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Alex Jhon

Christmas Loan New Zealand - 1 views

Christmas comes in New Zealand in the mid of the summer vacation. And it is just around the corner. All around are the astounding decors, the lavish Christmas trees, the expensive gifts and the e...

Personal Loan Documents Contracts Secured Agreement

started by Alex Jhon on 21 Dec 11 no follow-up yet
Pedro Gonçalves

Foreign Policy: The Rise of Kim Jong-Un - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...cms.php

North Korea Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-un Kim Jong-nam Chang Song-taek

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Jang (director of the KWP's Administrative Department, which oversees much of North Korea's security apparatus) had shifted his support to Kim Jong-un in light of Kim Jong Il's "special affection" for his third son and out of consideration for his own future political power.
  • The development of a collective leadership centered on Jang appears to have emerged out of the recent meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly. Some analysts point to the NDC, of which Kim Jong-un is now reportedly a member, as the platform through which the succession will be carried out, much as the KWP was Kim Jong Il's platform. In addition to Jang, the NDC is now populated with powerful military and security officials with ties to Jang, including vice chairmen Kim Yong-jun and O Kuk-yol and members Chu Sang-song (minister of public security) and U Tong-juk (deputy director of the State Security Department). Many think this collective leadership, which probably extends beyond the NDC to the party as well, will provide the support network for a dynastic succession. In this scenario, Kim Jong-un would be the public face of North Korea, while Jang led behind the scenes.
  • When the succession will be made public is a critical question. Some Pyongyang watchers speculate that it will be attached to an auspicious date in North Korean history. Many point to April 2012, which would mark the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth. Of course, the health of Kim Jong Il, which has appeared to worsen in recent months, will probably drive the timing of this announcement.
Pedro Gonçalves

Breakthrough in Tribunal Investigation: New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murd... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,626412,00.html

Lebanon Hariri Hezbollah Daniel Bellemare

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 24 May 09 - Cached
  • The United Nations special tribunal investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has reached surprising new conclusions -- and it is keeping them secret. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, investigators now believe Hezbollah was behind the Hariri murder.
  • The Hariri assassination has been the source of wild speculation ever since. Was it the work of terrorist organization al-Qaida, angered by Hariri's close ties to the Saudi royal family? Or of the Israelis, as part of their constant efforts to weaken neighboring Lebanon? Or the Iranians, who hated secularist Hariri?
  • In late 2005, an investigation team approved by the United Nations and headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis found, after seven months of research, that Syrian security forces and high-ranking Lebanese officials were in fact responsible for the Hariri murder. Four suspects were arrested. But the smoking gun, the final piece of evidence, was not found. The pace of the investigation stalled under Mehlis's Belgian successor, Serge Brammertz.
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  • At the time of the attack, it was known that Hariri, a billionaire construction magnate who was responsible for the reconstruction of the Lebanese capital after decades of civil war, wanted to reenter politics. It was also known that he had had a falling out with Syrian President Bashar Assad after demanding the withdrawal of Syrian occupation forces from his native Lebanon. As a result, the prime suspects in the murder were the powerful Syrian military and intelligence agency, as well as their Lebanese henchmen. The pressure on Damascus came at an opportune time for the US government. Then-President George W. Bush had placed Syria on his list of rogue states and wanted to isolate the regime internationally.
  • The establishment of a UN special tribunal was intended to provide certainty. It began its work on March 1, 2009. The tribunal, headquartered in the town of Leidschendam in the Netherlands, has a budget of more than €40 million ($56 million) for the first year alone, with the UN paying 51 percent and Beirut 49 percent of the cost. It has an initial mandate for three years, and the most severe sentence it can impose is life in prison. Canadian Daniel Bellemare, 57, was appointed to head the tribunal. Four of the 11 judges are Lebanese, whose identities have been kept secret, for security reasons.
  • As its first official act, the tribunal ordered the release, in early April, of the four men Mehlis had had arrested. By then, they had already spent more than three years sitting in a Lebanese prison.
  • Intensive investigations in Lebanon are all pointing to a new conclusion: that it was not the Syrians, but instead special forces of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah ("Party of God") that planned and executed the diabolical attack. Tribunal chief prosecutor Bellemare and his judges apparently want to hold back this information, of which they been aware for about a month.
  • a secretly operating special unit of the Lebanese security forces, headed by intelligence expert Captain Wissam Eid, filtered out the numbers of mobile phones that could be pinpointed to the area surrounding Hariri on the days leading up to the attack and on the date of the murder itself. The investigators referred to these mobile phones as the "first circle of hell."
  • They were apparently tools of the hit team that carried out the terrorist attack.
  • there was also a "second circle of hell," a network of about 20 mobile phones that were identified as being in proximity to the first eight phones noticeably often. According to the Lebanese security forces, all of the numbers involved apparently belong to the "operational arm" of Hezbollah, which maintains a militia in Lebanon that is more powerful than the regular Lebanese army.
  • The romantic attachment of one of the terrorists led the cyber-detectives directly to one of the main suspects. He committed the unbelievable indiscretion of calling his girlfriend from one of the "hot" phones. It only happened once, but it was enough to identify the man. He is believed to be Abd al-Majid Ghamlush, from the town of Rumin, a Hezbollah member who had completed training course in Iran. Ghamlush was also identified as the buyer of the mobile phones. He has since disappeared, and perhaps is no longer alive.
Argos Media

