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Argos Media

'World leaders must drop their slogans' | Israel | Jerusalem Post - 0 views

www.jpost.com/...Satellite

Avigdor Lieberman Israel Iran Palestine

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • JPost.com » Israel » Article Apr 24, 2009 0:14&nbsp;|&nbsp;Updated Apr 24, 2009 13:54 'World leaders must drop their slogans' By DAVID HOROVITZ AND AMIR MIZROCH PrintSubscribe articleTitle = ' \'World leaders must drop their slogans\' '; showOdiogoReadNowButton ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566',articleTitle,'0', 290, 55); E-mailToolbar + Recommend: What's this? showInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566', '0', 290, 0); Talkbacks for this article: 117 &nbsp; | &nbsp;Avg. rating 4.61 out of 5</s
  • The international community has to "stop speaking in slogans" if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work toward a solution to the Palestinian conflict and help bring stability to the Middle East, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper since taking the job.
  • "Over the last two weeks I've had many conversations with my colleagues around the world," he said. "Just today, I saw the political adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Chinese foreign minister and the Czech prime minister. And everybody, you know, speaks with you like you're in a campaign: Occupation, settlements, settlers..." Slogans like these, and others Lieberman cited, such as "land for peace" and "two-state solution," were both overly simplistic and ignored the root causes of the ongoing conflict, he said.
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  • Lieberman insistently refused to rule in, or rule out, Palestinian statehood alongside Israel as the essence of a permanent accord, but emphatically endorsed Netanyahu's declared desire not to rule over a single Palestinian.
  • The foreign minister spoke as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel on Thursday that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.
  • The fact was, said the Israel Beiteinu leader, that the Palestinian issue was "deadlocked" despite the best efforts of a series of dovish Israeli governments. "Israel has proved its good intentions, our desire for peace," he said. The path forward, he said, lay in ensuring security for Israel, an improved economy for the Palestinians, and stability for both. "Economy, security, stability," he repeated. "It's impossible to artificially impose any political solution. It will fail, for sure. You cannot start any peace process from nothing. You must create the right situation, the right focus, the right conditions."
  • Equally emphatically, he said no peace proposal that so much as entertained the notion of a "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees could serve as a basis for negotiation. "It cannot be on the table. I'm not ready to even discuss the 'right of return' of even one refugee," he said. But he also made clear that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was not a precondition for progress. "You know, we don't want to torpedo the process," he said. "But somebody who really wants a solution, somebody who really desires a real peace and a real agreement, must realize that this would be impossible to achieve without recognizing Israel as a Jewish state."
  • Lieberman said the new government would have no dealings with Hamas, which needed to be "suffocated," and that the international community also had to maintain the long-standing Quartet preconditions for dealing with the Islamist group.
  • The real reason for the deadlock with the Palestinians, said Lieberman, "is not occupation, not settlements and not settlers. This conflict is really a very deep conflict. It started like other national conflicts. [But] today it's a more religious conflict. Today you have the influence of some nonrational players, like al-Qaida."
  • And the biggest obstacle to any comprehensive solution, he said, "is not Israel. It is not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians."
  • Lieberman said the prime responsibility for thwarting Iran's march to a nuclear capability lay with the international community, not Israel, and especially the five permanent members of the Security Council. He was confident that stringent economic sanctions could yet achieve the desired result, and said he did not even "want to think about the consequences of a crazy nuclear arms race in the region."
  • He said it would be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region without resolving the Iranian problem." This, he said, related to Lebanon, Syria and problems with Islamic extremist terror in Egypt, the Gaza Strip and Iraq.
  • Nonetheless, Lieberman stressed that Israel did not regard stopping Iran as a precondition for Israeli efforts to make progress with the Palestinians. Quite the reverse, he said. "No, we must start with the Palestinian issues because it's our interest to resolve this problem. But there should be no illusions. To achieve an agreement, to achieve an end of conflict, with no more bloodshed, no more terror, no more claims - that's impossible until Iran [is addressed]."
  • Noting what he called Syria's deepening ties with Iran, Lieberman said he saw no point whatsoever in resuming the indirect talks with Damascus conducted by the last government. "We don't see any good will from the Syrian side," he said. "Only the threats, like 'If you're not ready to talk, we'll retake the Golan by military action...'"
Argos Media

Trackers Deem North Korea's Missile Flight a Failure - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...06korea.html

