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Argos Media

Obama Administration Has First Face-to-Face Contact With Iran - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • It was brief, it was unscheduled and it was not substantive, but a meeting Tuesday between Richard C. Holbrooke, a presidential envoy, and an Iranian diplomat marked the first face-to-face encounter between the Obama administration and the government of Iran.
  • Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that Mr. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, greeted Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, on the sidelines of a major conference here devoted to Afghanistan.
  • “It was cordial, unplanned and they agreed to stay in touch,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters at the end of the conference. “I myself did not have any direct contact with the Iranian delegation.”
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  • Mrs. Clinton also said the United States handed the Iranian delegation a letter requesting its intercession in the cases of two American citizens who are being held in Iran and another who is missing.
  • Some officials, including Mrs. Clinton, are skeptical that Iran’s leaders will ever embrace the American overtures. But reaching out, analysts say, keeps Iran on the defensive by demonstrating to the Europeans, the Russians and others that the United States is sincerely trying. And talking about Afghanistan is easier than confronting more divisive issues, especially Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
  • Mrs. Clinton also reacted warmly to remarks delivered by Mr. Akhondzadeh about what Iran would do to aid reconstruction in Afghanistan and to cooperate in regional efforts to crack down on the booming Afghan drug trade, which is spilling across the Iranian border.
  • “The fact that they came today, that they intervened today, is a promising sign that there will be future cooperation,” she said. “The Iranian representative set forth some very clear ideas that we will all be pursuing together.”
  • Iran cooperated with the United States on Afghanistan in the days after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and administration officials still view it as one of the most promising avenues for a reconciliation. Mrs. Clinton had pushed for Iran to be included on the invitation list for the United Nations-sponsored conference.
  • Iran, which was a no-show at the last Afghanistan conference, in Paris, did not send an official of Mrs. Clinton’s level, unlike most participants. But by sending Mr. Akhondzadeh, a former ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, it was clearly not trying to avoid contact.
  • At the conference, Iran offered support and criticism of the Obama administration’s new policy on Afghanistan. It praised the focus on regional cooperation, but it argued that sending more foreign troops to Afghanistan would be ineffective.
Pedro Gonçalves

AFP: Clinton calls for 'even stricter' Iran sanctions - 0 views

  • The United States will call for "even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a TV interview broadcast in Venezuela.
  • Washington remained concerned about what she called Iran's "pursuit of nuclear weapons," which could "be very destabilizing in the Middle East and beyond," Clinton told the private television network Globovision.
  • "We would ask the world to join us in imposing even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime," Clinton said in the interview, which was broadcast late Tuesday.
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  • And noting the unrest in Iran since the disputed June presidential election, she added: "We have seen in the last weeks that Iran has not respected its own democracy.""It has taken actions against his own citizens for peacefully protesting," she said, referring to street demonstrations challenging the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  • "I think it is not a very smart position to ally with a regime that is being rejected by so many of their own people," Clinton said in the interview.The administration of President Barack Obama, Clinton added, thinks "it is not in the best interest" of the world to be doing business with Iran that would "promote the regime... that is not smart."
  • Clinton also expressed renewed concern at the political and economic alliance between Venezuela and Iran, although she noted Washington was attempting to "lower the temperature" in the country's often tense relations.
  • The South American country's strongman leader Hugo Chavez, a fierce US critic, is Iran's main ally in the region. Chavez has defended Ahmadinejad numerous times in recent weeks."We call on the world to respect Iran because there are attempts to undermine the strength of the Iranian revolution," Chavez said last month after the election.
  • The United States has returned its ambassador to Caracas after almost a year without official diplomatic relations between the countries."We are trying to lower the temperature," Clinton said. "We want to make it clear that there are ways for us to have a conversation with people we don't agree with on many issues."
Pedro Gonçalves