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

news.bbc.co.uk/...8013677.stm

US Pakistan Taliban Hillary Clinton

shared by Argos Media on 23 Apr 09 - Cached
  • 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

'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."
  • 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]."
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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

What would an "even-handed" U.S. Middle East policy look like? | Stephen M. Walt - 0 views

walt.foreignpolicy.com/...essure_on_israel_a_users_guide

Israel Stephen Walt US

shared by Argos Media on 22 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • the United States supports the creation of a viable Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. The new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu opposes this goal, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already said that he does not think Israel is bound by its recent commitments on this issue. &nbsp;
  • To advance its own interests, therefore, the United States will have to pursue a more even-handed policy than it has in the past, and put strong pressure on both sides to come to an agreement. Instead of the current "special relationship" -- where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support -- the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs).&nbsp; While still committed to Israel’s security, the United States would use the leverage at its disposal to make a two-state solution a reality.
  • This idea appears to be gaining ground. Several weeks ago, a bipartisan panel of distinguished foreign policy experts headed by Henry Siegman and Brent Scowcroft issued a thoughtful report calling for the Obama administration to “engage in prompt, sustained, and determined efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Success, they noted, "will require a careful blend of persuasion, inducement, reward, and pressure..."
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  • Last week, the Economist called for the United States to reduce its aid to Israel if the Netanyahu government continues to reject a two-state solution.&nbsp; The Boston Globe offered a similar view earlier this week, advising Obama to tell Netanyahu "to take the steps necessary for peace or risk compromising Israel's special relationship with America." A few days ago, Ha’aretz reported that the Obama Administration was preparing Congressional leaders for a possible confrontation with the Netanyahu government.
  • We already know what it means for the United States to put pressure on the Palestinians, because Washington has done that repeatedly -- and sometimes effectively -- over the past several decades.&nbsp; During the 1970s, for example, the United States supported King Hussein’s violent crackdown on the PLO cadres who were threatening his rule in Jordan. During the 1980s, the United States refused to recognize the PLO until it accepted Israel’s right to exist.&nbsp; After the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the Bush administration refused to deal with Yasser Arafat and pushed hard for his replacement. After Arafat's death, we insisted on democratic elections for a new Palestinian assembly and then rejected the results when Hamas won. The United States has also gone after charitable organizations with ties to Hamas and backed Israel’s recent campaign in Gaza.
  • In short, the United States has rarely hesitated to use its leverage to try to shape Palestinian behavior, even if some of these efforts -- such as the inept attempt to foment a Fatah coup against Hamas in 2007 -- have backfired.
  • The United States has only rarely put (mild) pressure on Israel in recent decades (and never for very long), even when the Israeli government was engaged in actions (such as building settlements) that the U.S. government opposed.&nbsp; The question is: if the Netanyahu/Lieberman government remains intransigent, what should Obama do?
  • 4. Downgrade existing arrangements for “strategic cooperation.”&nbsp; There are now a number of institutionalized arrangements for security cooperation between the Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces and between U.S. and Israeli intelligence. The Obama administration could postpone or suspend some of these meetings, or start sending lower-grade representatives to them.
  • 2. Change the Rhetoric. The Obama administration could begin by using different language to describe certain Israeli policies.&nbsp; While reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s existence as a Jewish-majority state, it could stop referring to settlement construction as “unhelpful,” a word that makes U.S. diplomats sound timid and mealy-mouthed.&nbsp; Instead, we could start describing the settlements as “illegal” or as “violations of international law.”
  • U.S. officials could even describe Israel’s occupation as “contrary to democracy,” “unwise,” “cruel,” or “unjust.”&nbsp; Altering the rhetoric would send a clear signal to the Israeli government and its citizens that their government’s opposition to a two-state solution was jeopardizing the special relationship.
  • 3. Support a U.N. Resolution Condemning the Occupation.&nbsp; Since 1972, the United States has vetoed forty-three U.N. Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel (a number greater than the sum of all vetoes cast by the other permanent members)
