Reconciliation

A Palestinian official says the Palestinian president will meet with the leader of the militant Hamas movement next month to discuss uniting dueling governments in the West Bank and Gaza. The meeting will be the first between President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas' Khaled Mashaal since they signed a surprise reconciliation agreement in May. Amin Makboul, a senior official with Abbas' Fatah movement, said on Thursday the two will meet in Cairo. He gave no specific date. The deal was already troubled by disputes that had undermined previous reconciliation efforts, such as who would...

Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah agreed on Sunday on a new timetable for a power-sharing deal that envisions elections in about six months, officials from both sides said. Reconciliation efforts have stalled repeatedly, and it is unclear if the latest agreement, brokered by Egypt and signed in Cairo, would end the impasse. The Islamic militant Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah's leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007, leaving him with only the West Bank. Earlier this year, Abbas and Hamas' supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, agreed that the Palestinian president should...

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament passed a benchmark bill yesterday allowing lower-ranking former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party to reclaim government jobs, the first major piece of US-backed legislation it has adopted. Traveling in Manama, Bahrain, President Bush hailed the measure as "an important step toward reconciliation. " "It's an important sign that the leaders of that country understand that they must work together to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people," he said.

TAY BAY HTA, Myanmar - When Myanmar announced a cease-fire last month with one of the country's most prominent rebel groups, images of longstanding enemies shaking hands across a table were beamed around the globe and trumpeted as evidence of further reconciliation in a country emerging from decades of military dictatorship and ethnic strife. Now, three weeks after the deal was announced, the leadership of the rebel group is denying that a cease-fire was signed. "We can't say there's a cease-fire yet," Naw Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the Karen National Union, said in an...

Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah agreed on Sunday on a new timetable for a power-sharing deal that envisions elections in about six months, officials from both sides said. Reconciliation efforts have stalled repeatedly, and it is unclear if the latest agreement, brokered by Egypt and signed in Cairo, would end the impasse. The Islamic militant Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah's leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007, leaving him with only the West Bank. Earlier this year, Abbas and Hamas' supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, agreed that the Palestinian president should...

Joseph Kennedy III isn't the only member of the Camelot clan in the news. The same day the ginger-haired grandson of Robert F. Kennedy announced he may seek the seat held by Representative Barney Frank, the rumored reconciliation of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger was debunked by People.com. After Shriver was photographed wearing a ring described by some gossip sites as "suspicious," there was speculation that she and the former California governor might be patching things up. Nope.

DAVOS, Switzerland - Haiti's president suggested that he might pardon former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, saying reconciliation for his nation is more important than making the man known as "Baby Doc" pay for his bloody rule. In an interview, Michel Martelly vowed to respect the judge expected to rule within days whether Duvalier should face trial on corruption and human rights violations. Duvalier went into exile in 1986 and returned to Haiti a year ago. But Martelly suggested he has little appetite for a trial that could be explosive for the...

TAY BAY HTA, Myanmar - When Myanmar announced a cease-fire last month with one of the country's most prominent rebel groups, images of longstanding enemies shaking hands across a table were beamed around the globe and trumpeted as evidence of further reconciliation in a country emerging from decades of military dictatorship and ethnic strife. Now, three weeks after the deal was announced, the leadership of the rebel group is denying that a cease-fire was signed. "We can't say there's a cease-fire yet," Naw Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the Karen National Union, said in an...

Q. I recently ended a relationship with a wonderful guy. Let's call him Mr. Green. He was my stab at "green dating" (the recycling of ex-boyfriends) after my marriage of 15 years ended. Mr. Green contacted me out of the blue via Facebook almost a year after my breakup, and we reconnected there. We spent the past two-plus years in a relationship that I knew was doomed from the start. I was honest with him from the get-go. I am not interested in ever being married again or even living with another man. I enjoyed his company, and he was great with my kids, but the same issues we had 20-plus...

Sri Lanka's president has ordered authorities to free the country's jailed former army chief, a man credited with ending the country's long civil war but who later was imprisoned after challenging the president in elections. President Mahinda Rajapaksa signed papers ordering the release of Sarath Fonseka and handed them over to his chief of staff Saturday before embarking on an official visit to Qatar, presidential spokesman Bandula Jayasekara said Sunday. The papers will be sent to the Justice Ministry on Monday, Jayasekara said.