Clinton Seeks 'Amnesty' for 2 Held by North Korea - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the United States was now seeking “amnesty” for two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea, a remark that suggests that the Obama administration was admitting the women’s culpability in a bid to secure their freedom.
  • “The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Mrs. Clinton said Friday morning during a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with State Department employees. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.”
  • The two journalists, Laura Ling, 36, and Euna Lee, 32, both reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor after a trial in which they were accused of entering the country illegally and committing “hostile acts.”
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  • Mrs. Clinton at first said the charges against the women were “baseless,” while the administration pressed for them to be freed on humanitarian grounds.
  • Her comments on Friday appear to reflect a changing picture that has been complicated by the North’s test of a nuclear missile in May and its decision to fire seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on the Fourth of July.
  • A scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday in a South Korean daily that the two women were not in a prison camp, but rather in a guest house in Pyongyang, a development that seemed to suggest that the North still wanted talks with Washington on the women’s release.
  • Experts said that Mrs. Clinton appeared to be trying to keep the issue of the journalists separate from the conflict over the North’s nuclear ambitions. “It’s clear to me they don’t want this tail to wag the nuclear dog,” said Michael Green, a top Asia expert for former President George W. Bush. “They are trying to keep it in a separate lane.”
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan disorder 'global threat' - 0 views

  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused Pakistan of abdicating to the Taleban by allowing them to control parts of the country. Mrs Clinton told a congressional panel the situation in Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to world security.
  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused Pakistan of abdicating to the Taleban by allowing them to control parts of the country.
  • Mrs Clinton told a congressional panel the situation in Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to world security. She said extremists were being allowed to control territory such as the Swat Valley, in north-western Pakistan. She also called Pakistan's judicial system corrupt, adding that it has only limited power in the countryside.
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  • Once one of Pakistan's most popular holiday destinations, the Swat Valley is now mostly under Taleban control
  • The Swat Valley is only about 100km (62 miles) from Islamabad, and reports suggest the Taleban are trying to expand the area under their control.
  • Giving evidence in Washington to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mrs Clinton said the situation in Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world".
  • "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taleban and the extremists," she said. She called on the Pakistani people to speak out "forcefully" against their government's policy, in what the BBC's Richard Lister in Washington called an unusual move.
  • The government's policy was conceding "more and more territory to the insurgents , to the Taleban, to al-Qaeda, to the allies that are in this terrorist syndicate", Mrs Clinton said. US President Barack Obama has put new emphasis on trying to resolve the security problems in Pakistan, our correspondent says, offering billions of dollars in aid but demanding greater co-operation from the government.
  • "I think that we can not underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan," she said, describing the rebels as a "loosely-confederated group of terrorists and others seeking to overthrow the Pakistani state".
Argos Media

Hillary Clinton pledges to keep troops in Iraq if violence escalates | World news | The... - 0 views

  • The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, made a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday to reassure Iraqi leaders that the Obama White House would refrain from withdrawing its troops from urban areas if renewed violence continued to worsen.Clinton's visit, her first since being appointed in January, followed a sharp surge in attacks over the past three days that left as many as 155 dead and prompted fears that recent security gains could unravel.
  • The attacks, which have mostly taken place in and around Baghdad, have sparked concern that the planned US drawback in July could destabilise areas which the withdrawal was meant to consolidate.
  • "I think that these suicide bombings are, unfortunately in a tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction," she told reporters travelling with her. "I think in Iraq there will always be political conflicts, there will always be, as in any society, sides drawn between different factions, but I really believe Iraq as a whole is on the right track."
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  • On Friday, Odierno's predecessor, General David Petraeus, told the US Congress that, despite spasms of deadly violence, attacks across Iraq were down from 160 a day during the peak of the sectarian chaos three years ago to 10 to 15 a day now.
  • He also claimed that four recent suicide bombings had been carried out by Tunisian insurgents who had infiltrated Iraq. The claim marks the first acknowledgment for many months that foreign fighters continue to travel to Iraq. Both Iraqi and US officials had recently maintained that attacks were being carried out by homegrown extremists.
  • Ahead of her visit, Clinton echoed Maliki's concerns that the make-up of Iraq's new security forces was still sectarian. She said she would press for creation of a non-sectarian force.
Argos Media