North Korea Missile Tests Taepodong-2

shared by Argos Media on 06 Apr 09 - Cached
  • North Korea failed in its highly vaunted effort to fire a satellite into orbit, military and private experts said Sunday after reviewing detailed tracking data that showed the missile and payload fell into the sea. Some said the failure undercut the North Korean campaign to come across as a fearsome adversary able to hurl deadly warheads halfway around the globe.
  • looking at the launching from a purely technical vantage point, space experts said the failure represented a blow that in all likelihood would seriously delay the missile’s debut.
  • Analysts dismissed the idea that the rocket firing could represent a furtive success, calling the failure consistent with past North Korean fumbles and suggesting it might reveal a significant quality control problem in one of the world’s most isolated nations.
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  • “It’s a setback,” Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks satellites and rocket launchings, said of the North Korean launching. He added that the North Koreans must now find and fix the problem. “The missile doesn’t represent any kind of near-term threat.”
  • The United States Northern Command, based in Colorado Springs, issued a statement on Sunday that portrayed the launching as a major failure. It based its information on a maze of federal radars, spy ships and satellites that monitor global missile firings.
  • The command emphasized that “no object entered orbit,” apparently a reference to both the rocket’s third stage as well as the supposed satellite.
  • North Korea’s public portrayal of the event as a complete success was similar in its celebratory tone to the happy note it struck in 1998 after having failed to loft a satellite into orbit.
  • A general rule of engineering is that failures reveal more than successes. If so, North Korea — which has now test-fired three long-range rockets, each time unsuccessfully — is learning a lot about limitations.
  • “It’s not unusual to have a series of failures at the beginning of a missile program,” Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a research group in Washington, said in an interview. “But they don’t test enough to develop confidence that they’re getting over the problems.”Dr. Lewis added that an influential 1998 report by Donald H. Rumsfeld, before he became secretary of defense in the Bush administration, argued that the North Korean rockets might be good enough to pose a threat to the United States, even without flight testing. “But given that both versions of the Taepodong-2 have failed now,” he said, “we have very little confidence in the reliability of the system.”
  • In August 1998, North Korea’s first attempt at launching a long-range rocket, the Taepodong-1, managed to scare Japan but failed to deliver a satellite to orbit. The troubles continued in July 2006 when its second test of a long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, ended in an explosion just seconds after liftoff.
Pedro Gonçalves

Obama: U.S. did not give Israel green light to attack Iran - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1098425.html

US Iran Israel Russia Obama Mike Mullen

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jul 09 - Cached
  • U.S. President Barack Obama earlier Tuesday rebuffed suggestions that Washington had given Israel a green light to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, in an interview with CNN. Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, Obama answered: "Absolutely not."
  • "We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," Obama said in reference to Iran's contentious nuclear program. Advertisement In the interview broadcast from Russia where he is on an official visit, Obama added, however: "We can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are. "What is also true is, it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities," Obama said. This would be achieved "through diplomatic channels," he added.
  • Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Washington Times that the premier is hesitant to request formal U.S. approval to launch military operations against Iran for fear that Washington would turn him down, according to a report which appeared in Tuesday editions.
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  • The sources said the Israeli leader feels there is no point in seeking American acquiescence at this stage givenObama's stated intention to pursue a policy of diplomatic engagement with the Tehran regime, The Washington Times reported. "There was a decision not to press [for U.S. approval of a strike] because it was probably inadequate for the engagement policy and what we know about Obama's approach to Iran," a senior Israeli official told The Washington Times.
  • Discussion over authorization for such a strike arose after Vice President Joe Biden told ABC news earlier this week that the U.S. would not stand in the way of an Israeli attack on Iran. "Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden said.
  • The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday that a preemptive military strike against Iran should be avoided "if possible," but emphasized that all options are still on the table. "I worry about a nuclear arms race in the Middle East region; I don't think any one of us can afford it," said Admiral Michael Mullen, during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I don't see a lot of space between where Iran is headed and the potential of where that development might lead. All options are certainly on a table, including certainly military options."
  • My concern is that the clock continues ticking," Mullen said. "I believe that Iran is very much focused on getting that capability. This a very narrow space we have towards that objective." Nevertheless, Mullen added, a preemptive strike is "really not a place we should go if possible."
  • "If the threat from Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program is eliminated, the driving force for missile defense in Europe will be eliminated," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery to graduates from Moscow's New Economic School.
  • "America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia," Obama said. "On the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis for cooperation," the U.S. President went on to say.
Argos Media

Wikipedia for Spies: The CIA Discovers Web 2.0 - TIME - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,1890084,00.html

CIA Intellipedia A-Space Intelink Web 2.0

shared by Argos Media on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • There's a quiet revolution underway at the CIA and its sister agencies. A new generation of analysts, determined to drag their Cold War–era colleagues into the world of Web 2.0 information-sharing, have created Intellipedia, a classified version of Wikipedia they say is transforming the way U.S. spy agencies handle top-secret information by fostering collaboration across Washington and around the world.
  • One of the biggest hurdles was convincing security-minded spies that the system would be safe from outsiders. To assuage them, Intellipedia was built into the existing secure and classified networks known as Intelink, which connects the 16 spy agencies in the U.S. as well as the U.S. military, the Department of State and other agencies with access to intelligence.
  • Last September, the Director of National Intelligence rolled out a social-networking site called A-Space, with linked video and photo programs. A-Space has some 8,619 accounts, all of them top secret, but insiders say it is troubled and slow to get off the ground; at one point it was suspended because particularly sensitive intelligence was misused. New efforts at tagging and instant-messaging have also been slow.
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  • Intellipedia's boosters concede that their wiki is still largely an adjunct to the work of America's intelligence analysts. No finished intelligence product for decision makers is generated from Intellipedia — National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are still written the old-fashioned way, authored and circulated for peer review and consensus. When Tom Fingar tried in 2006 to produce an NIE on Nigeria using Intellipedia, he failed because it generated a stream of information rather than a formal thesis and was taken over by the traditional system.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China fury at US military report - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7965084.stm

