US President Barack Obama will travel to Malaysia for an October summit, said deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.
Obama will attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Rhodes said today in a message on the social networking site Twitter. The two-day summit is scheduled for October 11-12.-- Bloomberg
Malaysia's benchmark stock index rose in early trade, driven by gains in lender Hong Leong Bank Bhd and petrol stations operator Petronas Dagangan Bhd.
The index, which was up 0.03 per cent at 1,808.18 at 9.13am in Kuala Lumpur, underperformed MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan that rose 0.22 per cent, while it outperformed Tokyo's Nikkei share average that fell 1.69 per cent.
Shares of Hong Leong Bank rose 1.12 per cent, while Petronas Dagangan climbed 1.04 per cent.
"As investors wait for fresh market leads to emerge, our Malaysian bourse will likely range-bound for the time being," HwangDBS Vickers Research said in a research note to clients on Monday.
"Its benchmark index may continue to tread above the psychological support line of 1,800 ahead," it added.
HwangDBS also said investors will watch Coastal Contracts Bhd after the marine services firm announced it secured contracts for the sale of vessels for the oil & gas industry with a combined value of RM425 million.
Coastal Contracts' shares were up 2.46 per cent at RM2.91 at 9.14am.-- Reuters
Anthony Weiner vowed Sunday to stay in the New York City mayor's race, even as his top rival said he was not qualified to lead the nation's most populous city.
Weiner, campaigning in Brooklyn, confirmed that campaign manager Danny Kedem quit after new revelations that Weiner continued to send salacious messages online to women, even after resigning from Congress in 2011.
"We knew this would be a tough campaign," Weiner said. "We have an amazing staff, but this isn't about the people working on the campaign. It's about the people we're campaigning for."
The tumult in Weiner's staff was first reported by The New York Times. Hours later, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn repeated criticism on NBC's Meet the Press that Weiner has displayed "reckless behavior" and "immaturity."
Quinn, who has a 9-point lead over Weiner, went beyond those comments when pressed if Weiner had disqualified himself by admitting he continued to send lewd messages to women after he resigned from Congress in 2011. As she noted her accomplishments on the City Council, Quinn pointed out that Weiner only managed to get one bill passed during his 12 years in Congress.
"Has he disqualified himself? Yes, he disqualified himself but not just because of these scandals," Quinn said. "He didn't have the qualifications when he was in Congress."
Weiner revealed Thursday he sent explicit texts to as many as 10 women, including three after he left Congress. They apparently include Sydney Leathers, 23, of Princeton, Ind., who revealed that Weiner had sent nude photographs to her -- and that they engaged in phone sex -- months after his resignation.
Weiner has steadfastly rebuffed calls that he quit the mayor's race, which have come from rivals such as Bill de Blasio and top Democratic leaders such as national party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Kedem was hired earlier this summer, just a few weeks ahead of Weiner's surprise announcement that he would attempt a political comeback after his sexting scandal. The news rocked the mayor's race and Weiner immediately soared to the top of public opinion polls, either coming ahead of Quinn or finishing a close second to her in the field of seven Democrats.
Kedem was a field organizer for Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential camapign and managed Democrat Mark Murphy's unsuccessful congressional bid last year against GOP Rep. Michael Grimm on Staten Island.
While Quinn repeated Sunday that it is ultimately up to New York City voters to decide Weiner's fate, there appears to be a division among those who would weigh in on the Democratic primary. Forty-three percent of Democratic primary voters say Weiner should quit the race, while 47% say he should continue running for mayor, according to the survey released Thursday by NBC 4 New York, The Wall Street Journal and the Marist Instiitute for Public Opinion.
Party primaries are Sept. 10. If no candidate gets more than 40% of the vote, a runoff will be held Oct. 1.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli cabinet cleared the last obstacle to resuming peace talks with the Palestinians by voting on Sunday to approve the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners.
The prisoner release is an unpopular move with many Israelis, but one that the Palestinian leadership has insisted upon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked over the weekend to persuade Israelis that a resumption of the peace process was a vital Israeli interest. After hours of deliberations on Sunday, 13 ministers voted in favor, 7 opposed the release and 2 abstained.
The prisoners, most of whom have served at least 20 years for deadly attacks on Israelis, are to be released in batches depending on progress in the talks.
"This moment is not easy for me," Mr. Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. "It is not easy for the ministers. It is not easy especially for the families, the bereaved families, whose heart I understand. But there are moments in which tough decisions must be made for the good of the country, and this is one of those moments."
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, described the decision in a statement as "an overdue step toward the implementation of the Sharm el-Sheik agreement of 1999."
"We welcome this decision, 14 years later," he said.
As the cabinet meeting got under way, scores of Israeli protesters gathered outside the prime minister's office, including people whose relatives were killed in terrorist acts. The protesters carried signs bearing the names and portraits of some of the victims.
"It rips our heart out that they are aiding and abetting the terrorists," said Yehudit Tayar, one of the protesters.
Mr. Netanyahu will lead a team of five ministers who will oversee the release of Palestinian prisoners during the negotiations, which are expected to get underway in Washington on Tuesday. But he deferred any public decision on whether those to be released would include Arab citizens of Israel, a long-standing point of dispute, saying that any such release would be brought to another cabinet vote.
On Saturday evening, Mr. Netanyahu took the unusual step of issuing what he called "an open letter to the citizens of Israel" to explain the contentious move. The letter gave no details about who would be released or when.
Mr. Netanyahu began his letter, which was posted on the prime minister's Web site and disseminated through the Israeli news media, with an acknowledgment of the unpopularity of the gesture, which many Israelis view as a painful concession with nothing guaranteed in return. The letter noted that the decision "is painful for the bereaved families, it is painful for the entire nation, and it is also very painful for me — it collides with the incomparably important value of justice."
On Friday, Yediot Aharonot, an Israeli newspaper, published an impassioned open letter to Mr. Netanyahu from Abie Moses, whose pregnant wife and 5-year-old son, Tal, were fatally burned in a firebomb attack on their car in April 1987. Mr. Moses said that faced with the likely release of their killer, Mohammad Adel Hassin Daoud, "the wounds have reopened; the memories, which we live with on a daily basis, turn into physical pain, in addition to the emotional pain of coping daily with the nightmare."
Mr. Moses added, "In our opinion, if his release will lead to attaining of peace, let him be released outside the boundaries of Palestine, exiled and never allowed to see his family members again, just as we cannot see ours."
Over the years, thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been exchanged for Israeli soldiers who had been taken captive, or for the bodies of abducted soldiers. During his previous term in office, Mr. Netanyahu reached an agreement with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that governs Gaza, and exchanged more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been held captive in Gaza for five years.
An Israeli government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said many of those who remained in Israeli jails, like the 104 now chosen for early release, had been involved in particularly gruesome acts.
"The goal here is to augment the political dialogue with confidence-building measures," the official said.
The prisoner issue is the one that has inflamed passions on both sides. Palestinians view these long-serving prisoners, convicted before the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993, as political prisoners and freedom fighters whose release is long overdue.
A Palestinian official involved in the negotiations process, who could speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomacy under way, said the Palestinian side had given a list of all 104 pre-Oslo prisoners to Mr. Kerry, who conveyed it to the Israelis.
"This is the biggest achievement we will have had this year," the Palestinian official said.
He said the first group was expected to be released in August, and the rest within six months.
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