World Watches for U.S. Shift on Mideast - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.
  • Mr. Obama’s predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said. “I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”
  • None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)
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  • Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama was quick to distance himself from Robert Malley, an informal adviser to his campaign, when reports arose that Mr. Malley, a special adviser to Mr. Clinton, had had direct contacts with Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and that controls Gaza. Similarly, he distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser who was often critical of Israel, after complaints from some pro-Israel groups.
  • And Mr. Obama offered no public support for the appointment of Mr. Freeman to a top intelligence post in March after several congressional representatives and lobbyists complained that Mr. Freeman had an irrational hatred of Israel. Mr. Freeman angrily withdrew from consideration for the post.
  • But Mr. Freeman, in a telephone interview last week, said he still believed that Mr. Obama would go where his predecessors did not on Israel. Mr. Obama’s appointment of Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser — a man who has worked with Palestinians and Israelis to try to open up movement for Palestinians on the ground and who has sometimes irritated Israeli military officials — could foreshadow friction between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, several Middle East experts said.
  • The same is true for the appointment of George J. Mitchell as Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region; Mr. Mitchell, who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, has already hinted privately that the administration may have to look for ways to include Hamas, in some fashion, in a unity Palestinian government.
Pedro Gonçalves

Among Israel's U.S. Backers, Anxiety and Some Support Greet Obama's Words - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The Zionist Organization of America issued a statement on Friday calling the Cairo speech “strongly biased” against Israel. A statement by the organization’s president, Morton A. Klein, said Mr. Obama’s remarks “may well signal the beginning of a renunciation of America’s strategic alliance with Israel.”
  • Some of the concerns that supporters of Israel voiced about Mr. Obama before he took office began to dissipate as he assembled a staff that includes a White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who was a civilian volunteer in the Israeli armed forces, and a secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who established strong pro-Israel credentials during her years as a senator from New York.
  • Mrs. Clinton said last week that a freeze meant no “natural growth exceptions,” and some Israeli officials have contended that the Obama administration is, in effect, telling Israeli settlers that they cannot have babies. Most Middle East experts say the term “natural growth” applies to actual construction of additional units within the settlements’ existing boundaries. “We can’t tell people that they can’t have a child,” Mr. Ackerman said.
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  • Mr. Kerry urged Palestinians to crack down on terrorism, and called for Arab countries to reach out to Israel. He added: “Israel must take difficult steps as well, and as a friend of Israel, the United States must speak with unity on their importance. I agree with President Obama that Israel’s settlement activity undermines efforts to achieve peace, and that these settlements must stop.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Lieberman to Clinton: Israel won't freeze settlements - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

  • Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements. "We have no intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth."
  • Meanwhile, Clinton reiterated that the U.S. viewed a total settlement freeze as "important and essential" step toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
  • Mitchell has said a key element has been trying to pin down exactly what Israel means by the "natural growth" of settlements that Netanyahu has said he will defend. In principle, Netanyahu says he wants growing families to be able to accommodate their children in the towns that Israelis have built.
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  • Clinton cited a recent Washington Post op-ed piece by former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer. In background discussions with journalists, former Bush administration officials said that no formal agreements exist which support Israel's contention that the U.S. approves of settlement construction to accomodate natural growth, Kurtzer wrote.
  • Western and Israeli officials said this week that while the United States wants Israel to impose a moratorium on new tenders for building in settlements, it was nevertheless considering allowances that could permit some projects already under way to proceed.
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Mitchell in Europe next week to try to hammer out an agreement, Israeli officials said.
  • Israel maintains that it reached understandings with the Bush administration on settlement construction that would allow for continued building within existing communities on the West Bank. The Obama administration rejects this position.
  • The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said allowances for continued building could be made if, for example, a project in a settlement was nearing completion or for cases in which money has been invested in a project and cannot be reimbursed.
  • Mitchell said in Washington on Tuesday of his meetings with Israeli and other officials: "There are almost as many definitions (of natural growth) as there are people speaking."
  • Netanyahu has asserted that his government does not have the legal authority to stop building in cases in which tenders for new structures have already been awarded or when homes under construction have already been purchased.
  • Yariv Oppenheimer of the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said Israel was likely to use any U.S. flexibility to ramp up building in the West Bank. "In the past, every time there was an understanding, the outcome was Israel doubled the number of settlers in the West Bank," he said.
  • Some half a million Jews live among nearly three million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories which were captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.
Argos Media