China US Military

shared by Argos Media on 26 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Beijing has reacted angrily to a Pentagon report on China's military power, which claimed it was altering the military balance in Asia. A foreign ministry spokesman called it a "gross distortion of the facts", urged an end to "Cold War thinking". In its annual report to Congress, the Pentagon said China was developing "disruptive" technologies for nuclear, space and cyber warfare. It could be used to enforce claims over disputed territories, the report said.
  • The Pentagon reported that China was successfully managing to expand its arsenal of sophisticated weaponry, even though Beijing's ability to sustain military power at a distance remains limited. Chinese "armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies", including "nuclear, space, and cyber warfare".
  • The Pentagon analysis said China was developing weapons that would disable its enemies' space technology such as satellites, boosting its electromagnetic warfare and cyber-warfare capabilities and continuing to modernise its nuclear arsenal. It also noted a build-up of short-range missiles opposite Taiwan, despite a significant reduction in tension between the two in recent months.
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  • The report estimated China's military spending in 2008 was roughly double that of a decade ago.
  • China's armed forces are undoubtedly undergoing a dramatic transformation from a poorly-equipped peasant army to an increasingly sophisticated modern military, the BBC's defence and security correspondent Rob Watson says. But its level of training and co-ordination as well as actual war fighting capability is still in doubt, he adds.
Argos Media

North Korea Says It Will Start Second Nuclear Project - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...30korea.html

North Korea Nuclear Proliferation US UN

shared by Argos Media on 29 Apr 09 - Cached
  • North Korea said on Wednesday that it will start an uranium-enrichment program, declaring for the first time that it intends to pursue a second project in addition to facilities that have provided it with plutonium for weapons.
  • The North also threatened to conduct a second nuclear test and launch an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the United Nations Security Council apologizes for its censure of the Communist state after its rocket test on April 5.
  • The Security Council adopted a unanimous statement on April 13 denouncing the launch as a violation of an earlier council resolution that banned Pyongyang from conducting nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The council called on United Nations member states to tighten sanctions _ a move that Pyongyang on Wednesday harshly criticized.
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  • "Unless the U.N. Security Council immediately apologizes, we will have no choice but to take inevitable additional self-defense measures," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told the North’s state-run news agency, KCNA. "This will include a nuclear test and a test of a intercontinental ballistic missile."
  • The spokesman also said North Korea has decided to build new nuclear power plants. "And as the fist step of that process, we will without delay start technological development to secure our own supply of nuclear fuel," he said, referring to its intention to enrich uranium. Engineers use the same technology to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.
  • Pyongyang had earlier accused the Security Council of a "wanton violation of the United Nations charter." It insisted that when it launched its rocket on April 5, it intended to put a communications satellite into orbit, and that it was the first country to be denied a peaceful space program by the United Nations.
  • But Washington and its allies say the rocket launch was a ruse for testing the North’s latest ballistic missile technology and a violation of the 2006 Security Council resolution. That document was adopted after North Korea tested a ballistic missile in July 2006 and conducted its first nuclear test three months later.
  • Washington has long suspected North Korea of pursuing a separate program based on enriched uranium. The international agreement to freeze and eventually dismantle the plutonium-based Yongbyon program in return for providing the North with aid and diplomatic recognition faltered last year in a wrangling over how to verify the North’s past atomic activities, especially whether Pyongyang was running a clandestine uranium enrichment program.
Argos Media

Culling Pigs in Flu Fight, Egypt Angers Herders and Dismays U.N. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...01egypt.html

