US to offer Palestinians half billion dollars

The United States will offer the moderate Palestinian leadership more than half a billion dollars at Monday's international donors' conference in Paris, a US official said Friday.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is seeking a total of 5.6 billion dollars between 2008 and 2010 to help tackle poverty, build a viable Palestinian state and give impetus to a new peace process with Israel.
"The US will make a generous contribution," a government official said on condition of anonymity. "The expectation would be 100 million dollars more than last year's context, in the vicinity of 500 million (dollars) plus."
The figure would still be subject to approval by the US Congress.
The administration of US President George W. Bush had asked Congress to approve 400 million in economic support for Palestinians in the 2007-2008 budget which began on October 1. That amount has not been approved.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will fly Sunday to the donors' conference aimed at supporting Palestinian reform of political, security and economic institutions that would underpin a future Palestinian state.
Ninety delegations are expected at the one-day Conference of Donors for a Palestinian State, the biggest of its kind since 1996, which aims to shore up the peace process jumpstarted in the US city of Annapolis last month.