AFP: Egypt intel chief meets Clinton - 0 views

  • Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman held talks on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a US official said
  • Suleiman, who has not spoken to the media, met Tuesday with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell as well as with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, officials said.
  • An Egyptian official who declined to be named said Suleiman was in Washington to seek a softer stance on the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, so that it can participate in an internationally-recognized Palestinian unity government.
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  • During her March 4 visit to Israel, Clinton said the administration of President Barack Obama would not work with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, unless the Islamist movement recognizes Israel and renounces violence."If there is to be a unity government that includes Hamas, then we would expect that Hamas would comply with the principles as set forth by the Quartet," she said.
  • The Middle East Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, has set conditions on dealing with Hamas that require the movement to recognize Israel, renounce violence against the Jewish state and comply with past Palestinian-Israeli agreements.Hamas says those conditions are unacceptable.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Clinton admits Cuba policy failed - 0 views

  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US policy towards Cuba has failed, welcoming an offer to talk from the Cuban president.
  • She said the US was "taking a serious look" at how to respond to President Raul Castro's comments, which she called an "overture". Mr Castro had said he was ready for discussions covering human rights, political prisoners and press freedom. The US passed a law this week easing restrictions on Cuban Americans.
  • The move will allow Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.
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  • Mrs Clinton made her comments about Cuba in the Dominican Republic, ahead of the Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad and Tobago later on Friday. "We are continuing to look for productive ways forward because we view the present policy as having failed," she said at a press conference.
  • Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted. OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Friday he would ask the organisation's members to readmit Cuba, 47 years after it was suspended.
  • Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would veto the final declaration from the OAS summit because of Cuba's exclusion.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Clinton presses UN over N Korea - 0 views

  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the UN needs to take a strong position in response to North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket
  • "It's a provocative act that has grave implications," Mrs Clinton told reporters.
  • "North Korea ignored its international obligations, rejected the unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations."
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  • Washington and Tokyo are seeking a strong response, but Beijing and Moscow have called for restraint.
  • Susan Rice, the US envoy to the UN, called Pyongyang's move a "clear-cut violation of [resolution] 17-18", while her Japanese counterpart said Tokyo was seeking a "clear, firm and unified" response.
  • There was no general agreement at the council on whether North Korea was in breach of the resolution, let alone on whether it should be punished, our correspondent says.
Argos Media

Iran's offer of help to rebuild Afghanistan heralds new age of diplomacy with the US | ... - 0 views

  • Washington's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, had an informal meeting with the Iranian delegate, Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, later described the exchange as "unplanned but cordial", adding that they had agreed to "stay in touch".
  • Mark Malloch Brown, Britain's foreign office minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, said Iranian offers of help could mark a new "spring in the relationship" between the west and Iran.He was responding to Akhundzadeh's public pledge at the conference of Iranian co-operation in counter-narcotics and development efforts in Afghanistan.
  • "I did think the Iranian intervention this morning was promising. The issue of counter-narcotics is a worry that we share. We will look for ways to co-operate with them on that," Clinton said. "This is a promising sign that there will be future co-operation."
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  • Clinton had pressed for Iranian participation in The Hague conference, stressing the importance of finding a regional solution to the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and western officials were encouraged that Akhundzadeh, a deputy foreign minister and former charge d'affaires in London, was sent by Tehran.
  • Akhundzadeh told ministers from more than 70 countries at the meeting: "Welcoming the proposals for joint co-operation offered by the countries contributing to Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully prepared to participate in the projects aimed at combating drug trafficking and plans in line with developing and reconstructing Afghanistan."
  • He repeated Tehran's criticism of the Nato role in Afghanistan, but used relatively moderate language, saying: "The presence of foreign forces has not improved things and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective, too."
  • Akhundzadeh added: "The military expenses need to be redirected to the training of the Afghan police and army and Afghanisation should lead the government building process" - an apparent nod towards the Obama administration's decision to send 4,000 more American military trainers.
  • Western officials expressed hopes that the west and Iran could return to the close co-operation over Afghanistan that took place in the months after the 9/11 attacks. Iranian officials even helped the US target the Taliban, but the relationship cooled after Bush's "axis of evil" speech.
  • "There is a meeting of minds on drugs, development issues and the [August Afghan] elections, though not on foreign troops, on which they made clear their objections."
  • Malloch Brown acknowledged that Iran had done some "bad things" in both Afghanistan and Iraq, supplying weaponry to insurgents that had been used against British soldiers.But he argued: "This is Iran supporting its proxies because of a lack of diplomatic partnership around Iraq and Afghanistan. If this is a rapprochement, whether it is overall rapprochement or just aimed at stabilising Afghanistan, it offers the prospect of this behaviour getting moderated and hopefully stopping."
Pedro Gonçalves