Egypt Swine Flu Coptic Christians Health

shared by Argos Media on 01 May 09 - Cached
  • Egypt has begun forcibly slaughtering the country’s pig herds as a precaution against swine flu, a move that the United Nations described as “a real mistake” and one that is prompting anger among the country’s pig farmers.
  • The decision, announced Wednesday, is already adding new strains to the tense relations between Egypt’s majority Muslims and its Coptic Christians.
  • According to World Health Organization officials, the decision to kill pigs has no scientific basis. “We don’t see any evidence that anyone is getting infected from pigs,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization’s assistant director general. “This appears to be a virus which is moving from person to person.”
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  • The outbreak has been dubbed swine flu — now officially called influenza A(H1N1) — because scientists believe it started in pigs, but they do not know if that was recently or years ago. The name change was designed to allay fears about pigs and eating pork.
  • The great majority of Egyptians are Muslim and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions, but about 10 percent of the population is Coptic Christian. As a result, Egyptian pig farmers are overwhelmingly Christian. And although some of the country’s Christians are middle class or wealthy, the Christian farmers are generally poor.
  • On Thursday, several urban pig farmers in Cairo said they see the government’s decision as just another expression of Egyptian Muslims’ resentment against Christians. Last year, there were several violent incidents that some believed were aimed at Christians, including the kidnapping and beating of monks. The Egyptian government denied the incidents had sectarian overtones, saying they were each part of other disputes, including a fight over land.
  • Mr. Girgis lives with his extended family, about 30 people, in the first two floors of a building that leans against a cliff. His 60 small pigs live on the ground floor. They have dark, furry skin, and their squeals can be heard a block away from Mr. Girgis’ home.Many of Cairo’s pig farmers live in similar conditions, sharing their small spaces in the teeming city with their animals. After international health officials criticized Egypt’s decision to kill about 300,000 pigs, the Agriculture Ministry’s head of infectious diseases, Saber Abdel Aziz Galal, explained that the cull was “a general health measure,” according to Agence France-Presse."It is good to restructure this kind of breeding in good farms, not on rubbish," the agency quoted him as saying.“We will build new farms in special areas, like in Europe,” he said. “Within two years the pigs will return, but we need first to build new farms."
Argos Media

Israel's Hawkish New Leaders: Still Open to a Syrian Peace? - TIME - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,1889325,00.html

Syria Israel US Benjamin Netanyahu Avigdor Lieberman

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Despite his hard-line and inflammatory rhetoric, however, Lieberman may be a pragmatist. Unlike many on Israel's right — including Netanyahu — Lieberman supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a Ha'aretz interview after taking office, Lieberman said Israel should abide by the 2002 Roadmap, which calls for a Palestinian state.
  • The Roadmap obliges the Palestinians to stop violence and dismantle the capabilities of terror organizations, and reform their political institutions, before any movement toward the creation of a Palestinian state. But, in the same phase, it obliges Israel to freeze settlement construction and dismantle all settlement outposts built since March 2001.
  • Lieberman appears to recognize those obligations, and in the Ha'aretz interview, he mocked Olmert and his team as hypocrites who advocated peace but did little to achieve it. "How many outposts did Olmert, Barak and Livni evacuate?" he said.
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  • It remains to be seen whether Lieberman would be willing to accept a truly independent Palestinian state — Netanyahu has indicated that he won't, insisting, in the name of the Jewish state's security, that Israel control the air space and borders of such an entity, and have veto over its military and foreign policies. Netanyahu's track record, however, is also more pragmatic than ideological. Despite his open loathing of Yasser Arafat, his previous government in 1998 signed a deal with the late PLO leader for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the West Bank, including the sensitive biblical town of Hebron.
  • Publicly, at least, Netanyahu continues to take a hard line, rejecting the idea of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in order to get peace with Syria. Lieberman talks only of "peace for peace," rather than land for peace. But Netanyahu knows that no peace deal is possible without returning the Syrian territory captured in the war of 1967, and he may be ready to find a formula for its return if Syria is truly ready for a peace deal.
  • Syrian President Assad, having established firm control of the often opaque regime he inherited from his late father, Hafez al-Assad, appears to be willing to pick up where his father left off in seeking a deal with Israel. Assad was instrumental in starting indirect, Turkish-mediated talks with Israel despite initial opposition by the Bush Administration
  • In the past, two former Labor Prime Ministers, the late Yitzhak Rabin and Barak, were ready to withdraw from almost all of the Golan Heights. Netanyahu himself may have been, too: during his first term as Prime Minister, he reportedly ran a back-channel negotiation with the Syrians.
  • President Obama recently sent two senior officials to Damascus to test the waters, signaling Washington's willingness to end its campaign to isolate Syria.
  • early success on the Israel-Syria track would do wonders for the Administration's wider Middle East ambitions. Not only would it formally cement the 40-plus years of relative calm on the Israeli-Syrian frontier, it would potentially detach Syria from its alliance with Iran, and enlist Damascus in moderating or eliminating two key radical elements — Hamas and Hizballah — on Israel's borders
  • Iran's resulting loss of influence in the region could, in turn, help induce Tehran to rethink its more confrontational positions, particularly on the nuclear issue.
Pedro Gonçalves

The European dream is in dire need of a reality check | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...dream-badly-need-reality-check

