JERUSALEM, May 17 (AFP)
Israelis were going to the polls Monday, apparently determined to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the conservative Likud party and put the future of their country, and the peace process, in the hands of Labor Party leader Ehud Barak.
The final pre-election opinion poll showed Barak, a former army chief of staff and Israel�s most decorated soldier, holding a commanding 10-point lead over Netanyahu, who has governed since mid-1996.
Pollsters for Netanyahu however insisted the race is too close to call and will be decided by a large group of voters who remained undecided until election day.
On the campaign�s final day Sunday Barak hammered home his theme that �it is time for change,� promising to revive Israel�s sluggish economy and the peace process which has been deadlocked under Netanyahu.
Netanyahu accused Barak of secretly harboring plans to let Yasser Arafat�s Palestinian Authority create an unbridled state in all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
�With Labor ... we are going to see a Palestinain state at the doorstep of Tel Aviv, a state interested in destroying us, a state which will endanger our very existence,� Netanyahu said.
Polling stations begin opening at 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) and will close in the big cities at 10:00 p.m., when television stations will issue their first predictions based on exit polls.
Voters will cast separate ballots for prime minister and for party lists for the parliament, or Knesset. The 120 Knesset seats will be parcelled out to parties according to the overall percentage of the vote they receive.
But the key race is between Barak, 57, and Netanyahu, 49, either of whom is expected to be able to cobble together a governing coalition, possibly a national unity government centered on Labor and Likud.
Barring a major upset, however, Barak is the odds-on favorite to win after three other opposition candidates for premier all withdrew from the race over the weekend.
Yitzhak Mordechai, Netanyahu�s former defense minister and leader of the new Center Party, all but assured Barak�s victory when he withdrew his candidacy on Sunday and endorsed the Labor Party chief.
Arab candidate Azmi Bishara had already pulled out Saturday night so his backers could vote Barak.
And ultranationalist Benny Begin, another Likud defector, guaranteed that the election would be decided Monday when he followed in Mordechai�s footsteps and withdrew.
Under Israeli law, a candidate must obtain more than 50 percent of the valid ballots in order to win � a certainty now that the race is a two-way contest.
As he slid steadily behind Barak in opinion polls over the past weeks, Netanyahu had been counting on the multi-candidate field to prevent a Labor triumph Monday and drag the election into a second round in which he felt his chances were better.
The parallel vote for parliament is expected to see the rise of several new secular centrist parties, which appear set to replace the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox group Shas as the powerbrokers of the new regime.
Parties representing Israel�s million-strong Arab minority and the similarly sized community of recent Russian-speaking immigrants are also expected to win around 10 seats.
Whatever government emerges from Monday�s vote, its top priority will be launching overdue negotiations with the Palestinians on a final peace settlement � tackling the most explosive issues of Palestinian statehood, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Jewish settlers and Palestinian refugees.
On substantive issues Barak and Netanyahu hold similar positions concerning the peace process and the issue was paradoxically all but absent from the campaign debate.
But Barak claims he can restore trust to an Israeli-Palestinian relationship which has been battered by three years of Netanyahu�s fierce opposition to Palestinian independence and strong support for expanded Jewish settlement of occupied areas.
Almaty, May 17
(INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN)
By 2020 China is going to increase its annual water utilisation from the Black Irtysh to up to 1 billion cubic meters. This was the announcement of the MFA ambassador Ibragim Amangaliev on Monday at a press conference devoted to the results of the first round of Kazakhstan-Chinese negotiations regarding utilisation of the bordering rivers.
The first round of the negotiations was held on May 5 to 15 in Peking. Ambassador Amangaliev led the Kazakhstan delegation at these negotiations while the Chinese delegation was headed by the advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ma Yao.
According to the Kazakhstan diplomat, Peking �for the first time� informed the Kazakhstan side about the construction of �water-supply facilities� in the Xinjiang-Uigurian Region (SUAR), in the Black Irtysh. Amangaliev also announced, referring to the Chinese side, that by 2000 the first phase of the channel Black Irtysh-Karamai (in SUAR) would be �possibly� put into operation - increasing water usage to about 450 million cubic metres per year.