Cuba Agrees to U.S. Talks in New Sign of a Thaw - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Cuba notified the Obama administration it was ready to resume talks on migration issues and to negotiate direct postal service between the countries for the first time in decades. It also agreed to cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism, drug interdiction and hurricane relief efforts.
  • The decisions, conveyed to the State Department on Saturday in diplomatic notes, represent another step in the gradual unlocking of relations under the Obama administration, after nearly 50 years of a trade embargo that many in the hemisphere say has outlived its usefulness.“Greater connections,” Mrs. Clinton said, “can lead to a better, freer future for the Cuban people. These talks are in the interest of the United States, and they are also in the interest of the Cuban people.”
  • Mrs. Clinton is in El Salvador for the presidential inauguration on Monday of the leftist leader Mauricio Funes. As one of his first acts, Mr. Funes has said he will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, leaving the United States as the only country in the Americas without such ties.
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  • On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton plans to attend a meeting in Honduras of the Organization of American States. Members of the group want to make an even clearer break with the past by moving to readmit Cuba, which the organization expelled in 1962, citing its alliance with the Communist bloc. Mrs. Clinton has fended off calls for Cuba to be offered membership until Havana moves to accept the group’s democratic principles. On Sunday, she reiterated that the United States would oppose the efforts of several Latin American countries to immediately reinstate Cuba.“We believe that membership in the O.A.S. comes with responsibility, and that we must all hold each other accountable,” she said. Cuba, for its part, has said it has no interest in returning to an organization that the official newspaper Granma referred to recently as “that decrepit old house of Washington.”
Argos Media

Iran Test-Fires Missile With 1,200-Mile Range - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Iran test-fired a sophisticated missile on Wednesday that was capable of striking Israel and parts of Western Europe
  • he solid-fuel Sejil-2 missile used a technology that Iran appeared to have tested at least once before, but the Obama administration nonetheless described the event as “significant,” largely because missiles of its kind can be relatively easily moved or hidden.
  • The Pentagon confirmed that the test of the missile had been a success
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  • The Iranian president had been campaigning in the province where the launching took place, and he promised that “in the near future we will launch bigger rockets with bigger reach.” He told a crowd that with its nuclear program, Iran was sending the West a message that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is running the show,”
  • Its range — believed to be more than 1,200 miles — is comparable to the liquid-fueled Shahab III, which Iran first obtained from North Korea. But a solid-fuel rocket, experts said, can be stored in mountains, moved around and reassembled, and fired on shorter notice, and thus could be harder for Israel or other nations to target.
  • Mr. Vick added that Tehran test-fired an even longer-range missile that used solid fuel, the Ashura, in late 2007 and several times afterward.“They’re designing a whole family of solids to replace their liquids,” he said in an interview.
  • Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a Senate panel that she was concerned about a series of developments in Iran that could set off an arms race in the Middle East. She warned that if Iran obtained a nuclear capacity in the next several years, it would constitute an “extraordinary threat,” saying, “Our goal is to persuade the Iranian regime that they will actually be less secure” if it moves ahead with its nuclear program.
  • Mrs. Clinton was giving voice to a growing concern among administration officials, who have now had time to review the intelligence, that Iran seems to have made significant progress in at least two of the three technologies necessary to field an effective nuclear weapon. The first is enriching uranium to weapons grade, now under way at the large nuclear complex at Natanz. The second is developing a missile capable of reaching Israel and parts of Western Europe, and now the country has several likely candidates. The third is designing a warhead that will fit on the missile.
  • The greatest mystery surrounds the warhead program, which intelligence agencies said in late 2007 had been halted at the end of 2003. Asked Wednesday whether he had seen additional evidence to indicate that the weaponization program had been restarted, Mr. Samore declined to comment.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | US condemns North Korean threat - 0 views

