News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is expected to slam Israel next week at the conference of donor nations to be held in Paris. Quartet envoy Tony Blair has said he will make an appeal at the conference to raise $5.6 billion from the international community for a three-year program to cover the PA's massive deficit and begin economic and other development programs.

According to a draft of his speech next week obtained by Ha'aretz, Abbas will demand that Israel stop all building in parts of Jerusalem liberated during the Six-Day War in 1967, insisting the area belongs to the PA, along with the rest of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The PA has specificly condemned Israel's decision to go ahead with a housing project in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, a plan that was approved by the government ten years ago and received final authorization this month.