The latest international effort to revive the Middle East peace process has run into trouble.  Israeli and Palestinian leaders are blaming each other after five rounds of exploratory talks this month in Jordan hit an impasse.  The aim of the talks is to revive direct peace negotiations that have been deadlocked for three years. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel did not offer detailed proposals on the future borders of a Palestinian state.  In remarks published by the Palestinian news agency, Abbas accused Israel of defying international guidelines for peace and foiling the talks. His comments were echoed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad.  “It is time to recognize the failings of this process.  It has failed and the process is in bad need of serious direction,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed a finger at the Palestinians. He told the Israeli Cabinet the Palestinians refused to even discuss Israel’s security needs. Netanyahu said the signs are not very good, but he hopes that the Palestinians “will come to their senses” and return to the negotiating table. The United States and European Union have also urged the Palestinians to continue the talks, saying negotiations with Israel are the only way to achieve a two-state solution and peace. President Abbas says he will make a final decision on whether or not to continue the exploratory talks after consulting with the Arab League later this week. Join the conversation on our social journalism site – Middle East Voices . Follow our Middle East reports on Twitter and discuss them on our Facebook page.

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Iran says it has successfully tested and produced fuel rods for use in nuclear power plants. It also says it has test-fired a medium-range surface-to-air missile near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iranian television said the rods, which contain natural uranium, were made in Iran and inserted into the core of a research nuclear reactor in Tehran.   The Tehran Times newspaper called the fuel rod production a “great achievement [that] will perplex the West.”   State media also boasted that the missile tested Sunday was equipped with technology enabling it to pinpoint radar-evading targets.   At the same time, Iranian officials were dismissing Washington’s move to impose new sanctions on financial institutions that deal with Iran’s central bank. U.S. President Barack Obama signed the sanctions into law Saturday as part of a push to hamper Tehran’s ability to finance its nuclear enrichment program. Both the United States and the European Union contend that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear intentions are peaceful.   Iran has threatened to respond to possible wider sanctions on its oil exports by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital export route for the other oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf.  The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, says it will not allow disruptions to Gulf shipping.   There has been no official response in Western capitals to the latest Iranian announcements, which came a day after Tehran proposed a new round of talks with the West on its nuclear activities. The state-run news agency IRNA quoted national security adviser Saeed Jalili as saying he was inviting the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany – known as the P5+1 – to “come back to talks.”  The agency said Iran’s ambassador to Germany would present the proposal to the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.   The P5+1 last met with Iran nearly a year ago, but the talks ended with no agreement. At the time, Jalili said Tehran would maintain its right to nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment. Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP. Join the conversation on our social journalism site – Middle East Voices . Follow our Middle East reports on Twitter and discuss them on our Facebook page.

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Negotiators at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa have approved a package of agreements to combat global climate change. While the deal is a step forward, observers say more should have been accomplished. After hours of political wrangling and compromise on all sides, delegates emerged from an all-night session Sunday with a way forward on climate change. Going into the last-minute negotiations, the South African president of the conference, Maite Nkoana Mashabane told delegates the package of deals would not please everyone. He said, “I think we all realize they’re not perfect, but we should not let the perfect become the enemy of the good and the possible.” Among the biggest achievements was the approval of a European Union plan to negotiate a future legal deal to combat climate change. EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard lobbied fiercely for the so-called EU “roadmap,” saying, “We are on the brink, it is within our reach to get what the world is waiting for and what only few thought would happen now: a legally binding deal.” The agreement calls for parties to end negotiations on a future pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 and to implement the new regime no later than 2020. Emotions ran high in the middle-of-the-night plenary session about plans for the future agreement. Karl Hood of Grenada, representing a coalition of small island states took issue with the language in the draft text, which did not specify what legal form the agreement would take. Hood said, “And if there is no legal instrument by which we can make countries responsible for their actions then, Madame Chair, I’m saying that we are relegating vulnerable economies to the whims and fancies of beautiful words like ‘self-determination’ like ‘access to development’; while they develop, we die in the process.” The future deal will replace the Kyoto Protocol – an existing legal framework that was enacted in 2007 and was due to expire next year. Governments that are part of Kyoto, including the EU, agreed in Durban to a second commitment period to the protocol that will last five to eight years, though Russia, Japan and Canada have said they will not take part. The conference did not produce any immediate promises to further cut emissions blamed for climate change. Tim Gore, the climate policy advisor for Oxfam, said developing countries will not benefit much from the deals passed here in Durban. Gore told VOA, “They didn’t get a great deal out of this, I think this was largely an agreement which was struck between the big boys, between the U.S., the European Union, perhaps some of the emergency economies did a deal on a future legal agreement, and that’s significant, but it hasn’t necessarily delivered the action that the very poorest countries, and the poorest people within them, need here and now.” Parties also agreed in Durban to put into operation a Green Climate Fund, which is to provide assistance to developing nations for environmental projects.  However, there was no agreement on how to actually finance the Fund, so, for the time being it remains an empty shell. Some of these issues will likely be addressed again at the U.N. climate conference next year in Qatar.

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