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Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | UK | MI6 boss in Facebook entry row - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8134807.stm

MI6 John Sawers Facebook

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns. The Mail on Sunday said his wife put details about their children and the location of their flat on the site. The details were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.
  • Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme: "Are you leading the news with that? The fact that there's a picture that the head of the MI6 goes swimming - wow, that really is exciting. "It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks, for goodness sake let's grow up.
  • Sir John is due to replace Sir John Scarlett as head of the overseas Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He has been the UK's Permanent Representative to the UN since 2007. Before that he was political director at the Foreign Office, an envoy in Baghdad and a foreign affairs adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was in that post from 1999 to 2001 and was involved in the Kosovo conflict and Northern Ireland peace process. Elsewhere overseas he worked in the British embassy in Washington, as an ambassador in Cairo and to South Africa from 1988 and 1991 when apartheid was ending. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version Print Sponsor BBC.adverts.write("storyprintsponsorship"); BBC.adverts.show("storyprintsponsorship"); bbc_adsense_slot = "adsense_middle";"pt" == "us" ? bbc_adsense_country = "pt" : bbc_adsense_country = "rest"; google_protectAndRun("ads_core.google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);Ads by GoogleZON TVCABOAdira já ao 3Play ZON TVCABO e veja os seus canais preferidos!www.ZON.pt/Pacotes_ZON3Spanish Lessons For YouStep-By-Step Audio Lessons. Get Them Now! Learn Fast.www.How-To-Speak.com/SpanishUK Embassy Visa ServicesFast track your visa application. Appoint Migration Expert today.migrationexpert.com/UK BBC.adverts.show("adsense_middle"); BBC.adverts.write("mpu");Advertisementhttp://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/bbccom.live.site.news/news_uk_content;sectn=news;ctype=content;news=uk;adsense_middle=adsense_middle;adsense_mpu=adsense_mpu;rsi=J08781_10008;rsi=J08781_10
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Anti-government clash in Georgia - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8036942.stm

Georgia Nino Burjanadze Russia Tbilissi NATO Dmitry Medvedev

shared by Argos Media on 07 May 09 - Cached

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    Anti-government clash in Georgia

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    Tensions appear to be rising in Tbilisi

    Anti-government protesters and police have clashed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, amid rising national tensions.

    Riot police used batons on protesters trying to enter a police compound where three people were being held over the alleged beating of a local journalist.

    The clashes were the first major unrest since anti-government demonstrations began in early April.

    They come a day after the authorities said they had thwarted an army mutiny at a base outside the capital.

  • Later in the evening, opposition leaders and supporters gathered outside parliament for a rally, as they have daily since 9 April.
  • The latest unrest comes as Georgia hosts a series of Nato training exercises amid angry condemnation from Russia. They are taking place close to areas where Russian troops are stationed in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said the drills, involving more than 1,000 soldiers from 18 countries, were "an overt provocation".
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  • On Tuesday, Mr Saakashvili claimed his government had put down a brief mutiny among a tank battalion. Tbilisi had said it was part of a Russian-linked coup attempt to kill Mr Saakashvili. But opposition parties said the alleged mutiny was a deliberate attempt by the government to distract attention from the new phase of anti-government protests.
  • Anti-government protesters and police have clashed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, amid rising national tensions. Riot police used batons on protesters trying to enter a police compound where three people were being held over the alleged beating of a local journalist. The clashes were the first major unrest since anti-government demonstrations began in early April. They come a day after the authorities said they had thwarted an army mutiny at a base outside the capital.
Pedro Gonçalves

US warns Israel off pre-emptive strike on Iran | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...us-warns-israel-strike-iran