  • North Korea's threat to "weaponise" its plutonium stocks is "provocative" and "deeply regrettable", US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says.
  • The North said it would start enriching uranium and use the plutonium for nuclear weapons hours after a UN vote for tough new sanctions against it.
  • The US would vigorously enforce the new sanctions, Mrs Clinton said.
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  • The North says it will view any US-led attempts to "blockade" it as an "act of war".
  • On Friday, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to impose tougher sanctions on the communist North, after its nuclear test on 25 May. The UN sanctions include the inspection of North Korean ships, a wider ban on arms sales and other financial measures.
  • Korea analyst Aidan Foster Carter told the BBC Pyongyang's process was "out of control" and that nothing seemed able to persuade North Korea to stop its nuclear ambitions - neither sanctions nor financial incentives.
  • He said the nuclear stand-off may be part of internal ructions as Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong-il decides which of his three sons will take over from him.
  • North Korea is thought to possess enough reprocessed plutonium for between six and eight nuclear weapons.
  • However, analysts say Pyongyang has not yet mastered the technology to make a nuclear warhead small enough to place on a missile.
Argos Media

Taliban oust Pakistani authorities in Swat Valley sharia zone | World news | guardian.c... - 0 views

  • Taliban fighters spilling out of the Swat Valley have swept across Buner, a district 60 miles from Islamabad, as Hillary Clinton warned the situation in Pakistan now poses a "mortal threat" to the security of the world.
  • The US secretary of state told Congress yesterday that Pakistan faced an "existential" threat from Islamist militants. "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," she said. Any further deterioration in the situation "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world", she said.
  • In Buner, Taliban fighters occupied government buildings, ransacked the offices of aid agencies and ordered aid employees to leave. Fighters brandishing guns and rocket launchers patrolled villages, forcing beleaguered local police to retreat to their stations. Local courts have stopped functioning and judicial officials have gone on indefinite leave.
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  • The turmoil in Buner, a district of about 1 million people, does not pose an immediate threat to Islamabad, which lies across a mountain range and the river Indus. But the speed and aggression of the militant advance has stoked a sense of alarm across the country, even among normally conservative forces.
  • "If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema e Islam party, told the national assembly yesterday.The Taliban could soon seize control of Tarbela Dam, a strategic reservoir, Rehman warned.
  • Blame for the turmoil has focused on a controversial peace deal the provincial government signed with militants in February. Hoping to defuse the insurgency, the Awami National party-led government acceded to demands for sharia law in Swat and seven surrounding districts, known collectively as Malakand Division.The changes were ratified by the national parliament last week with cross-party consensus. Since then, the Taliban have moved to establish much more than judicial control.
  • In Mingora, the commercial hub of Swat, the police retain a low-key presence, reduced to directing traffic. Most politicians have fled, many under death threats. Many residents said it was not clear who was in control of the town.
  • In Imam Dheri, the Taliban headquarters near Mingora, a Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, told the Guardian their goal was the establishment of an Islamic caliphate first in Pakistan and then across the Muslim world."Democracy is a system for European countries. It is not for Muslims," he said. "This is not just about justice. It should be in education, health, economics. Everything should be under sharia."
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Nato woos Russia on Afghanistan - 0 views

