A meeting scheduled this week to announce the new unity government for the Palestinians has been canceled over a dispute between the two factions over who should be prime minister. The New York Times: Mr. Abbas has been pushing hard to keep in place Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is widely admired in the United States and Europe, the sources of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, and in Israel, whose security officials cooperate with those under him in the West Bank. But Hamas leaders despise Mr. Fayyad, considering him a stooge of Israel and the West and blaming his security authorities in the West Bank for arresting and mistreating their followers. "Salam Fayyad is a criminal who should be put on trial," Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas official, said in an interview at his home. "He has tortured our people in prison. He is not acceptable to anyone in Hamas." The announcement of the meeting's cancellation was made by Azzam al-Ahmed, chief Fatah...(Read Full Post)