  • If the Obama administration wanted to send a clear signal that it was unhappy with Israel’s actions, it could sponsor a resolution condemning the occupation and calling for a two-state solution.
  • 1. Cut the aid package? If you add it all up, Israel gets over $3 billion in U.S. economic and military aid each year, which works out to about $500 per Israeli citizen. There’s a lot of potential leverage here, but it’s probably not the best stick to use, at least not at first. Trying to trim or cut the aid package will trigger an open and undoubtedly ugly confrontation in Congress (where the influence of AIPAC and other hard-line groups in the Israel lobby is greatest). So that’s not where I’d start.
  • There is in fact a precedent for this step: after negotiating the original agreements for a “strategic partnership,” the Reagan administration suspended them following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Today, such a step would surely get the attention of Israel’s security establishment.
  • 5. Reduce U.S. purchases of Israeli military equipment. In addition to providing Israel with military assistance (some of which is then used to purchase U.S. arms), the Pentagon also buys millions of dollars of weaponry and other services from Israel’s own defense industry. Obama could instruct Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to slow or decrease these purchases, which would send an unmistakable signal that it was no longer "business-as-usual." Given the battering Israel’s economy has taken in the current global recession, this step would get noticed too.
  • 6. Get tough with private organizations that support settlement activity. As David Ignatius recently noted in the Washington Post, many private donations to charitable organizations operating in Israel are tax-deductible in the United States, including private donations that support settlement activity. This makes no sense: it means the American taxpayer is indirectly subsidizing activities that are contrary to stated U.S. policy and that actually threaten Israel’s long-term future.&nbsp; Just as the United States has gone after charitable contributions flowing to terrorist organizations, the U.S. Treasury could crack down on charitable organizations (including those of some prominent Christian Zionists) that are supporting these illegal activities.&nbsp;
  • 7. Place more limits on U.S. loan guarantees. The United States has provided billions of dollars of loan guarantees to Israel on several occasions, which enabled Israel to borrow money from commercial banks at lower interest rates.&nbsp; Back in 1992, the first Bush administration held up nearly $10 billion in guarantees until Israel agreed to halt settlement construction and attend the Madrid peace conference, and the dispute helped undermine the hard-line Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir and bring Yitzhak Rabin to power, which in turn made the historic Oslo Agreement possible.
  • 8. Encourage other U.S. allies to use their influence too. In the past, the United States has often pressed other states to upgrade their own ties with Israel.&nbsp; If pressure is needed, however, the United States could try a different tack.&nbsp; For example, we could quietly encourage the EU not to upgrade its relations with Israel until it had agreed to end the occupation.
  • most of these measures could be implemented by the Executive Branch alone, thereby outflanking die-hard defenders of the special relationship in Congress.&nbsp; Indeed, even hinting that it was thinking about some of these measures would probably get Netanyahu to start reconsidering his position.
  • Most importantly, Obama and his aides will need to reach out to Israel’s supporters in the United States, and make it clear to them that pressing Israel to end the occupation is essential for Israel’s long-term survival.
  • He will have to work with the more far-sighted elements in the pro-Israel community -- including groups like J Street, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom,&nbsp; and others
  • In effect, the United States would be giving Israel a choice: it can end its self-defeating occupation of Palestinian lands, actively work for a two-state solution, and thereby remain a cherished American ally.&nbsp; Or it can continue to expand the occupation and face a progressive loss of American support as well as the costly and corrupting burden of ruling millions of Palestinians by force.
  • Indeed, that is why many—though of course not all--Israelis would probably welcome a more active and evenhanded U.S. role. It was former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who said "if the two-state solution collapses, Israel will face a South-Africa style struggle for political rights." And once that happens, he warned, “the state of Israel is finished."
  • The editor of Ha’aretz, David Landau, conveyed much the same sentiment last September when he told former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the United States should "rape" Israel in order to force a solution. Landau's phrase was shocking and offensive, but it underscored the sense of urgency felt within some segments of the Israeli body politic.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel 'planned Iran attack in 2010' | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...rael-planned-iran-attack-claim