EU Europe

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • In every one of the big European states, trust has gone into "a vertiginous decline". Five years ago, no country, not even Britain, showed more than half its voters hostile to Europe, and most were strongly supportive. Now, according to the EU's own Eurobarometer, distrust runs at 53% in Italy, 56% in France, 59% in Germany, 69% in the UK and 72% in Spain. The EU has lost the support of two thirds of its citizens. Does it matter?
  • "Anti-Europeanism" was growing across Europe even before the credit crunch – witness the Lisbon treaty referendums. It is reflected in the rise of nationalist parties and is rampant even among such one-time EU loyalists as Spain, Italy, Greece and Germany. As the head of the European Council on Foreign Relations, José Ignacio Torreblanca, said of yesterday's poll, "The damage is so deep that it does not matter whether you come from a creditor or debtor country … citizens now think their national democracy is being subverted."
  • Dreams make dangerous politics, and when they require the imposition of "yet more Europe" against the run of public opinion, they are badly in need of a reality check. The new requirement that the EU (in this case Germany) imposes budgets on indebted states goes far beyond anything domestic voters seem likely to tolerate.Barroso's dream is becoming the vision espoused by the Columbia professor of European history István Deák, who demanded last year in the New York Times "a new imperial construct" as the only alternative to save the continent from a "revival of tribalism". To Deák this new empire was "a sacred task … an almost religious goal: a new European faith that belongs&nbsp;to no church".
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  • Even a majority of Germans are now anti-EU, and a third want the deutschmark back.
  • Cameron and the sceptics therefore need to be constructive to be plausible. They need to argue for a European Bretton Woods, to write off bad debts and recalibrate regional economies by returning to revalued regional currencies. They need to propose European institutions that respect national politics and character, not just grab more power to the centre. There needs to be a sceptics' vision of Europe.Closer European union was an answer to war. After that it offered an answer to communist dictatorship. In both it could claim success. Finally, at Maastricht in 1992, it flew too near the sun. It pretended that one currency traded within a single politico-economic space could overcome economic diversity and yield a common wealth. It overreached itself. In refusing to recognise this failure, Barroso and his colleagues now risk jeopardising even Europe's earlier successes.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel sets terms for Palestinian state - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8099757.stm

Israel Palestine US Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas Israeli Settlements

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced he will back a Palestinian state - but only if it is completely demilitarised.He said a Palestinian state must have no army, no control of its air space and no way of smuggling in weapons. In a landmark speech, weeks after the US president urged him to agree a two-state plan, he said the Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinian leaders reacted angrily, accusing him of sabotaging peace plans.
  • our correspondent says the question is whether the White House regards this as sufficient to make up for the lack of movement on the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
  • But in his speech at Bar-Ilan university Mr Netanyahu said settlers were not "enemies of peace" and did not move from his position of backing "natural growth" in existing settlements.
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  • The Israeli leader offered to talk to the Palestinians immediately and with "no preconditions".
  • "We want to live with you in peace as good neighbours," he said.
  • Agreeing the principle of a Palestinian state, he said Israel would "be prepared for a true peace agreement [and] to reach a solution of a demilitarised Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state". But only if "we receive this guarantee for demilitarisation and the security arrangements required by Israel, and if the Palestinians recognise Israel as the nation of the Jewish people".
  • Mr Netanyahu also said he was willing to go to Damascus, Riyadh and Beirut in pursuit of a Middle East peace deal.
  • Mr Netanyahu stuck to a similar line, saying: "The Palestinian refugee problem must be resolved outside the borders of the state of Israel. "Any demand to resettle refugees within Israel undermines Israel as a state for the Jewish people."
  • Another key issue the two sides have failed to agree on is the status of Jerusalem. Mr Netanyahu insisted the city must be the "united capital of Israel", although Palestinians want it divided to allow them to locate the capital of a future state there.
  • the issue of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948 and 1949. The Palestinians say they and their millions of descendants have the right to return to Israel - which would mean an end to its Jewish majority - but Israel has consistently rebuffed that demand.
  • Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Israeli leader's speech "torpedoes all peace initiatives in the region".
  • Another Abbas aide, Yasser Abed Rabbo, told the AFP news agency that recognition of Israel's Jewish character was a demand for Palestinians "to become part of the global Zionist movement".
  • While the militant Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, said the speech reflected Mr Netanyahu's "racist and extremist ideology".
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Palestinians dismiss Israel plan - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8099948.stm

Israel Palestine US Benjamin Netanyahu Saeb Erekat Yesha Israeli Settlements

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Palestinians have rejected the Israeli prime minister's conditions for a two-state solution, saying he has "paralysed" the peace process.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a major policy speech, accepted the creation of a Palestinian state but only if it was demilitarised. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman said his comments challenged Palestinian, Arab and US positions. But the US said Mr Netanyahu's stance was an "important step forward".
  • Mr Netanyahu said the Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state. He said a Palestinian state must have no army, no control of its air space and no way of smuggling in weapons.
  • Mr Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said: "Netanyahu's remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions," Reuters news agency reported. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the speech "closed the door to permanent status negotiations". "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. "He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."
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  • But the White House called the policy outline an "important step forward", as did French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
  • In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri described the speech as "racist" and called on Arab nations to "form stronger opposition" towards Israel.
  • Mr Erekat added: "The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise. Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its back."
  • A White House statement said Mr Obama "believes this solution can and must ensure both Israel's security and the fulfilment of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a viable state, and he welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu's endorsement of that goal".
  • In his own keynote Middle East speech in Cairo on 4 June, Mr Obama stressed that he wanted all settlement activity to stop. But Mr Netanyahu said settlers were not "enemies of peace" and did not move from his position of backing "natural growth" in existing settlements.
  • The settlers group Yesha condemned Mr Netanyahu's speech: "We deplore that the prime minister has agreed to the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state after he has said for years that such a state, even demilitarised, would be a threat to Israel."
Alyn William

