“The president has been very clear, Vice President Biden has been very clear as well more recently that this is a date when a process begins that is conditions based. And as the conditions permit, we transition tasks to our Afghan counterparts and to security forces, and in various governmental institutions, and that
enable
s a quote ‘responsible
drawdown
’.”
Israeli troops have begun
demolish
ing a high concrete wall that was erected eight years ago to protect a Jewish settlement on the outskirts of East Jerusalem at Gilo. An Israeli military spokesman said the two-metre-high wall was no longer needed. Warren Bull reports.
After the second Palestinian uprising started in 2000, the Jewish neighbourhood at Gilo came under fire from Palestinians in the nearby village of Beit Jala. The attacks
prompt
ed the Israeli authorities to build a concrete barrier along several streets of Gilo. The settlement had been
annex
ed by Israel in the 1967 War, and Israel regards it as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
The wall itself can’t be seen as a
precursor
to the much larger security barrier that Israel has been building in the West Bank to stop suicide attacks.
Now Israel’s military says the wall at Gilo can be
dismantle
d, because it says the security situation has improved there.
The Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes in southern France has reopened after a temporary evacuation following a