Iran Israel Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Israel's prime minister and defence minister ordered the country's military to prepare for a strike against Iran's nuclear installations two years ago, according to a television documentary to be aired on Monday.But the order was not enacted after it met with strong opposition from key security chiefs, the military chief of staff and head of the Mossad, the programme in the TV series Uvda [Fact] claims.
  • It says that, following a meeting of selected key ministers and officials, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak decided to order the army to raise its level of preparedness to "P Plus", a code signifying imminent military action.But the army chief Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad head Meir Dagan, who were both present at the meeting, opposed the move. According to the hour-long Channel 2 programme, Dagan told Netanyahu and Barak: "You are likely to make an illegal decision to go to war. Only the cabinet is authorised to decide this."The programme reported Dagan saying after the meeting that the prime minister and defence minister were "simply trying to steal a war".
  • Since leaving office, both security chiefs have made clear their opposition to premature military action against Iran's nuclear programme. In August, Ashkenazi said "we're still not there", urging more time for sanctions and diplomacy.Dagan said bombing Iran was "the stupidest idea I've ever heard". He told CBS's 60 Minutes: "An attack on Iran now before exploring all other approaches is not the right way&nbsp;… to do it."
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  • The military and intelligence establishment in Israel is also believed to have serious reservations about launching unilateral military action. The US has urged restraint, arguing that sanctions need time to take effect.
  • Channel 2's disclosures came as a respected Israeli thinktank, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), published the outcome of a war game simulating the 48-hour period after an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear installations. In the scenario, Israel does not inform the US of its operation until after its launch. Iran reacts by launching around 200 missiles at Israel, and urging its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas to do likewise. However, it is careful to avoid attacking US targets in the immediate aftermath of a strike.According to the INSS, there are two opposing outcomes of an Israeli attack: "One anticipates the outbreak of world war three, while the other envisions containment and restraint, and presumes that in practice Iran's capabilities to ignite the Middle East are limited." Its war game "developed in the direction of containment and restraint".
Pedro Gonçalves

Putin prepares the Russian empire to strike back | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | Th... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...putin-prepares-russian-empire

