Two Palestinians-only bus lines were launched by Israel at the beginning of the week (photo AFP)

Two Palestinians-only bus lines have been launched by Israel in the occupied West Bank, a move described as racist by an Israeli rights group.

The Transport Ministry said it was an improvement in service.

According to left-wing Haaretz daily, the lines were opened on Monday and are meant to be used by Palestinian labourers who are travelling between the West Bank and Israel.

The launch of the bus lines come after Jewish settlers said that Palestinians on mixed buses on the Trans-Samaria road between the West Bank and Tel Aviv were a security risk.

“Creating separate bus lines for Israeli Jews and Palestinians is a revolting plan,” Jessica Montell, director of the B’Tselem rights group, said on Army Radio. “This is simply racism. Such a plan cannot be justified with claims of security needs or overcrowding.”

The two new lines will “improve public transport services for Palestinian workers entering Israel” , said the Transport Ministry, adding that they would replace pirate buses which were charging them “exorbitant prices”.

“The Ministry of Transport has not issued any instruction or prohibition that prevents Palestinian workers from travelling on public transport in Israel nor in Judea and Samaria,” it said, referring to the West Bank.

“Furthermore, the Ministry of Transport is not authorised to prevent any passenger from using public transport services.” 

‘Apartheid’

“They are institutionalizing segregated services for Jews and non-Jews,” said Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, an activist with Women For Civil Disobedience, an Israeli-Palestinian campaign group.

“Many people don’t class the Israeli situation as apartheid because for a long time, Israel refrained from the characteristics of petty apartheid, like separate roads, cafés and buses. This bus situation is a step in the direction of petty apartheid because people are being segregated in their daily activities.”

Although Avner Ovadia, a transport ministry spokesperson, said there was no official ban on Palestinian workers travelling on public buses, rights groups voiced their concern that, at checkpoints in the West Bank, Israeli police would remove Palestinian passengers from regular bus lines and instruct them to use the new lines.

According to drivers with the Afikim bus company, which operates the Trans-Samaria route, Palestinians attempting to use the regular services would be pointed towards a different bus.

“We are not allowed to refuse service and we will not order anyone to get off the bus, but from what we were told … there will be checks at the checkpoint, and Palestinians will be asked to board their own buses,” one driver told Ynet, an Israeli news website.

According to Herzl Ben-Zvi, mayor of the Karnei Shomron settlement, the new lines “answer the needs of all passengers; Palestinians and settlers” because they would relieve overcrowding on buses in the area.

Official figures estimate that every day 29,000 Palestinians travel to jobs in Israel.

Thousands gathered in Caracas on Wednesday, as Hugo Chavez’s coffin made his way to the military academy (photo Reuters)

Following Venezuelan leader’s death on March 5 after a long battle with cancer, the country’s electoral commission has announced that the presidential election to name his successor will take place on April 14.

The campaigning period will go from April 2 to April 11, the electoral commission also said.

In the meantime Nicolas Maduro, Mr Chavez’s favoured successor has been appointed acting president.

While Mr Maduro will run as the governing party candidate, Henrique Capriles is expected to stand for the opposition.

Mr Capriles lost last October’s election against Mr Chavez, who won 54% of the vote, and Mr Capriles won 44%. However this was the opposition’s best result ever against the late president.

When his health worsened, Mr Chavez announced that his vice-president Mr Maduro should succeed him.

Mr Maduro, 50, said he will carry on the leftist policies of the man who led the country for 14 years, and he was shown as the favourite to win the next election by opinion polls.

According to Tibisay Lucena, the head of the electoral commission, the candidates have to register for the race by Monday.

This announcement was followed by another from the head of the opposition coalition who officially proposed Mr Capriles, 40, as their presidential candidate.

After tweeting that he was grateful to be chosen, Mr Capriles, a lawyer by training who is governor of the state of Miranda, said he was analysing the statement from the commission.

“In the following hours I will give my decision,” he said.

