THE MIDDLE EAST: A day after the Israeli army pulled its troops back from central Ramallah to the city's outskirts, the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat convened the first meeting of his slimmed down cabinet. He pledged to hold elections by January at the latest.
But the meeting coincided with an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the cabinet by Mr Arafat's former Gaza security chief, Mr Mohammad Dahlan, who said several of the ministers were "corrupt" and should be put on trial.
The members of the PA's 21-strong cabinet made their way past sandbags at the battle-scarred entrance to Mr Arafat's presidential compound, and the new faces were sworn in by him. Mr Arafat trimmed back his previous 31-member cabinet and replaced several key ministers, in response to domestic, Israeli and wider international pressure for reform.
The cabinet changes have met with a mixed response. Some Palestinians hailed them as a first step towards more efficient government. Others are sceptical - with Mr Dahlan by far the most prominent critic. In a speech at Gaza's Shati refugee camp, he made clear yesterday he would not be returning to his position as security chief and would begin "political activism". Calling some ministers a liability, he said also numerous mistakes had been made during the 20-month intifada and if not corrected would spell disaster for the Palestinians.
The Bush administration is also publicly divided about the significance of the PA reform process, and over relations with Mr Arafat. President Bush is expected to unveil a new Middle East initiative any day now, yet he and his Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, are overtly at odds over its content - divided, ironically, along the same lines as Israel's Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon and his Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres.
Mr Powell, echoing Mr Peres, is talking up the idea of "interim" Palestinian statehood, and emphasising US determination to work with Mr Arafat. But Mr Bush is rebuffing any short-term notion of Palestinian statehood and placing no public confidence in Mr Arafat.
Interim statehood - internationally endorsed Palestinian sovereignty over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as a step towards a wider statehood - was not "all that new and revolutionary a suggestion," Mr Powell insisted yesterday. Yet the White House spokesman made clear it was emphatically not a suggestion Mr Bush was endorsing. One Israeli newspaper claimed Mr Bush had been tentatively supportive of the idea, but was talked out of it by Mr Sharon on Monday.
During brief talks yesterday with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, indeed, Mr Bush reportedly turned down a call that he set a timetable for Palestinian statehood.
Although it left Ramallah, the Israeli army remained active in the West Bank yesterday. The Al-Aksa Brigades, affiliated with Mr Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing on Tuesday, in which a teenage Israeli girl was killed, calling it revenge for the ongoing army incursions.
Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, writes:
Ireland's UN ambassador has called for the early convening of an international conference on the Middle East. Mr Richard Ryan told the Security Council yesterday it was "more than ever necessary to make rapid progress in the renewed efforts to reach a just, peaceful and comprehensive settlement".
The situation was "one of the world's truly dangerous fault-lines", he added. "The international community has a clear responsibility and duty to move beyond rhetoric and language: not to act now would be a dereliction of duty to the people of the region and to the cause of international peace and security."
While Israel had every right to defend its citizens against terrorism, it must observe international humanitarian law. "The violence and destruction carried out by the Israeli Defence Forces at the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah are deeply reprehensible and, furthermore, are counter-productive," he said.