Thesun 2009-01-19 Page01 Ceasefire In Gaza

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No. 4681 PP 2644/12/2009 (023092)

Monday January 19, 2009

TELLING IT AS IT IS

45,000 face temporary lay-off by Tan Yi Liang [email protected]

KUALA LUMPUR: About 45,000 workers face the prospect of being temporarily laid off during the Chinese New Year period due to falling demand, said Human Resource Minister Datuk S. Subramaniam. “During the period, the factories will be on holiday for two to three weeks and workers have been asked to take leave. Some are on paid leave, and some on no-pay leave,” he said yesterday. Explaining that the lay-offs are due to a drop in orders, he said the factories felt that if they did not operate for two or three weeks, they could reduce their output and solve the issue of declining orders. Subramaniam said the government was watching the situation closely. “We have opened 80 centres nationwide to monitor the problem; at the same time, we are trying to find information on available vacancies. As at Jan 12, there are 15,000 vacancies registered with the ministry, and those who have been forced to stop work in one field can find work in other areas,” he said. The government will help jobseekers find jobs, he told a press conference after opening an agriculture seminar and workshop at Universiti Malaya. Subramaniam also said the government was considering the proposed pension plan for private sector retirees to overcome the problem of needy senior citizens. “There are many facing financial difficulties, especially in the private sector. After they retire at 55, they receive an EPF payment of RM33,000. However, the money is all spent within a year or two,” he said. He said one source of the problem was the breakdown of the traditional extended family. “Normally, they depend on their children to look after them, but this does not happen today. This creates a situation where poverty exists among senior citizens and they are forced to turn to the welfare department and Socso for assistance with the hope of qualifying for invalidity pension,” he said. He said that more than 80% of applicants for the disability pension did not qualify. He expects the problem to get worse. “The lifespan of Malaysians is increasing to about 70 to 75 years. We need to ensure that they have financial freedom. The question is, how do we do that,” said Subramaniam.

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Ceasefire in Gaza

HAMAS TO SILENCE GUNS FOR A WEEK AFTER ISRAEL DECLARES TRUCE AZA: Palestinian militants announced a one-week ceasefire yesterday after Israel called a unilateral halt to its massive offensive on Gaza, as medics pulled dozens of bodies from the rubble of bombed-out homes. After exchanges of gunfire and an air strike punctured what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged was a “fragile” ceasefire, Gaza’s Hamas rulers and other armed groups said they would silence their guns for the next seven days to give Israeli troops a chance to withdraw from the territory. “We in the Palestinian resistance movements announce a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip

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and demand that enemy forces withdraw in a week and open all the border crossings to permit the entry of humanitarian aid and basic goods,” Mussa Abu Marzuk, the deputy leader of Hamas’s politburo, said in Damascus. Dawud Shihab, a Gaza-based spokesman for Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction, said the truce would give an opportunity for Arab governments to put pressure on Israel to withdraw all its troops. “During this period, the resistance is ready to respond to all efforts by the Egyptians, Turks, Syrians and Arabs that will allow for a total withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and the total opening of border crossings,” he told AFP. REUTERSPIX

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Obama lookalike ... As Barack Obama, who arrived by train in Washington yesterday, takes his oath as the 44th President of the United States tomorrow, Ilham Anas, 47, will be watching the historic moment on television, just like millions of others around the world. But for the Indonesian photographer, who looks like the first African American to hold the most powerful job in the free world, it will be especially meaningful. Reports pages 8 and 9.

Militants in Gaza, however, fired two rockets into Israel following the announcement without wounding anyone, police said. Israeli troops in Gaza pulled back from key positions in and around Gaza City yesterday towards the border fence east and north of the city, witnesses said. Meanwhile, an international summit of European and Arab leaders aimed at shoring up the truce took place in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh while officials in Cairo held talks with Hamas with the same goal. European leaders called on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territory and on militants to stop firing rockets. “This fragile ceasefire has got to be followed immediately, if it is to be sustainable, by humanitarian access ... by troop withdrawals, by an end to arms trafficking,” said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He also joined international calls for an end to Palestinian rocket fire. Olmert announced late Saturday that he had ordered an end to offensive operations in Gaza after 22 days of combat but that troops would remain in the territory and would fire back if attacked. After the ceasefire came into effect at 2am (8am in Malaysia), Gaza enjoyed its first bomb-free night in more than three weeks, but there were soon signs that the calm was unravelling. As militants fired rockets and Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, troops shot dead an eight-year-old girl in the northern town of Beit Hanun and a 20-year-old man near Khan Yunis in the south, medics said. Gaza medics took advantage of the halt in the fighting to rush to areas which had been inaccessible, pulling at least 95 bodies from the rubble, including those of several children. The discoveries brought the overall death toll since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead on Dec 27 to at least 1,300, the medics said, making it by far the deadliest Israeli offensive ever launched on the Gaza Strip. On the ground, as Hamas congratulated the Palestinians on “victory” from mosque loudspeakers, Gaza residents cautiously ventured out into the streets to survey the rubble that was once their homes. – AFP