iYogi is recognized by Deloitte for 1438 percent growth rate - 0 views

www.sfgate.com/...article.cgi

iYogi iYogi-recognized-by-deloitte

shared by Alyn William on 18 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Alyn William on 18 Nov 10
     
    iYogi ranked third in Deloitte's 50 fastest growing Indian companies in the Technology, Media & Telecom space for 2010, with a 1438 percent growth rate over the last three years.
Argos Media

Reserved Relations with Israel: Obama's New Middle East Diplomacy - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Ne... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,624053,00.html

US Israel Rose Gottemoeller Joe Biden AIPAC Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Nuclear Weapons Iran Gilad Erdan

shared by Argos Media on 11 May 09 - Cached
  • The members of the leading pro-Israel lobby in the US were visibly moved as they listened to Vice President Joe Biden's speech last Tuesday. It was music to the ears of the 6,500 delegates of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who had gathered in the Washington Convention Center.
  • "With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change; and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel," he told his audience.
  • Gottemoeller is an important figure. The US assistant secretary of state is one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear weapons and is currently leading disarmament talks with Russia and working on strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In her address to the UN, Gottemoeller called on a number of presumed nuclear powers to join the NPT. "Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea … remains a fundamental objective of the United States," she said.
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  • Something that sounded self-evident was in fact breaking a major taboo in US diplomacy. Washington had never before named Israel as a nuclear power. Every US administration has ignored, at least officially, Israel's nuclear arsenal, which it first produced in the late 1960s and has modernized and expanded ever since.
  • An agreement between the governments of Richard Nixon and Golda Meir obliged the US and Jerusalem to stay silent on the Israeli nuclear program. Every US president since has agreed that this was the best way to protect Israeli security. Israel refuses to this day to release any information on its nuclear weapons and in doing so has eluded any form of international inspections. The country has also avoided any non-proliferation talks. The logic is compelling: If something doesn't officially exist then it can't be counted, inspected or reduced.
  • Now Obama wants to revive it and he is doing so by keeping his distance from Israel. The outing of Israel as a nuclear power was just the pinnacle of a strategy that is aimed at giving America back its capability to act in the Middle East.
  • The White House had already made it clear that it would be making demands on the Israelis. The new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should make sure there is a complete halt to the building of settlements in the West Bank. During his recent visit to Turkey, Obama declared that the US "strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
  • Ever since, relations between the US and Israel have become decidedly frosty. Israeli Environment Minister Gilad Erdan even went so far as to say that "Israel does not take orders from Obama." The old friends have never seemed so far apart.
  • On Monday the Times of London quoted Jordan's King Abdullah as saying that the US is planning to promote a peace plan for the Middle East that involves a "57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel. According to the newspaper, the king and President Obama had come up with the plan during his visit to Washington in April and details are likely to be thrashed out in the coming month, particularly when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu travels to Washington to hold talks with Obama next Monday.
  • The Times said that Israel may be offered incentives to freeze the building of settlements, including the offer by Arab states to grant visas to Israelis and to allow Israeli airline EL AL to fly through Arab air space.
Argos Media

Medvedev's First Year: A Czar in Chains - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,623453,00.html

Russia Dmitry Medvedev Putin

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • According to the Russian constitution, the president is supposed to define the guidelines for domestic and foreign policies. But in practice, he is a ruler without his own troops. Medvedev may be the official head of state, but it is actually his predecessor, current Prime Minister Putin, who controls Russia's fate, believes political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov. The editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs told Moscow magazine The New Times that Medvedev is crippled "by the very source from which he derives his legitimacy -- Vladimir Putin."
  • Although Medvedev introduced a 100-member talent pool for key government positions, and helped a few classmates with their ascent to higher judicial posts, the real power positions remain firmly in the hands of Putin loyalists.
  • But Medvedev has eagerly sent out the message that he is devoted to a more liberal course. He wisely agreed to an interview with the highly regarded, Kremlin-critical newspaper Novaya Gazeta. On the day of the interview, he also invited human rights activists to the Kremlin, heartily congratulated the chair of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers on her birthday and addressed the guests as "honored colleagues." Another signal of a softer stance in the Kremlin is the release of Svetlana Bakhmina. The respected former attorney of Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil company had been in prison since 2004 and the Kremlin refused to reduce her sentence despite the fact that she was pregnant. However, shortly after Medvedev's meeting with human rights activists, she was released on parole and reunited with her family.
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  • It is rumored that even the president's bodyguards are the same as those in Putin's time.
  • During his presidency Putin filled the Kremlin, government, and state enterprises with loyal cronies which leaves Medvedev with limited space to operate. "Words are good, but they don't change the system," says Rahr. "No one can say what kind of leverage Medvedev actually has. Perhaps he can free himself, but he has little room for maneuver." As far as Russia's power structure is concerned, the vital security and energy policies remains firmly under the control of Putin and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea 'is producing plutonium' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8017898.stm

