whetstone