Israel US Iran Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 01 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • US military commanders have warned their Israeli counterparts that any action against Iran would severely limit the ability of American forces in the region to mount their own operations against the Iranian nuclear programme by cutting off vital logistical support from Gulf Arab allies.
  • The US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain and the US air force has major bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Senior US officers believe the one case in which they could not rely fully on those bases for military operations against Iranian installations would be if Israel acted first.
  • "The Gulf states' one great fear is Iran going nuclear. The other is a regional war that would destabilise them," said a source in the region. "They might support a massive war against Iran, but they know they are not going to get that, and they know a limited strike is not worth it, as it will not destroy the programme and only make Iran angrier."
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  • Barak's comments appear to signal that Israel's new red line is an Iranian stockpile of about 200kg of 20%-enriched uranium in convertible form, enough if enriched further to make one bomb. Western diplomats argue the benchmark is arbitrary, as it would take Iran another few months to enrich the stockpile to 90% (weapons-grade) purity, and then perhaps another year to develop a warhead small enough to put on a missile.
  • Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said this week in London that it was the Iranian decision this year to convert a third of the country's stock of 20%-enriched uranium into fuel (making it harder to convert to weapons-grade material if Iran decided to make a weapon) that had bought another "eight to 10 months".
  • Israeli leaders had hinted they might take military action to set back the Iranian programme, but that threat receded in September when the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told the United Nations general assembly that Iran's advances in uranium enrichment would only breach Israel's "red line" in spring or summer next year.
  • France's president, François Hollande, met Netanyahu in Paris on Wednesday but rejected the push for military action."It's a threat that cannot be accepted by France," Hollande said, arguing for further sanctions coupled with negotiations. A new round of international talks with Iran are due after the US presidential elections, in which Tehran is expected to be offered sanctions relief in return for an end to 20% enrichment.
  • The UK government has told the US that it cannot rely on the use of British bases in Ascension Island, Cyprus, and Diego Garcia for an assault on Iran as pre-emptive action would be illegal. The Arab spring has also complicated US contingency planning for any new conflict in the Gulf.
  • US naval commanders have watched with unease as the newly elected Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has made overtures towards Iran. US ships make 200 transits a year through the Suez canal. Manama, the Fifth Fleet headquarters, is the capital of a country that is 70% Shia and currently in turmoil.
  • Ami Ayalon, a former chief of the Israeli navy and the country's internal intelligence service, Shin Bet, argues Israel too cannot ignore the new Arab realities."We live in a new Middle East where the street has become stronger and the leaders are weaker," Ayalon told the Guardian. "In order for Israel to face Iran we will have to form a coalition of relatively pragmatic regimes in the region, and the only way to create that coalition is to show progress on the Israel-Palestinian track."
Pedro Gonçalves

David Cameron warned off 'opportunism' over Europe | Politics | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...eron-warned-opportunism-europe

UK EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • David Cameron risks making "premature" and "opportunistic" demands in Europe and weakening Britain's power in Washington and other major capitals, the most senior diplomat to leave government in recent years has warned.Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain's ambassador to Washington until last year and before that the senior British diplomat in Brussels, said in a Guardian interview that recent warnings by the US administration urging Britain against staging a distracting referendum was "a conscious decision by the Obama administration to intervene in the UK debate", reflecting a long-standing view that it wanted its closest political ally closely involved in Europe.
  • Sheinwald said: "If Britain is active and influential in Washington that makes us more influential in Brussels, Delhi and elsewhere. Equally if we are influential in Europe, then we have a bigger impact in Washington and the other power capitals of the world. These things are mutually reinforcing.
  • "I just cannot see any logical basis for thinking a move to the sidelines, or particularly a move out of Europe, would be anything other than diminishing to UK's capacity, standing, influence, ability to get things done and capacity to build coalitions internationally."
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  • Sheinwald, who was ambassador to Washington between 2007 and 2012, is the most senior diplomatic figure to urge caution on Cameron. He was also the UK diplomatic lead in Brussels between 2000 and 2003, as well as chief foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair between 2003 and 2007. He is now a member of the thinktank and advocacy group Business for New Europe.
  • "We have sold investment in the UK on the basis that the UK is the best gateway into the single market. That is the way we have presented ourselves. American firms and firms from the far east have based themselves in London for that reason. That has been such a success over the past decade or 15 years."
  • "Investors are worried by the thought that we are going to end up outside the EU by mistake, or without thinking through the economic consequences or end up with an inferior model like Norway or Switzerland."
  • Such a move would exclude many foreign owned financial services from Britain, he said.
  • Philip Gordon, the US under-secretary for European affairs, last week used a briefing in the UK to urged Cameron not to hold a referendum.Sheinwald said the White House regard "another dose of uncertainty on top of the euro crisis as deeply unwelcome".
  • "They know it affects the pace of the recovery of the European economy. But they also know it will affect the ability of Europe to focus on other things so it will contribute to a weakening of European resolve for example in the middle east and whether Europe has a capacity in the area of security and defence. It will affect our ability to project our power and work with America on world problems."He added: "The idea, if there were an idea, of going it alone being somehow appealing to our traditional partners or to our future partners in Asia or elsewhere in the world has been undermined very significantly by the comments made by the Obama administration."
Pedro Gonçalves

EU threatens mass pullout of ambassadors from Tehran | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...iplomats-british-embassy-staff