  • Nato has agreed to resume high-level contacts with Russia, working with what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called a "greater unity of purpose".
  • Russia welcomed the move, six months after Nato froze contacts over the conflict between Russia and Georgia. Mrs Clinton stressed Afghanistan, which she called "Nato's biggest military challenge", was a mutual concern. She has raised the idea of a conference on the issue, with the participation of "all stakeholders", including Iran.
  • "We can and must find ways to work constructively with Russia where we share areas of common interest, including helping the people of Afghanistan," said Mrs Clinton.
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  • But UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the BBC that it was not "business as usual" with Moscow. Mr Miliband said the resumption of ties would provide an opportunity to engage with Moscow "in a hardheaded way". He said "the invasion of Georgia and continuing infringement of its sovereignty" could not be "swept under the carpet".
  • Mrs Clinton added that Nato "should continue to open Nato's door to European countries such as Georgia and Ukraine and help them meet Nato standards".
  • Earlier, Russia's envoy to Nato defended the war against Georgia and said any new relationship with Nato would be on Moscow's own terms.
  • Some, like Germany and France, had long been pressing for the resumption of ties with Russia, arguing that their suspension has been counter-productive.
  • Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's permanent envoy to Nato, predicted an outcome of the Brussels talks "that should, on the whole, satisfy Russia" but made clear he saw Moscow negotiating from a position of strength. "We came out of the crisis that we had after the August 2008 events [the war with Georgia], the crisis in the South Caucasus, stronger," he told Russian channel Vesti TV. "Our Western colleagues saw in Russia a partner that one cannot wipe one's feet on. We are strong... and we are restoring cooperation, including on our terms."
Argos Media

Clinton urges Nato to bring Russia back in from the cold | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The Obama administration moved today to resume high-level relations with Moscow when Hillary Clinton led a western push to revive contacts between Russia and Nato.Making her European debut as secretary of state, Clinton told a meeting of Nato foreign ministers that Washington wanted "a fresh start" in relations with Moscow.
  • "I don't think you punish Russia by stopping conversation with them," she said, adding that there could be benefits to the better relationship. "We not only can but must co-operate with Russia."
  • The meeting in Brussels agreed to reinstate the work of the Nato-Russia council, a consultative body that was frozen last year in protest at Moscow's invasion and partition of Georgia.
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  • Diplomats said the accord and the talks in Geneva tomorrow could pave the way for the Obama administration to press ahead with a common agenda with Russia which would entail talks on nuclear arms control and on Russian co-operation with US policy on Afghanistan and Iran.The new White House team are clearly hoping to bypass the prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, and focus its diplomacy on President Dmitry Medvedev.
  • For any big shifts in the Russian-­American relationship, Moscow would insist on the shelving of the Pentagon's missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic and a freeze in the ­prospects for Ukraine and Georgia joining Nato.
  • The US and Germany tabled a joint proposal for yesterday's Nato meeting, leaving the contentious issue of Ukraine's and Georgia's membership chances open and urging greater co-operation with Russia "as equal partners in areas of common interest". It went on: "These include: Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, counter-piracy, counter-narcotics, non-proliferation, arms control and other issues."
  • "Russia is a global player. Not talking to them is not an option," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato secretary-general.
  • In the first big foreign policy speech from the Obama administration, in Munich last month, the vice-president, Joe Biden, said the White House wanted to "press the reset button" in relations with Moscow after years of dangerous drift.
  • The agreement today was held up for several hours by Lithuania, which strongly opposed the resumption of dialogue with the Kremlin.France and Germany, keen to develop close links with Moscow, threatened in turn to cancel scheduled meetings last night between Nato and Ukraine and Georgia if "the opening with Russia" was not given a green light, diplomats said.
Argos Media

