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| Israel and Palestinians Look For Way Out of Talks Crisis - TIME Posted: 04 Apr 2014 09:35 AM PDT The trajectory at least appeared to continue downward Friday for the future of peace talks between Israel and Palestinians. Before heading back to Washington from Morocco, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the American commitment to the talks he has personally championed is not "open-ended," and said it was "reality check time." Israel dug in its heels, announcing it was cancelling the proposed release of 26 Palestinian prisoners—the final batch in a promised string of releases whose delay last week prompted the Palestinian leadership to retaliate by signing international treaties Israel regards as threatening. "Peace Process Crisis" read the headline in Friday's Sof Hashavua, a Hebrew weekly. And yet, no one was calling it over. Weeks remain before the April 29 deadline for talks originally set to last nine months, and an extension remains a real possibility, according to officials on both sides. "I would not say that everything collapsed. I don't think so," says an Israeli knowledgeable about the negotiations, who spoke on condition of not being identified any more precisely. "I don't think either party has an interest in collapse. But the question is how can we avert escalation given the dangerous point that we're at right now. "We still have till the end of April." A face-to-face meeting at midweek was "very tense, but we talk to each other," the Israeli says. Voices were not raised, the source says, and despite reports in both the Palestinian and Israeli press, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat made no overt threat of pursing Israel in international courts for "war crimes." But that is precisely the threat implied by the Palestinians adopting international treaties. And though none of the 15 agreements signed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday directly involved the International Criminal Court, the Israelis complained of being blind-sided by the abrupt move, which the Israeli source said altered the "context" of the talks. The Palestinians–who ordinarily complain that the status quo in the conflict favors Israel, which has occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967–pretend a certain amount of dismay at Israel's outrage. "It's a non-violent, diplomatic step," said a Palestinian official close to the negotiations, who also spoke anonymously, citing the sensitivity of the situation. "We are not joining al-Qaeda. We are talking about joining international treaties." And the treaties carry obligations for Palestine as well as for Israel, especially in the realm of human rights. On Thursday, right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition were researching grounds to charge Abbas' government at The Hague, according to a report in Yedioth Ahronoth, the best-selling Israeli daily. But if cooler heads do prevail, it remains unclear just how the two sides will find a way to extend the negotiations both privately indicated they prefer to see continue. One route might run through the deep thicket of UN bureaucracy, which the 15 treaties and conventions officially entered shortly after Abbas signed them. The Palestinians say prompt delivery proves they are serious, but the Israeli source appeared to suggest that the action was not yet final, saying, "If those letters of ascension reach their destination and the fact becomes irreversible, then we're in a different ballgame and I don't think that will allow us to go back and discuss the terms of an extension." A middle ground might be provided by slow, deliberate (or deliberately slow) processing at the U.N., which in accepting the Palestinian documents stated that its priority is to "salvage the two-state solution." At the same time, the Palestinians appeared to be making the most of their newly discovered leverage. They expanded their list of demands of Israel as the price for extending the talks, including the release of high profile prisoners and lifting "the siege" on the Gaza Strip, controlled by the militant Palestinian group Hamas. At the same time, the Palestinian official who spoke to TIME suggested that, if Israel is serious about negotiating a final pact, talks could continue even as Palestine pursues its diplomatic track with sympathetic international bodies. "What's the problem with negotiating and going to the United Nations?" the official asks. "Because for the Israelis there seems to be no problem with negotiating while building settlements." Still unaddressed, amid the rolling controversies, are the borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, and other issues at the heart of the conflict. |
| Private-sector employment reaches milestone in March - Los Angeles Times Posted: 04 Apr 2014 09:35 AM PDT WASHINGTON -- It took more than four years, but the economy last month finally recovered all the millions of private-sector jobs lost in the last downturn. The March employment report released Friday showed employers added a reassuringly solid 192,000 jobs last month, shaking off the winter hiring doldrums. All of that came from private employers, bringing total nongovernment payrolls above the previous peak of 115.98 million in January 2008, near the start of the Great Recession. "The private sector lost 8.8 million jobs during the labor market downturn and has gained 8.9 million since the employment low in February 2010," Erica L. Groshen, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said in a statement accompanying the jobs report. Still, that doesn't mean the labor market is back to where it once was. Far from it. Apart from the unemployment rate, which remained at 6.7% last month, total government employment in March was more than 800,000 shy of its high in the spring of 2009. So it will most likely be a few more months before the economy recovers all the nonfarm jobs lost in the downturn. Even then, it won't feel like a full recovery. That's because millions more new jobs were needed to keep up with the increase in the working-age population of the last few years. "We haven't really made up the losses," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Baker estimates that the labor force, which is made up of those with jobs or who are looking for work, is 6 million larger today than at the start of the recession. Then there's the mix of winners and losers. Construction employment in March remained more than 1.5 million short of its pre-recession level. Ditto for manufacturing. Those losses roughly equal the job gains in the last few years in two sectors: healthcare and social services, and restaurant and drinking establishments. The shift helps explain the relatively higher unemployment for men, who dominate construction and manufacturing. And it also points to the downward pressure on average earnings. Construction and manufacturing pay above the average hourly earnings for all private-sector workers, as does the health services category. But workers in restaurants and other leisure businesses make well below the average. ALSO: Betty Ford Center ready for a comeback Americans are drinking less coffee daily, study says U.S. lawmakers ask Gilead to justify hepatitis C drug's $84,000 price |
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