Russia Putin

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • As president, potentially until 2024, Putin has one overriding objective: the creation of a third, post-tsarist, post-Soviet Russian empire.
  • Elements of Putin's strategy to make Russia great again are slowly coming into focus. Much of the plan is defined by Russia's opposition to the US, the traditional foe. Thus the Kremlin announced last week that it would renounce the strategic arms reduction treaty (known as New Start) agreed with Washington two years ago if the US did not abandon its European missile defence plans.
  • unveiling of a new Russian missile base in Kaliningrad on Nato's doorstep
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  • Putin is busy reviving the idea of a remodelled union embracing the former Soviet republics of central Asia, an arrangement that prospectively boosts Russian political and military influence. "Russia will begin this new iteration of a Russian empire by creating a union with former Soviet states based on Moscow's current associations, such as the customs union and the collective security treaty organisation. This will allow the 'EuU' [a Eurasia union] to strategically encompass both the economic and security spheres … Putin is creating a union in which Moscow would influence foreign policy and security but would not be responsible for most of the inner workings of each country," said Lauren Goodrich in a Stratfor paper.
  • Following last month's Gazprom deal with Belarus, industry analysts suggest up to 50% of Europe's natural gas could be controlled by Russia by 2030.
Pedro Gonçalves

Analysis - Obama's Asia pivot advances, but obstacles await | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ic-pivot-idUKBRE85E1B720120615

US China South East Asia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • the polite fiction employed by Washington serves Asia-Pacific countries who seek security assurances from the far-away United States without sacrificing important trade with nearby China and its fast-growing economy."Treading too forcefully on China's interests can and has resulted in economic reprisals against Southeast Asian countries," said Scott Harrison of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a consultancy in Manila.
  • Beijing responded last month to its South China Sea dispute with Manila by tightening quality controls on Philippine fruit and cutting the number of visits by Chinese citizens to the Philippines.
  • Some regional security experts, however, say the renewed U.S. emphasis on Asia has emboldened China's opponents in the South China Sea dispute, an outcome Washington might not have intended."The U.S. becoming involved has fired up the Philippines and Vietnam to contest things more strongly," said Sam Bateman, a retired senior Australian naval officer and maritime security researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Argos Media

U.N. Official, D'Escoto, Faults U.S. and West on Iran and Sudan - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...18nations.html

UN Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann Iran Sudan

shared by Argos Media on 18 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the president of the General Assembly, lashed out at the West in general and the United States in particular on Tuesday, saying that Iran’s president had been maligned and that the indictment of Sudan’s president was racist.
  • His comments drew a rebuke from several Security Council ambassadors and even from the 33-member Latin American bloc that had nominated him. “He confuses his personal opinions sometimes with those of the General Assembly,” said Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile.
  • Mr. d’Escoto was speaking at a news conference to mark the end of a world tour. He said that he had been struck by the “great respect” shown to Iran by its neighbors and that its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been unfairly “demonized” in the West.
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  • He said the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war crimes charges was lamentable because it would undermine Darfur peace talks. A request by the African Union and the Arab League for the Security Council to suspend the indictment for a year should be respected, he said. The indictment “helps to deepen a perception that international justice is racist” because the case is the third to be brought against Africans, Mr. d’Escoto said.
  • Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan ambassador and a Security Council member, said, “I do not consider that decision racist.”
  • Mr. d’Escoto supported Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of the United States for falling about $1 billion behind in its United Nations dues. Describing the United States’ attitude toward the Council, Mr. d’Escoto said, “&nbsp;‘You either give me the green light to commit the aggression that I want to commit, or I shall declare you irrelevant.’&nbsp;” Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States Mission, said, “It’s hard to make sense of Mr. d’Escoto’s increasingly bizarre statements.”
  • Mr. d’Escoto tends to draw support from countries at odds with Washington, while Western nations accuse him of being stuck in a leftist, Sandinista mind-set. Mr. d’Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest, was Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 to 1990.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | 'No deal' to free Israeli soldier - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7947624.stm

Israel Palestine Hamas Gilad Shalit Yuval Diskin Ofer Dekel

shared by Argos Media on 17 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Two senior Israeli envoys have returned from indirect talks with Hamas in Cairo without a deal on the release of captured soldier, Gilad Shalit.
  • The talks were part of a final push by outgoing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to secure a deal before he leaves office.
  • The two envoys, Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet security service, and negotiator Ofer Dekel, are due to brief ministers at a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
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  • Egypt has been brokering the indirect talks. Hamas are demanding the release of more than 400 of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
  • Reports from the talks say one of the issues dividing the sides was Israel's wish to deport some of these prisoners, fearing they would be a security risk if released to the West Bank. Hamas representatives have said the group rejects the deportation proposal on principle.
  • The outgoing prime ministers has also said he wanted to make Sgt Shalit's release a precondition for a wider ceasefire agreement with Hamas, under which Hamas wants the crossings into Gaza fully opened to allow rebuilding after the recent Israeli operation.
Pedro Gonçalves