North Korea Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons Russia Sergei Lavrov UN

shared by Argos Media on 25 Apr 09 - Cached
  • North Korea has started to reprocess spent fuel rods at its nuclear plant, says the country's state media. The reprocessing is a possible move towards producing weapons grade plutonium and comes after Pyongyang's launch of a long-range rocket in April.
  • "The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated 14 April," North Korea's Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying.
  • The official said the reprocessing would "contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defence in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces".
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  • Pyongyang's announcement came only hours after the UN imposed sanctions on three companies it said had supported North Korea's controversial rocket launch, as well as updating the list of goods and technologies already banned.
  • The country is already thought to possess enough reprocessed plutonium for between six and eight nuclear weapons - so in the immediate term the announcement does not significantly alter the strategic balance, our correspondent says.
  • North Korea had already partially dismantled its nuclear reactor - the source of material for a 2006 atomic test. But it now says it is reprocessing remaining spent fuel rods, which experts say could provide material for at least one more nuclear bomb.
  • The sanctions mark the first concrete steps against Pyongyang since the UN officially condemned the launch.
  • North Korea's Deputy UN Ambassador Pak Tok Hun said the decision was "a wanton violation of the United Nations charter". "It is the inalienable right of every nation and country to make peaceful use of outer space," he said. "That is why we totally reject and do not recognise any sort of decision which has been made in the Security Council."
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has been in Pyongyang in an attempt to persuade the North to return to the nuclear talks, said earlier that sanctions were "not constructive".
  • The UN Security Council council unanimously condemned North Korea's rocket launch on 13 April, saying it was a cover for a long-range missile test and as such contravened a 2006 resolution banning such tests.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama exempts CIA 'torture' staff - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8003537.stm

US CIA Torture Abu Zubaydah

shared by Argos Media on 17 Apr 09 - Cached
  • US President Barack Obama says CIA agents who used harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects during the Bush era will not be prosecuted.
  • Mr Obama banned the use of methods such as sleep deprivation and simulated drowning in his first week in office. He has now released four memos detailing techniques the CIA was able to use under the Bush administration.
  • Amnesty International said the Department of Justice appeared to be offering a "get-out-of-jail-free card" to individuals who were involved in acts of torture.
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  • The Obama administration said the move reiterated its previously-stated commitment to end the use of torture by its officers, and would protect those who acted within the limits set out by a previous legal opinion.
  • Mr Obama gave an assurance that "those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice... will not be subject to prosecution".
  • One of the documents contained legal authorisation for a list of specific harsh interrogation techniques, including pushing detainees against a wall, facial slaps, cramped confinement, stress positions and sleep deprivation. The memo also authorises the use of "waterboarding", or simulated drowning, and the placing of a detainee into a confined space with an insect.
  • "Bottom line here is you've had crimes committed," Amnesty International analyst Tom Parker told the BBC.
  • Mr Parker said the decision to allow the use of insects in interrogation was reminiscent of the Room 101 nightmare described by George Orwell in his seminal novel, 1984.
  • The approved tactic - to place al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, who is afraid of insects, inside a box filled with caterpillars but to tell him they were stinging insects - was never used.
  • During his first week in office, President Obama issued an executive order officially outlawing the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA, and forcing the agency to adhere to standards laid out in the US Army Field Manual.
  • The release of the memos stems from a request by civil rights group the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
  • the former head of the CIA under former President George W Bush, Gen Michael Hayden, said the White House move would undermine intelligence work and dissuade foreign agencies from sharing information with the CIA. "If you want an intelligence service to work for you, they always work on the edge. That's just where they work," he told the Associated Press.
Pedro Gonçalves

Control: China Launches National GPS System - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...na_developing_national_gps.php