A member of the Kazakh delegation who took part in the negotiations in Peking, chief engineer of the �Kazhyprovodohoz� Institute, Alexander Zemlyannikov, stated that the length of the channel Black Irtysh-Karamai would be 350 to 400 km. According to the participants of the press conference, Peking has not notified Astana about the aims and tasks of the construction of this channel.
In the ambassador�s opinion, water utilisation of the Black Irtysh in the volume of 1 billion cubic metres, i.e. 10% of the total river volume, is not �fatal� for Kazakhstan and �to raise a question about compensation (to Kazakhstan by China � IF) now is too earlier.� Amangaliev announced that at present, the volume of water in Irtysh at the Kazakhstan-Chinese is about 9 to 9.6 billion cubic metres. However, this volume depends on climate conditions and may vary from 4.5-6 billion to 15 billion cubic metres.
At the same time, the diplomat stated that the water utilisation from this river by China in the volume of 1 billion cubic metres �will reduce the capacity� of three Kazakhstan power stations (Bukhtarma, Ust-Kamenogorsk and Shulba power stations) situated in the below Irtysh in Eastern Kazakhstan. It will also create navigation problems. However, the participants of the press conference could not mention concrete figures and indices, stating that at that time they did not have similar estimations and that was �the subject of the further negotiations� with the Chinese side.
I. Amangaliev announced that Astana and Peking agreed to hold consultations regarding the bordering rivers twice in a year. According to the diplomat, the second round of the negotiations will be held this year in Almaty.
The ambassador said that during this round of the negotiations Kazakhstan would strive for a frame agreement with China to be signed and would try to establish a joint commission on the utilisation of these rivers. The Kazakhstan side has already submitted its draft agreement to the Chinese side. Amangaliev also said that Peking explained the delay in the signing of the agreement by the uncompleted delimitation of the borders between the two countries.
Kazakhstan and China only signed the final agreements on the disputable parts of the state borders in the last year.
Speaking about the perspective participation of Russia in these negotiations, I. Amangaliev emphasised that participation of Moscow �will strengthen the Kazakhstan position.� Amangaliev stated that consultations between Moscow and Astana �were being regularly conducted.� According to the diplomat, Peking �asked us to wait� in this matter.
Replying to the journalists� questions, A. Zemlyannikov stated, that �Kazhyprovodohoz� had prepared a project to supply water to Astana from the Irtysh-Karaganda channel (in the centre of the republic) in the volume of 800 to 100 million cubic metres. However, Zemlyannikov emphasised that it would require additional water supply from Irtysh.
The riverhead of the Irtysh is in China and is called the Black Irtysh. The river crosses Kazakhstan and flows into Ob in Russian territory.
As far as the other bordering river, Ili is concerned, according to I. Amangaliev, the Chinese side gave assurances that it did not plan to construct any water-supply objects in this river.
The volume of the Ili at the Kazakhstan-Chinese border is now about 12 billion cubic metres.
It was also announced at the press conference that Astana and Peking are not the participants of the international agreements concerning the problems of utilisation of bordering rivers (The Helsinki convention on the preservation and utilisation of bordering rivers and international lakes concluded in 1972 and the Convention on the rights of types of utilisation of international rivers other than navigation, accepted at the 21st session of the UN).
In the beginning of April, the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev sent a message to the Chinese leader Jiang Zemin calling for negotiations on the utilisation of the bordering rivers.
Astana, May 17
( INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN)
An agreement that European Council will receive an official invitation from Astana to send its observers for the Parliamentary election which are to be held in the autumn of this year. It was announced by the head of the delegation of the EC Parliamentary Assembly (ECPA), a member of the Parliament of Great Britain David Atkinson during his meeting with the deputy of the chairman of the Mazhilis of the Kazakhstan Parliament Vasily Osipov.
D. Atkinson said about Kazakhstan�s membership in ECPA as a specially invited member, that this issue �should be considered.� He advised to submit an application for a status of observer in ECPA, which Canada and Israel have. The status of the observer gives a possibility to send the parliamentary delegations to the ECPA conferences, D. Atkinson said.
V. Osipov, in his own turn, said that the Kazakhstan parliament counts on co-operation with ECPA.
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