France24 - Sarkozy backs 'viable' Palestinian state - 0 views

www.france24.com/...borders-sarkozy-kouchner-abbas

France Palestine Sarkozy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • French President Nicolas Sarkozy backed the creation of a "viable" Palestinian state on Monday but was cautious about repeating his foreign minister's support for possible recognition of a state before its borders were set.
  • In a newspaper interview at the weekend, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that to break a stalemate in Middle East peacemaking, some countries might recognise a Palestinian state before its borders were fixed. "One can imagine a Palestinian state being rapidly declared and immediately recognised by the international community, even before negotiating its borders. I would be tempted by that," he told the Journal du Dimanche.
  • Sarkozy said that Kouchner was thinking of possible ways to bring momentum to the peace process but that France's goal remained a functioning Palestinian state in clearly set borders. "In Bernard's comments, there was the thought that if we don't manage that, then when the time comes, in accord with our Palestinian friends, we might underline the idea of this state politically, to lift it up a notch in a way," he said. "But the objective is the idea of a Palestinian state in the frontiers of 1967, with an exchange of territory, just as we have said all along."
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  • The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership said last year it would seek U.N. Security Council backing for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, referring to the West Bank and Gaza Strip borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 Middle East war. It said the initiative would not be a unilateral declaration of statehood but would aim to secure international support for the eventual creation of a state based on the 1967 borders.
  • Israel has sharply criticised the idea of any unilateral initiative and says only negotiations can produce results. But there has been growing speculation in Israel that the Palestinians are looking for ways around direct talks which have been suspended for over a year.
  • A think-tank close to the Israeli government says the Palestinians "have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood" with serious implications for Israel. "Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia," said a recent paper by Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. The EU and the United States recognised the independence of Kosovo without the support of a Security Council resolution. Palestinian leaders now believe "geopolitical conditions are ripe" to follow that path, Diker said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Obama urges China to back Iran nuclear sanctions | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ama-urges-china-iran-sanctions

China US Iran Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Barack Obama has urged Beijing to "ratchet up the pressure" on Iran over its nuclear programme after a breakthrough for the US administration in persuading China to agree to talks on fresh sanctions against Tehran.
  • diplomats say that while China's agreement to discuss sanctions is a step towards greater unity over Iran, the US and China remain a considerable distance from reaching agreement.China is the last permanent member of the UN security council to oppose any new measures, although there is disagreement among the other permanent members over the extent of additional sanctions.
  • Western officials claimed a breakthrough on Wednesday when they said China had agreed to start drafting a fourth UN security council resolution for sanctions against Iran. They said that in a conference call diplomats from the permanent five members of the security council and Germany had begun discussing the content of a new resolution for the first time. China had hitherto argued that more sanctions were unnecessary and counterproductive.
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  • Obama has expressed hope that a new resolution can be agreed within weeks, before the end of spring, to maintain pressure on Iran. But European diplomats have warned the talks could take much longer. They suggest June might be a more realistic target.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Obama nuclear doctrine | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...obama-nuclear-review

US Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Obama has narrowed the role of nuclear weapons in US defence strategy, but has also left significant loopholes that will disappoint arms control advocates.
  • The biggest change is arguably in the "negative security assurance" contained in the review, a guarantee the US will not use its nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The Bush nuclear posture from 2001 (handily summarised here by GlobalSecurity.org) left open the option of using nuclear weapons against biological, chemical or mass conventional attack.
  • But here is the catch in the Obama doctrine. The tricky word is compliance. The US and its allies argue that Iran is not in compliance with its obligations under the NPT treaty, leaving Iran a potential target in the US nuclear operational plan. Depending on Syria's relations with the IAEA, the review could also be read as a warning to Damascus.
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  • There is another caveat - a concession to the nuclear hawks at the Pentagon. The negative security assurance is not irrevocable.Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons and the rapid pace of bio-technology development, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and US capacities to counter that threat.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel's nuclear standoff | Meir Javedanfar | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...israel-nuclear-standoff-summit

