'Merchant of Death', Viktor Bout, denies arming terror | World news | The Observer - 0 views
-
The UN has accused him of arming the alleged war criminal Charles Taylor in Liberia, as well as rebels in Sierra Leone and the Congo. He was arrested in a five-star hotel last March while allegedly discussing the sale of shoulder-launched missiles with US agents masquerading as Colombian rebels from FARC. The request to Thai authorities to arrest Bout says the US feared he was travelling on a British passport, number K163077. UK officials have declined to comment.
-
Bout's supposed client list reads like a Who's Who of the world's nastiest warlords but also includes Americans, Britons, Frenchmen and Russians. A former US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, has admitted that planes connected to his department did fly supplies into Iraq to aid the US occupation. Bout said it was possible that these deliveries were made by a company run by his brother, Sergei. He denied earlier reports that he shipped armoured cars into Iraq for Britain. He said the French government did hire him to fly its troops into the Congo in 1994 for Operation Turquoise, a relief mission after the Rwanda genocide.
-
Some analysts suspect that Bout's activities were linked to Russian intelligence. He denies this, but, asked if he worked for the Russian state, he said: "Sometimes, yeah. We did the flights." His battle against extradition has now become intensely political. Some observers have speculated that he is of high value to the US because of his alleged links to Igor Sechin, a deputy to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and one of the Kremlin's most powerful figures. He denied any such links or ever meeting Sechin, saying that the two men did not – as is claimed – serve as intelligence officers in Mozambique at the same time.
- ...1 more annotation...
France24 - Washington appoints first ambassador to Syria in five years - 0 views
-
President Barack Obama took a major step toward improving strained ties with Syria on Tuesday, announcing his intention to reappoint a U.S. ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence.
-
The White House said Obama had nominated career diplomat Robert Ford to the post. The nomination must still be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
-
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 after the assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Syria’s foes in Lebanon accused Damascus of involvement, a charge Syria denied.
- ...2 more annotations...
Poland admits role in CIA rendition programme | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views
-
The Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA's secret programme for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged today.
-
The Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA's secret programme for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged today.After years of stonewalling, Warsaw's air control service confirmed that at least six CIA flights had landed at a disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003.
untitled - 0 views
-
The Obama administration and its European allies are setting a target of early October to determine whether engagement with Iran is making progress or should lead to sanctions, said senior officials briefed on the policy.
-
They also are developing specific benchmarks to gauge Iranian behavior. Those include whether Tehran is willing to let United Nations monitors make snap inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities that are now off-limits, and whether it will agree to a "freeze for freeze" -- halting uranium enrichment in return for holding off on new economic sanctions -- as a precursor to formal negotiations.
-
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have stressed that U.S. overtures toward Tehran won't be open-ended. The administration is committed to testing Tehran's willingness to cooperate on the nuclear issue and on related efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq. Should diplomacy fail, the Obama administration has pledged to increase economic pressure. Mrs. Clinton recently testified that the U.S. will impose "crippling sanctions" on Iran if it doesn't negotiate.
- ...8 more annotations...
BBC NEWS | Americas | Iran 'leading terrorism sponsor' - 0 views
-
Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, a report by the US state department says.
-
Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, a report by the US state department says. It says Iran's role in the planning and financing of terror-related activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan threatens efforts to promote peace.
-
Al-Qaeda remains the biggest danger to the US and the West, the annual report states, noting that terror attacks are rising in Pakistan.
- ...6 more annotations...
Al Jazeera English - Middle East - US forces pull out of Iraq's cities - 0 views
-
Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq.
-
US troops began withdrawing from the country's major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed on Tuesday for troops to hand over security to Iraqi forces.
-
Al-Maliki described the US withdrawal as a "turning point" for the country and declared Tuesday the country's National Sovereignty Day and a public holiday.
- ...3 more annotations...
The Eternal Candidate: Turkey Bets on Regional Influence as EU Hopes Fade - SPIEGEL ONL... - 0 views
-
The Turks, who always used to complain to their Western allies about their rough neighborhood, apparently no longer have any enemies in the east. Turkey's old rival Russia has since become its most important energy and trading partner. Syria and Iraq, two countries with which Ankara has in the past been on the brink of war, are now friends of Turkey, and relations are even improving with Armenia. The Arabs, who never truly took to the successors of the Ottomans, now look with admiration to what they call the "Turkish model," a dynamic, open country that has a better handle on its problems than they do.
-
When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed office in 2003, he planned to lead Turkey into the European Union. But Europe was unmoved by this vision, and it has also lost much of its appeal within Turkey. According to Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think tank linked to the center-left Social Democratic Party, as the Europeans have become weary of expansion, Turkey has lost interest in joining the EU. Indeed, what Erdogan meant when he spoke of Turkey's "alternative" to becoming an EU member is becoming increasingly clear.
-
Critics and supporters alike describe this new course as "neo-Ottomanism." Ankara remains formally committed to its European ambitions. However, frustrated by the open rejection with which it has long been met in Paris, Vienna and Berlin, and which it has been facing once again during the EU election campaign, Turkey is focusing increasingly on its role as a peacekeeping power in a region it either ruled or dominated for centuries.
- ...11 more annotations...
U.S. Steps Gingerly Into Tumult in Iran - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
on Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.
-
“This was just a call to say: ‘It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?’ ” said P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.
-
Twitter complied with the request, saying in a blog post on Monday that it put off the upgrade until late Tuesday afternoon — 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Tehran — because its partners recognized “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran.” The network was working normally again by Tuesday evening.
- ...7 more annotations...
Delegates Walk Out of Racism Conference as Ahmadinejad Speaks - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Monday used the platform of a United Nations conference in Geneva on combating racism to disparage Israel as a “cruel and repressive racist regime,” prompting delegates from European nations to desert the hall and earning a rare harsh rebuke from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
-
As Mr. Ahmadinejad began to speak, two protesters wearing rainbow-hued clown wigs — their statement on the tenor of the proceedings — pelted him with red foam noses. Hustled out the door by security agents, they were soon followed by lines of stony-faced diplomats from the 23 European nations attending the conference. They walked out to the sound of some other delegates applauding Mr. Ahmadinejad.
-
The United States and more than a half-dozen other nations had already boycotted the gathering out of concern that it would focus on maligning Israel rather than on the global problems of discrimination, replaying the disputes that marked the first United Nations conference on combating racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.
- ...7 more annotations...
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."
- ...7 more annotations...
Obama's Visit to Ankara: Turkey Trip Offers Pitfalls and Opportunities - SPIEGEL ONLINE... - 0 views
-
It was only Barack Obama's telephone diplomacy -- which came in the form of a call to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- that solved the problem. In the end, the two agreed that Turkey would not blackball Fogh Rasmussen in return for reportedly gaining an important seat in the alliance and a pledge to start procedures to shut down the Danish television station Roj TV, which Turkey accuses of having ties to the Kurdish militant group PKK.
-
Turkey is a very important strategic partner for the US, a fact which already led presidents Clinton and Bush to give vocal support to Ankara's ambitions to join the EU.
-
Another fact is that Turkey's army -- which alone has 1,200 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan -- is the second largest among those of NATO's member states.
- ...7 more annotations...
« First
‹ Previous
41 - 60 of 109
Next ›
Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page