Mr Capriles, who describes his policies as centrist and humanist, says he takes his political inspiration from former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who courted businesses and investors while also developing social programmes.

Under the constitution

Arguing that it was unconstitutional, the opposition boycotted Mr Maduro’s swearing-in on Friday.

The move was called fraudulent by Mr Capriles.

According to the opposition, under the constitution the one to take over as acting president should be the speaker of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello.

They also say that the constitution states that the election should be held within 30 days of Mr Chavez’s death. The date picked is more than a month after the President’s death.

In the meantime on Satuday Acting President Madura held one of his first diplomatic appointments consisting of a private meeting with the Chinese delegation that had come to attend Friday’s state funeral.

Mr Madura told the delegation that China “can count with the Bolivarian government, with the people of Venezuela to deepen the strategic alliance that our two countries have”.

He later visited, accompanied by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the military academy where Mr Chavez is lying in state.

On Wednesday hundreds of thousands of people swarmed the streets of Caracas, cheering and crying as Mr Chavez’s coffin slowly made his way to the academy.

The former leader’s body will be embalmed “like Lenin and Mao Zedong” and will rest in a glass casket “for eternity”, Mr Maduro has announced.

The move has been decried by some Venezuelans who believe that it goes against their late president’s wish to be buried.

If a woman crosses the border a new system will automatically send a text message to the men in order to inform them that the woman is leaving or entering the country, even if the man is travelling with her.

The system drew attention when a man received an alert as he was leaving the Riyadh airport with his wife.

Earlier Saudi men could request to be alerted by message about their dependants’ cross-border movement, as an option. However it appears that these notifications are being sent automatically since last week.

Last year the Saudi authorities launched an electronic passport system, which included the text alerts.

Thanks to those new passports it is easier for citizens to deal with their travel arrangements “without having to visit the passport office”, according to the Saudi government.

‘Backwardness’

The discovery caused a Twitter uproar.

One post mocked the move by suggesting the use of microchips and ankle bracelets to track women.

According to columnist Badriya al-Bishr who writes in the Saudi Gazette : “to put an adult woman under the constant control of her husband is proof that the wife is a slave.”

“This is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned.”

King Abdullah has introduced political and social reforms in the country where women are not allowed to drive. In September last year he announced that in future elections women would be given the right to vote and run.

And after sending only all-males teams to the Games, the country sent two females athletes to the London Olympics last summer.

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, ranked second worst in a Thomson Reuters global survey on women’s rights.

More than 15 millions copies were sold of the first two books (Bridget Jones’ Diary and The Edge of Reason), which inspired two films, starring Renee Zellweger as Bridget (photo, from telegraph.co.uk).

After about a decade in Los Angeles, Mrs Fielding came back to London two years ago with her two children and rediscovered the voice of her most famous character.

For this new book she turned to the world of texting and Twitter to help her imagine a new “scenario for Bridget”.

She told BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour : “I’m having a lot of fun, and it’s very funny and it’s making me laugh.”

She said that “after the unexpected success when it first came out, I was startled by the whole thing.”

“When I first wrote it I didn’t think anyone would read it. It was just a column in the Independent, so it was very easy to write and be very honest – and then I got all self-conscious because I knew so many people would read it.”

But the spring of 2011 brought her new ideas : “I had new stuff I wanted to say and things that were making me laugh.”

“Things that didn’t exist when I wrote the last Bridget, like emails really, and texting, the way life is lived through texting and Twitter, and a whole new idea for a phase of her life.”

“It’s more like ‘number of Twitter followers: 0. Still no followers. Still no followers’. But she has grown up,” explained Fielding, who revealed that the new book will take place in present day London.

“My life has moved on and hers will move on too,” said Fielding. “She’s still trying to give up [drinking and smoking], she’s still on a diet.

“She’s trying a bit harder, and is a bit more successful, but she’s never really going to change.”

‘Getting Bridget right’

And 2013 will see a lot of Bridget Jones as a third movie entitled Bridget Jones’s Baby is due for release early next year.

Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver should still by played by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

Mrs Fielding described this film as “a different, earlier story, not based on a novel – it started with some columns I wrote in the Independent about six years ago.

“I think with a third instalment [of the film] the stakes are very high. We all go back a long way, we’re all really fond of each other and everyone really wants to get it right, but that means there are a lot of voices, a lot of writers.

“Getting Bridget right, I always think it’s like a little duck – in the end it needs to skim effortlessly along the surface, but underneath the legs are going really, really fast.

The author also said the musical is still a work in progress.

“It’s been huge fun and will take ages because musicals do. It’s herding butterflies, people move off and then come back together again but I think it’s going to be fantastic when it does happen.”

The campaign’s aim is to find the money needed for renovations, which was lost due to cuts in the Italian culture budget.

Each donor who contributes 100,000 euros to the building will have his or her name engraved under a gargoyle, these often grotesque figures used in Gothic architecture to drain off rainwater.

In order to carry essential maintenance, the cathedral’s management needs to raise 25m euros.

It said it wanted “to encourage the Milanese and citizens of the world as a whole to be protagonists in the history of the cathedral, a priceless treasure that belongs to all of humanity”.

It took six centuries to build Milan’s main cathedral.

French emperor Napoleon said he would pay for the facade, completing the construction which had started in 1386.

Italy’s recent austerity measures have been affecting the country’s heritage as the culture budget, which represents already a small amount of the national spending, has been cut by a third over the past three years.

As a result world-famous buildings are crumbling and museums have been forced to close.

Last June pieces of stone fell off the Trevi fountain in Rome, and blocks of marble have been falling off the Colosseum.

A 25m private donation has been secured, in order to realise the restorations needed by one of the world’s best-known monument.

The largest demonstrations took place in Dublin (photo, from dailymail.co.uk) where more than 4,000 people marched to the Irish parliament for a candle-lit vigil and held one minute silence. In Galway, where Mrs Halappanavar lived, more than 1,000 gathered for a vigil in Eyre Square, and some 60 members of the Indian community rallied outside the hospital and held two minutes of silent prayers.

Smaller demonstrations were also held in other cities.

On the 28^th of October the 31-year-old Indian national was 17 weeks pregnant with her first child when she died at University Hospital in Galway.

Her family claims that she was repeatedly refused a termination during a miscarriage, which lead to her death.

Mrs Halappanavar was admitted to the hospital with severe back pain, before being told she was having a miscarriage.

According to her widower, Praveen Halappanavar, his wife had accepted that she was losing the baby and made several requests for a medical termination.

Mr Halappanavar claims that doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy because she was “in a Catholic country” and the foetus’s heartbeat was still present.

His wife died of septicaemia several days after entering the hospital, says an autopsy carried out two days after Mrs Halappanavar’s death.

Irish police confirmed that they are assisting the coroner regarding Mrs Halappanavar’s death, which is “standard procedure in the case of a sudden death”, said a police spokesperson.

And while hospital authorities have said that the facts of the case are not established yet, they are co-operating with two investigation into Mrs Halappanavar’s death : an internal investigation and an inquiry carried out by the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE).

‘Priority’

Mrs Halappanavar’s parents have hit out at the Irish abortion laws. Her mother Akka Mahadevi told Indian TV : “In an attempt to save a four-month-old foetus they killed my 30-year-old daughter. How is that fair you tell me?”

“How many more cases will there be? The rules should be changed as per the requirement of Hindus. We are Hindus, not Christians”, she added.

The woman’s death was described as an outrage by left-wing TDs Clare Daly and Joan Collins who criticised the government for not adopting their X Case Bill earlier this year. The bill would have introduced new laws to allow an abortion in specific life-threatening situations.

“A woman has died because Galway University Hospital refused to perform an abortion needed to prevent serious risk to her life. This is a situation we were told would never arise”, said Ms Daly.

“An unviable foetus – the woman was having a miscarriage – was given priority over the woman’s life, who unfortunately and predictably developed septicaemia and died.”