Israel Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Apr 10 - Cached
  • As Dr Avner Cohen, the author of the forthcoming book, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb, stated in a recent TV interview with Russia Today: "The issue of nuclear terrorism is close to Netanyahu's heart, and he should have come to the summit."
  • By refusing to attend, Israel will be missing a vital opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with other countries in addressing, and cooperating, over this very important issue. This impacts on Israel's security directly as Israel needs the co-operation of other countries – for example, politically or in intelligence-gathering.
  • As the issue of settlements is undoubtedly one of the main reasons behind Netanyahu's refusal to attend the summit, what it means is that the settlements policy is becoming an liability with regard to Israel's security concerns.
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  • By refusing to attend, Netanyahu has placed Israel alongside Iran in the category of countries which will be absent from the summit. The only difference is that Iran was not invited, even though it would have dearly loved to attend in order to use the platform to represent its own interests. This is why it is arranging its own conference, scheduled for 17 and 18 April.
  • Israel was invited, but refuses to attend because it doesn't like what two countries are going to mention.
  • This is not the time for Netanyahu to turn his back on them and the international community. The issue of the Iranian nuclear programme is far more important and urgent than the current Israeli government's settlement policies.The expansion of construction in East Jerusalem must stop, in order to enable Israel and the international community to address Ayatollah Khamenei's nuclear ambitions
Pedro Gonçalves

Sarkozy: If we don't act, Israeli will strike Iran - Israel News, Ynetnews - 0 views

www.ynetnews.com/...0,7340,L-3875115,00.html

Israel Iran Sarkozy Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 13 Apr 10 - Cached
  • "I do not want the world to wake up to a conflict between Israel and Iran, because the international community has been incapable of acting," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in an interview to CBS during his visit to the US to attend the Washington nuclear summit.
  • Sarkozy explained that the best way to prevent this "disaster" is to "take measures in order to get Israel to understand that we are determined to ensure its security."
  • He said the world powers were trying to bring about "the strongest, firmest possible sanctions" in the Security Council, but added, "If we don't - in other words, if we don't manage to get a majority of the Security Council, then the United States, Europe and others will have to shoulder our responsibilities."
Pedro Gonçalves

Eastern Europe, Seeking Energy Security, Turns to Shale Gas - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...12shale.html

Energy Europe Shale Gas

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 May 10 - Cached
  • The industrial Lublin and Podlasie basins of southeastern Poland are becoming major attractions for global energy giants hoping to tap into new sources for Europe.
  • “Shale can be a way to increase the region’s energy security, depending on what the results are of all these projects,” said Richard Morningstar, U.S special envoy for Eurasian energy, during a recent visit to Poland. “It is not a question of being independent from Russia. It is a question of having overall energy security.”
  • The GeoForschungsZentrum or GFZ Institute, a German research center for geosciences in Potsdam, has estimated that Europe has 510 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, perhaps 5 percent of the world’s supply. Europe contains “prime targets for shale gas exploration,” the institute said. Those targets include Poland, Germany, Hungary, Romania and Turkey, all of which have received overtures from U.S. energy companies.
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

Pakistan Strife Raises U.S. Doubts on Nuclear Arms - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04nuke.html