DAVOS, Switzerland - Haiti's president suggested that he might pardon former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, saying reconciliation for his nation is more important than making the man known as "Baby Doc" pay for his bloody rule. In an interview, Michel Martelly vowed to respect the judge expected to rule within days whether Duvalier should face trial on corruption and human rights violations. Duvalier went into exile in 1986 and returned to Haiti a year ago. But Martelly suggested he has little appetite for a trial that could be explosive for the nation, recovering from decades of...

Joseph Kennedy III isn't the only member of the Camelot clan in the news. The same day the ginger-haired grandson of Robert F. Kennedy announced he may seek the seat held by Representative Barney Frank, the rumored reconciliation of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger was debunked by People.com. After Shriver was photographed wearing a ring described by some gossip sites as "suspicious," there was speculation that she and the former California governor might be patching things up. Nope.

Q. I recently ended a relationship with a wonderful guy. Let's call him Mr. Green. He was my stab at "green dating" (the recycling of ex-boyfriends) after my marriage of 15 years ended. Mr. Green contacted me out of the blue via Facebook almost a year after my breakup, and we reconnected there. We spent the past two-plus years in a relationship that I knew was doomed from the start. I was honest with him from the get-go. I am not interested in ever being married again or even living with another man. I enjoyed his company, and he was great with my kids, but the...

A Palestinian official says the Palestinian president will meet with the leader of the militant Hamas movement next month to discuss uniting dueling governments in the West Bank and Gaza. The meeting will be the first between President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas' Khaled Mashaal since they signed a surprise reconciliation agreement in May. Amin Makboul, a senior official with Abbas' Fatah movement, said on Thursday the two will meet in Cairo. He gave no specific date. The deal was already troubled by disputes that had undermined previous reconciliation efforts,...

Bahrain’s top Shiite cleric on Friday criticized reconciliation talks between the Shiite-led opposition and the kingdom’s Sunni rulers, accusing the monarchy of using the U.S.-supported dialogue to delay democratic reforms. The remarks by Sheik Isa Qassim underline the deep tensions in the tiny, but strategically important nation, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, after five months of pro-democracy protests and harsh crackdowns on the Shiite majority pressing for more freedoms and rights.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A Bahraini opposition figure said reconciliation talks between the Sunni monarchy and the Shi’ite opposition started yesterday for the first time since antigovernment protests erupted in the Persian Gulf kingdom. Washington has pushed for dialogue in the strategic island nation, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The protests that began in February, inspired by wider Arab uprisings, have been the gravest challenge to the nation’s rulers in decades.

Black Virgin Mountain: A Return to Vietnam By Larry Heinemann Doubleday, 243 pp., illustrated, $22.95 Larry Heinemann, whose war novel "Paco's Story" won a National Book Award in 1987, spent his combat tour in Vietnam mounted on an armored personnel carrier behind a .50-caliber machine gun. His 25th Infantry Division operated over terrain that concealed a vast and largely undetected Viet Cong tunnel complex near Cu Chi, today one...

DAMASCUS - The Syrian-based leadership of the militant Palestinian Hamas said yesterday that it has rejected an Egyptian-mediated proposal to reconcile with the rival Fatah group. Hamas and seven other Damascus-based Palestinian factions issued a joint statement saying the reconciliation plan must be revised to include a reference to the Palestinian right to resist Israeli occupation. Hamas, a bitter rival of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group, seized control of Gaza two years ago after routing out Fatah forces.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban dismissed this week’s national peace conference in Afghanistan yesterday before it had begun, threatening death to the 1,600 delegates in cassette messages distributed by the insurgent leadership. At the three-day meeting, which begins today in a giant tent at Kabul Polytechnic University, participants will discuss how to reconcile with the fighters — even as the United States rushes in more troops to ramp up the nearly nine-year war. But the meeting could open fissures in a society deeply divided after decades of conflict.

WASHINGTON - Seeking to salvage a health care overhaul, congressional leaders are considering a plan to pass the Senate bill with some changes to accommodate House Democrats, senior Democratic aides said yesterday. Leaders will present the idea to the rank and file this week, but it is unclear whether they have enough votes to carry it out. Last week’s victory by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts cost Democrats the 60th vote they need to maintain undisputed control of the Senate, jeopardizing the outcome of the health care bill just as...