Although Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is now under some pressure to legislate for abortion in cases where the mother’s life is at risk, he did not give any indication as to whether he would introduce new abortion laws.

According to critics this new law may be used to stifle dissent.

In the previous law, high treason was described as espionage or other assistance to a foreign state which damages Russia’s external security. But in the new law the definition is widened as the word “external” disappears.

Therefore providing help or advice to a foreign state or giving information to an international or foreign organisation could fall under the new law.

According to rights advocates the definition is so broad that the law could be used to sweep up all inconvenient figures.

“I believe this law is very dangerous,” said human rights council member Liliya Shibanova, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. She is also the head of Golos, the only independent elections watchdog group in Russia.

“If, for example, I pass on information about alleged poll violations to a foreign journalist, this could be considered espionage,” she explained.

“It’s very broad and it’s very dangerous,” Rachel Denber, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, told the AP news agency.

While it is unknown yet how vigorously the bill will be enforced by the country’s authorities, Mrs Denber says it recreates a “sense of paranoia and suspicion and uneasiness about foreigners”.

Tamara Morshchakova, a former Constitutional Court judge, told the presidential rights council meeting on Monday that the new law is so broad the FSB no longer needs to provide proof that a suspect inflicted actual damage to the nation’s security.

“Their goal was simple: We have few traitors, it’s difficult to prove their guilt, so it’s necessary to expand it,” Mrs Morshchakova said.

“Now they don’t have to prove it any more. An opinion of law enforcement agencies would suffice.”

KGB

The Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency, drafted the treason law.

While the maximum punishment for high treason stays 20 years in prison, the new law says that Russians who have obtained state secrets can now be jailed for up to four years, even if they have not shared the secrets.

And if those secrets are obtained with the help of special surveillance equipment they can be jailed for up to eight years.

The new clause will protect better confidential information than the previous one which was passed in the 1960s.

“Tactics and methods of foreign special services have changed, becoming more subtle and disguised as legitimate actions,” the spy agency said.

“Claims about a possible twist of spy mania in connection with the law’s passage are ungrounded and based exclusively on emotions.”

The revised treason law first surfaced in 2008, but then-President Dmitry Medvedev quickly shelved it following an outburst of public criticism.

Academics

Earlier this week the definition of treason re-emerged when it was announced that the prison sentence of a physicist convicted in 2004 of spying for China would be reduced.

Valentin Danilov was condemned to 14-year sentence, which was cut by three years on Tuesday, on grounds of good behaviour and the state of his health.

He is due to be released on parole within nine days.

Mr Danilov was first arrested in 2001 and admitted selling information about satellite technology to a Chinese company, although he said that public sources already had access to the information.

His arrest was seen by Human rights campaigners as an attempt to intimidate academics with ties to other countries.

This pyramid is the second largest at Giza. It rises to a height of 136m and holds the tomb of the Pharaoh Khafre from the ancient Egypt’s fourth dynasty.

Along with the pyramid, Antiquities Minister Muhammad Ibrahim reopened six ancient tombs at Giza after a long restoration project.

He said his aim was to emphasize that Egypt is a safe country for tourists.

Following last year’s revolution, many people from the West avoid visiting Egypt as they picture the country as something like a war zone.

After inspecting the newly opened monument, Mr Ibrahim said that in the coming months other archaeological sites were due to be opened across the country.

Last year the unrest in the country led to President Hosni Mubarak resigning.

But scenes of violent protests, mainly in the capital Cairo, were broadcast around the world.

Egypt is currently suffering from a weak economy and a security situation which is still fragile.

The EU receives this award while facing the biggest financial crisis of its history, with several states being rocked by recession and social unrest.

This situation was acknowledged by Nobel committee president Thorbjoern Jagland when he announced the award.

But he explained that the committee wanted to focus on the EU’s work over the past six decades of advancing “peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights”.

