politic

American diplomats pressed
Israel’s government to extend
a moratorium, due to expire on
September 26th, on the building
and expansion of Jewish
settlements in the West Bank.
Acompromise should allow
direct peace talks between
Israelis and Palestinians,
which resumed only this
month, to continue.
South Africa’s president,
Jacob Zuma, appeared, for
now, to have fended o critics
within his ruling African
National Congress and among
his trade union allies at a party
conference of 2,000 members.
Somalia’s prime minister,
Omar Sharmarke, who has
been criticised for failing to
defeat the Shabab jihadist
movement, resigned amid
feuds within the beleaguered
transitional government,
whose writ barely runs beyond
the capital, Mogadishu.
Thousands of civilians ed the
south Yemeni town of Hawta,
which has been besieged by
government forces trying to
ush out a jihadist rebel group
said to be linked to al-Qaeda.
At least ten people were killed
when a bomb went o during
a military parade in Mahabad,
the main town in Iran’s Kurdish
north-western region. The
Iranian branch of the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party, which
operates mainly in Turkey, fell
under suspicion.