After Gaza, Israel Grapples With Crisis of Isolation - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Israel, whose founding idea was branded as racism by the United Nations General Assembly in 1975 and which faced an Arab boycott for decades, is no stranger to isolation. But in the weeks since its Gaza war, and as it prepares to inaugurate a hawkish right-wing government, it is facing its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades.
  • The issue has not gone unnoticed here, but it has generated two distinct and somewhat contradictory reactions. On one hand, there is real concern. Global opinion surveys are being closely examined and the Foreign Ministry has been granted an extra $2 million to improve Israel’s image through cultural and information diplomacy.
  • But there is also a growing sense that outsiders do not understand Israel’s predicament, so criticism is dismissed.“People here feel that no matter what you do you are going to be blamed for all the problems in the Middle East,” said Eytan Gilboa, a professor of politics and international communication at Bar Ilan University. “Even suicide bombings by Palestinians are seen as our fault for not establishing a Palestinian state.”
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  • Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the European Union, said in Brussels on Monday that the group would reconsider its relationship with Israel if it did not remain committed to establishing a Palestinian state.
  • Mr. Lieberman also has few fans in Egypt, which has acted as an intermediary for Israel in several matters. Some months ago Mr. Lieberman complained that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had not agreed to come to Israel. “If he doesn’t want to, he can go to hell,” he added.“Imagine that Hossein Mousavi wins the Iranian presidency this spring and he names Mohammad Khatami as his foreign minister,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran analyst in Israel, referring to two Iranian leaders widely viewed as in the pragmatist camp. “With Lieberman as foreign minister here, Israel will have a much harder time demonstrating to the world that Iran is the destabilizing factor in the region.”
  • Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has already criticized Israeli plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and her department has criticized Israel’s banning of certain goods from Gaza.This represents a distinct shift in tone from the Bush era. An internal Israeli Foreign Ministry report during the Gaza war noted that compared with others in the United States, “liberals and Democrats show far less enthusiasm for Israel and its leadership.”
  • Some Israeli officials say they believe that what the country needs is to “rebrand” itself. They say Israel spends far too much time defending actions against its enemies. By doing so, they say, the narrative is always about conflict.“When we show Sderot, others also see Gaza,” said Ido Aharoni, manager of a rebranding team at the Foreign Ministry. “Everything is twinned when seen through the conflict. The country needs to position itself as an attractive personality, to make outsiders see it in all its reality. Instead, we are focusing on crisis management. And that is never going to get us where we need to go over the long term.” Mr. Gilboa, the political scientist, said branding was not enough. “We need to do much more to educate the world about our situation,” he said. Regarding the extra $2 million budgeted for this, he said: “We need 50 million. We need 100 million.”
Pedro Gonçalves

2 Chinese Schools Said to Be Linked to Online Attacks - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation.
  • the attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing e-mail of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed.
  • Computer security experts, including investigators from the National Security Agency, have been working since then to pinpoint the source of the attacks. Until recently, the trail had led only to servers in Taiwan.
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  • The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School
  • Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google.
  • Within the computer security industry and the Obama administration, analysts differ over how to interpret the finding that the intrusions appear to come from schools instead of Chinese military installations or government agencies. Some analysts have privately circulated a document asserting that the vocational school is being used as camouflage for government operations. But other computer industry executives and former government officials said it was possible that the schools were cover for a “false flag” intelligence operation being run by a third country. Some have also speculated that the hacking could be a giant example of criminal industrial espionage, aimed at stealing intellectual property from American technology firms.
  • Independent researchers who monitor Chinese information warfare caution that the Chinese have adopted a highly distributed approach to online espionage, making it almost impossible to prove where an attack originated. “We have to understand that they have a different model for computer network exploit operations,” said James C. Mulvenon, a Chinese military specialist and a director at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington. Rather than tightly compartmentalizing online espionage within agencies as the United States does, he said, the Chinese government often involves volunteer “patriotic hackers” to support its policies.
  • Google’s decision to step forward and challenge China over the intrusions has created a highly sensitive issue for the United States government. Shortly after the company went public with its accusations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton challenged the Chinese in a speech on Internet censors, suggesting that the country’s efforts to control open access to the Internet were in effect an information-age Berlin Wall.
  • A report on Chinese online warfare prepared for the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission in October 2009 by Northrop Grumman identified six regions in China with military efforts to engage in such attacks. Jinan, site of the vocational school, was one of the regions.
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