Pakistan Nuclear Weapons US

shared by Argos Media on 04 May 09 - Cached
  • As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.
  • The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.
  • Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said. Some of the Pakistani reluctance, they said, stemmed from longstanding concern that the United States might be tempted to seize or destroy Pakistan’s arsenal if the insurgency appeared about to engulf areas near Pakistan’s nuclear sites.
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  • The Obama administration inherited from President Bush a multiyear, $100 million secret American program to help Pakistan build stronger physical protections around some of those facilities, and to train Pakistanis in nuclear security. But much of that effort has now petered out, and American officials have never been permitted to see how much of the money was spent, the facilities where the weapons are kept or even a tally of how many Pakistan has produced. The facility Pakistan was supposed to build to conduct its own training exercises is running years behind schedule.
  • Mr. Zardari heads the country’s National Command Authority, the mix of political, military and intelligence leaders responsible for its arsenal of 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. But in reality, his command and control over the weapons are considered tenuous at best; that power lies primarily in the hands of the army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the former director of Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s intelligence agency.
  • Several current officials said that they were worried that insurgents could try to provoke an incident that would prompt Pakistan to move the weapons, and perhaps use an insider with knowledge of the transportation schedule for weapons or materials to tip them off. That concern appeared to be what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hinting at in testimony 10 days ago before the House Appropriations Committee. Pakistan’s weapons, she noted, “are widely dispersed in the country.”
  • “There’s not a central location, as you know,” she added. “They’ve adopted a policy of dispersing their nuclear weapons and facilities.” She went on to describe a potential situation in which a confrontation with India could prompt a Pakistani response, though she did not go as far as saying that such a response could include moving weapons toward India — which American officials believed happened in 2002. Other experts note that even as Pakistan faces instability, it is producing more plutonium for new weapons, and building more production reactors.
Argos Media

Pakistan nuclear projects raise US fears | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...pakistan-nuclear-security

Pakistan Nuclear Weapons US John Bolton

shared by Argos Media on 04 May 09 - Cached
  • Pakistan is continuing to expand its nuclear bomb-making facilities despite growing international concern that advancing Islamist extremists could overrun one or more of its atomic weapons plants or seize sufficient radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, US nuclear experts and former officials say.
  • David Albright, previously a senior weapons inspector for the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq, said commercial satellite photos showed two plutonium-producing reactors were nearing completion at Khushab, about 160 miles south-west of the capital, Islamabad.
  • Albright warned that the continuing development of Pakistan's atomic weapons programme could trigger a renewed nuclear arms race with India. But he suggested a more immediate threat to nuclear security arose from recent territorial advances in north-west Pakistan by indigenous Taliban and foreign jihadi forces opposed to the Pakistani government and its American and British allies.
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  • The Khushab reactors are situated on the border of Punjab and North-West Frontier province, the scene of heavy fighting between Taliban and government forces. Another allegedly vulnerable facility is the Gadwal uranium enrichment plant, less than 60 miles south of Buner district, where some of the fiercest clashes have taken place in recent days.
  • Uncertainty has long surrounded Pakistan's nuclear stockpile. The country is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or the comprehensive test ban treaty. Nor has it submitted its nuclear facilities to international inspection since joining the nuclear club in 1998, when it detonated five nuclear devices. Pakistan is currently estimated to have about 200 atomic bombs.
  • Although Pakistan maintains a special 10,000-strong army force to guard its nuclear warheads and facilities, western officials are also said to be increasingly concerned that military insiders with Islamist sympathies may obtain radioactive material that could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb, for possible use in terrorist attacks on western cities.
  • Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, told Congress recently that Pakistan had dispersed its nuclear warheads to different locations across the country in order to improve their security. But John Bolton, a hawkish former senior official in the Bush administration, said this weekend that this move could have the opposite effect to that intended."There is a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control. Such weapons could then find their way to al-Qaida or other terrorists, with obvious global implications," Bolton said.
  • Bolton threw doubt on President Barack Obama's assurance last week that while he was "gravely concerned" about the stability of Pakistan's government, he was "confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands". Since there was a real risk of governmental collapse, Bolton said the US must be prepared for direct military intervention inside Pakistan to seize control of its nuclear stockpile and safeguard western interests.
  • Senior British officials have also poured cold water on some of the more sensational statements emanating from Washington. "There is obvious concern but it is not at the same level as the state department. We are not concerned Pakistan is about to collapse. The Taliban are not going to take Islamabad. There is a lot of resilience in the Pakistani state," one official said.
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