The EU’s work in sealing the reconciliation between France and Germany in the decades following World War II was highlighted by Mr Jagland. He also congratulated the organisation for incorporating Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1970s, after their authoritarian regimes collapsed.

Pointing out that Croatia is on the verge of membership, Mr Jagland then said that the reconciliation work has now moved to Balkan countries.

Regarding Turkey, he said that the possibility of EU membership for had “advanced democracy and human rights in that country”.

In 1999 Medecins Sans Frontieres was the last organisation to receive the prize outright.

‘Work hard’

The Nobel Peace Prize made senior EU figures very happy.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the award was a recognition for the work of “the biggest peacemaker in history”.

It was described as a “great honour” by EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

In an interview, Mr Barroso told the BBC that the Nobel committee was saying that the European project should be cherished within Europe but not only.

“I believe it is justified for the European Union to see its work for peace recognised, not only in the unification of the continent, but also outside our Europe,” he said.

“This started after the war – putting together former enemies. It started with six countries and we are now 27, another one is going to join us next year and more want to come. So the EU is the most important project for peace in terms of transnational, supernational co-operation.”

In the meantime German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she saw the Nobel as a “personal incentive” to build on six decades of peace in Europe.

“We must never forget that in order to keep this peace, democracy and freedom, we have to work hard over and over again,” she said.

During a visit to Senegal, French President Francois Hollande told journalists that the EU needed to show it was “worthy” of the award. “We are honoured, we are proud and at the same time we have our responsibilities before us.”

‘What next?’

However not everybody praised the committee’s choice, which was criticised by several eurosceptic politicians.

The EU project was likened to the former Yugoslavia by Nigel Farage, of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

“Rather than bring peace and harmony, the EU will cause insurgency and violence,” he said.

The timing of the award was also questioned by Dutch eurosceptic Geert Wilders : “A Nobel prize for the EU at a time Brussels and all of Europe is collapsing in misery. What next? An Oscar for Van Rompuy.”

The Nobel committee is used to sparking controversy with its choice of winner for the Peace Prize.

In 2009 it was awarded to US President Barack Obama, even though he was leading a country fighting two separate wars.

In 2010 the committee chose detained Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The decision enraged China, which made an official complaint to Norway.

Chinese writer Mo Yan won this year’s Nobel Prize for literature and said on Friday that he hoped Mr Liu would be freed as soon as possible.

Inspired by a story described in a book by Federico Moccia, the locks are meant to symbolise the locking of hearts.

In the 2006 novel Ho voglia di te (I want you) a couple places a bicycle lock around a lamppost and throw the key into the Tiber, in a gesture meant to symbolise the couple locking their hearts together for eternity.

The gesture took off and clusters of padlocks can now be found near several landmarks in other Italian cities.

The author of the book shared his opinion about the removal of the ‘love padlocks’ late last year.

“With all the problems that Rome faces, is it really that important to cut off the padlocks?”, he wrote in the daily newspaper Il Tempo.

The author of the book said the locks should be left alone.

However the rust from the locks which hang off chains could cause permanent damage to the fabric of the bridge, said the city council.

He also suggested that graffiti and illegally posted advertisements represent a bigger issue for Rome.

Historical landmark

Last year Roman authorities had already stepped-in to break the locks apart following complaints from residents that it equated to vandalism.

In 2007 a lamppost on the bridge partially collapsed due to the weight of attached locks.

The same year the then mayor of Rome introduced a 50 euro fine on couples found attaching padlocks to the bridge.

Opponents to the ‘love padlocks’ argue that they are unsightly and that the bridge is too old and important to be used in this way.

The Ponte Milvio dates back to 206BC, when Rome was starting to become the heartbeat of an empire that would later control much of Europe.

As the name indicates, in 312AD the Battle of Milvian Bridge took place on the historical landmark. It was a fight between the armies of two competing contenders for the role of Roman Emperor. During the battle Maxentius, one of the rivals, fell into the Tiber and drowned.

The battle was won by Constantine the Great who went on to rule Rome for a further 25 years.