On the Palestinian elections

At the Palestinian political level, the chairman of the PLO and presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas vowed to follow the steps of the later Palestinian President Yasser Arafat stressing that he will seek to found an independent state during the peace talks with Israel.

This came in the third day of the Presidential elections campaign in which Abbas called -- in his first election gathering -- on the Palestinians to unify their ranks in confrontation of the "hated occupation." In this regard, many presidential candidates complained over their inability to move to take part in the Presidential elections campaign due to be carried out on January 9th 2005.

On the other hand, the Palestinian prime minister Ahmad Qurei called on the Palestinians to take part in this voting as a station in the process of revitalizing the Palestinian establishments and fill the vacuum left by the demise of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

In support of the current moves on the Palestinian arena, the American government transferred aid estimated at $ 20 million for the Palestinian Authority. A statement by the American embassy in Israel said that the sum will be used to carry out projects in the West Bank and Gaza.