Bush in Isreal's pocket until the end...

JERUSALEM (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.

"She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.

Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.

The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.

"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said
"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

Bush has consistently placed the blame for the conflict on Hamas, telling reporters on Monday that while he wanted to see a "sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza, it was up to Hamas to choose to end its rocket fire on Israel.

Pakistan leader meets with Rice on missile strikes

By John Heilprin / Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS – Pakistan's president pressed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Wednesday to halt cross-border U.S. missile strikes targeting militants in his country's volatile tribal regions, the Pakistani foreign minister said.

"These drone attacks are unproductive, and they are contributing to alienation as opposed to winning people over," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview after briefing reporters on the 20-minute meeting between Rice and President Asif Ali Zardari.

The U.S. military is believed to have carried out at least 18 missile attacks on suspected militant targets close to the border in Pakistan since August. The missiles are believed to be fired from unmanned planes launched in Afghanistan, where some 32,000 U.S. troops are fighting a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

The strikes also should be halted to avoid the inadvertent deaths of civilians, Qureshi said. "In fact, what is required is more sharing of intelligence information. What is required is building Pakistan's capacity to deal with insurgency," he said.

State Department officials declined to comment on the meeting.

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration presents a fresh opportunity for Pakistan to emphasize more dialogue and development, Qureshi said.

"We'll be discussing with them a more comprehensive strategy. Because Pakistan is of the view that military means is not the be-all and the end-all," he said.

The drone attacks topped the Pakistani concerns aired during the meeting between Rice and Zardari, he said. The two also talked about strategies for dealing with terror networks without inflaming anti-American sentiment and the financial crisis gripping Pakistan and the rest of the world, Qureshi said.

It was one of a series of high-level private talks at the U.N. on Wednesday. These bilateral meetings among world leaders, some including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, occurred on the sidelines of a high-level U.N. interfaith conference organized by the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Rice also met behind closed doors with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Saudi king, two U.S. diplomatic officials said. The State Department declined to comment on those meetings, too.