China GPS BNSS China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 29 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • This Chinese satellite navigation network will obviate the need to use the Pentagon-created and U.S.-run GPS system, which dominates location technology worldwide.
  • This strictly Chinese system, according to a defense tech expert in today's Wall Street Journal, "could help the Chinese military to identify, track and strike U.S. ships in the region in the event of armed conflict." It has already been used to coordinate the movement of Chinese troops.
  • The BNSS is not believed to be as accurate as the GPS system, but it may, in time, get there. Bedou, which means Big Dipper in Mandarin, is only the first step toward a global system, called Compass, which is slated to have 35 functioning satellites around the world by 2020.
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  • The network, called the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BNSS), began transmitting yesterday, after 11 years of development. It consists of 10 satellites, with another six slated for deployment in the coming year. The BNSS is run by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, a state contractor serving the nation's space program and run by the Chinese military.
  • Like the GPS system, the BNSS would also make its data available for developers.
  • The only other GPS alternative is Russia's Glonass. The European Union is building its own, called Galileo, also scheduled to go live by 2020.
Pedro Gonçalves

AFP: Hamas hails US policy change, ready for new unity talks - 0 views

www.google.com/...M5i6ZwWy6ChTKq85MG_BbIALs1klpQ

Israel Palestine Hamas Khaled Meshaal Obama

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • "We hail the new line from Barack Obama towards Hamas. It is the first step towards direct talks without preconditions," Meshaal said from his base in the Syrian capital Damascus.
  • Meshaal said Hamas would "work swiftly to end the rifts in Palestinian ranks and achieve national reconciliation through talks being brokered by Egypt."To this end, a delegation will travel to Cairo in the next two days to tackle the obstacles," Meshaal added.
  • Egyptian mediators have set a July 7 target date for a deal to reconcile Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership of president Mahmud Abbas after months of faltering negotiations to mend the rift sparked by the Islamists' 2007 seizure of Gaza.
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  • Western aid for the reconstruction of Gaza after Israel's devastating offensive at the turn of the year is dependent on the outcome of the talks.
  • n recent days Hamas officials have signalled that they may be ready to accept a Palestinian state limited to the territories seized in the 1967 Middle East war despite a commitment in the movement's charter to regaining the whole of historic Palestine.
  • Hamas has "no illusions about the new policy... we want change on the ground that will bring about an end to the occupation," he said.
  • "No leader has the right to compromise on the right of return. We reject the permanent resettlement of Palestinian abroad, for instance in Jordan," he said.
  • "We reject the position taken by Netanyahu... on east Jerusalem, settlement activity, the right of return of Palestinian refugees and his vision of a demilitarised Palestinian state deprived of sovereignty over its land, air space and territorial waters," Meshaal said.
  • "We are opposed to Israel being a Jewish state ... because that would amount to the denial of the rights of the six million Palestinain refugees," Meshaal added, slamming the position of the new Israeli government as "fascist".
Argos Media

North Korea to boycott nuclear weapons talks after UN condemns rocket launch | World ne... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...th-korea-boycott-nuclear-talks

North Korea Nuclear Proliferation UN

shared by Argos Media on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • North Korea said today it will boycott international talks on its atomic weapons programme in protest at the UN security council's condemnation of the country's rocket launch.
  • The country also said it would restart nuclear facilities it had begun to dismantle under an international deal.
  • "We have no choice but to further strengthen our nuclear deterrent to cope with additional military threats by hostile forces," the statement said
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  • The statement was the country's first reaction to the security council's unanimous condemnation yesterday of the 5 April launch, which Pyongyang says sent a satellite into space but the US and others say tested long-range missile technology.
  • The statement also said that the North "will never participate in the six-party talks" because other members "publicly denied" the spirit of the negotiations – which it said were respect of mutual equality and sovereignty - in the name of the UN security council.
  • The North said it will not be bound by any agreement signed under the talks and will restore nuclear facilities it has been disabling and will resume operating them.
  • Under a 2007 six-party deal, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear complex – a step toward its ultimate dismantlement – in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions.
  • North Korea also said it will "actively consider" building a nuclear light-water reactor and reprocess spent fuel rods at a pilot atomic power plant.
Argos Media

A European State Department?: Brussels Quietly Trains a Foreign Service - SPIEGEL ONLIN... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,620289,00.html

EU Foreign Policy

shared by Argos Media on 22 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A number of eurocrats will soon form part of an EU diplomatic corps, if European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso has anything to say about it. He's looking forward to the day when the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect -- and the EU has to build embassies.
  • Hundreds of bureaucrats at Barroso's European Commission, the EU's executive body, are being educated in the diplomatic arts, taking courses at universities and international academies on "Political Analysis" and "Handling the Media" to prepare for a new role that would be created under the imperilled Lisbon Treaty. Among the key provisions of the treaty is the creation of a European External Action Service and the appointment of a "foreign minister," though the title has been renamed as the "high representative of the Union," as well as an EU president. The idea is to groom an EU diplomatic service so it can start its work the day the treaty -- once known, and rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands, as the "EU constitution" -- goes into effect.
  • If Lisbon is ratified, it would elevate the more than 150 EU representative offices around the world to the level of embassies and consulates. The EU is also moving in advance to insure it has the space it needs. In London, EU emissaries are moving into office building on Smith Square purchased for €27 million.
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