Iran EU Iran Elections 2009

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • EU threatens mass pullout of ambassadors from Tehran Buzz up! Digg it Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 June 2009 20.06 BST Article history European Union members are threatening the collective withdrawal of their ambassadors from Iran to secure the release of the British embassy employees being held by the authorities.
  • European Union members are threatening the collective withdrawal of their ambassadors from Iran to secure the release of the British embassy employees being held by the authorities.
  • EU diplomats said tonight all the envoys could be recalled "temporarily" in solidarity with staff from the British mission in Tehran who have been accused – entirely falsely, UK officials insist – of involvement in protests over the "stolen" presidential election.
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  • As the row with Britain continued, Iran's guardian council, the country's top legislative body, confirmed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the disputed poll after a partial recount, finally dashing hopes of a different outcome.
  • Iran's foreign ministry had earlier appeared to respond to the warning by saying it did not wish to damage or downgrade relations with the UK, after a telephone conversation yesterday between David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and his Iranian counterpart, Manuchehr Mottaki. Miliband had demanded the immediate release of the embassy staff.But the fear in London is that the foreign ministry is not in control, with regime hardliners from the interior ministry and intelligence service calling the shots as part of a campaign to pin the blame for the unrest on foreign governments.
Pedro Gonçalves

David Cameron faces EU cabinet crisis as ministers break ranks | Politics | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ferendum-cabinet-david-cameron

UK EU Eurosceptics

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 13 May 13 - No Cached
  • David Cameron is struggling to maintain Tory discipline over Europe after cabinet loyalists Michael Gove and Philip Hammond said on Sunday they would vote to leave the European Union if a referendum were to be held now.
  • Gove, the education minister, confirmed for the first time that he believes that leaving the EU would have "certain advantages", while Hammond, the defence secretary, later said he too would vote to leave if he was asked to endorse the EU "exactly as it is today".
  • The remarks, which follow similar calls by Lord Lawson and Michael Portillo last week for Britain to leave Europe, are particularly significant because they are the first cabinet ministers to say they would vote to quit if an immediate referendum were held.
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  • The prime minister says that, if elected with a majority in 2015, he would hold a referendum by 2017. This would take place after a renegotiation of Britain's membership terms.
  • Hammond, interviewed for Pienaar's Politics on BBC radio, later said: "If the choice is between a European Union written exactly as it is today and not being a part of that then I have to say that I'm on the side of the argument that Michael Gove has put forward."
  • Theresa May, the home secretary, said she too would abstain. But she declined to say whether she would vote to leave the EU if a referendum were held now. The prime minister will be in the US when the Commons vote is held.
  • Boris Johnson backed Tory backbench demands for an EU referendum bill and warned Cameron he must make it clear Britain is "ready to walk away" unless its relationship is fundamentally reformed,
  • But the mayor of London also suggested that leaving the EU would expose the idea that most of Britain's problems are self-inflicted. "If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by 'Bwussels', but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure," Johnson wrote in his Daily Telegraph column."Why are we still, person for person, so much less productive than the Germans? That is now a question more than a century old, and the answer is nothing to do with the EU. In or out of the EU, we must have a clear vision of how we are going to be competitive in a global economy."
  • The prime minister's decision to highlight the benefits of EU membership is likely to be welcomed by Obama, whose advisers expressed concern in the runup to Cameron's EU speech in January, when he outlined his referendum plan.
Pedro Gonçalves

David Cameron offers olive branch on EU referendum as Ukip soars | Politics | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...david-cameron-eu-ukip

UK Ukip EU Eurosceptics

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 May 13 - No Cached
  • The poll findings, showing Ukip on a record high in an ICM poll of 18%
  • The poll shows that support for the three main parties has drained away to Ukip, with each of them down four points on last month – Labour dropping to 34%, the Tories 28%, and the Liberal Democrats 11% – as Nigel Farage's party gained nine points.
  • For all three established parties to be falling back in the polls at the same time is unprecedented in the 29-year history of the Guardian/ICM series. The Tories are plumbing depths they have not experienced in over a decade.
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  • The president first described Britain's EU membership as an "expression of its influence" around the world, but then offered measured praise for the prime minister's plan to renegotiate Britain's EU membership terms after the next election. He said: "You probably want to see if you can fix what is broken in a very important relationship before you break it off – that makes some sense to me."
  • Earlier Cameron – in danger of looking as weak as John Major at the height of the Maastricht crisis – took comfort from the broad endorsement of his European strategy by Barack Obama at a joint White House Press conference.
  • But Obama said he would wait to see if the negotiations succeeded before making a final judgment, and repeatedly stressed the need for the UK to be engaged.
  • The Guardian/ICM poll is remarkable because barring a single month in 2002, the Conservatives have not dropped below 28% since Tony Blair's long honeymoon in 1997-98. The Lib Dems have not fallen below today's 11% in the series since September of 1997, the immediate aftermath of Blair's first victory. Labour's 34% score is its lowest since the immediate aftermath of Gordon Brown's ejection from power, in July 2010.
  • The poll also shows that there is a clear "Farage factor" in the personal leadership ratings. Last month voters were split down the middle on his performance with 28% saying Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, was doing a good job, and 29% a bad job, giving a net negative score of –1. Today, the balance of opinion is running 40%:23% in his favour, a net positive of +17.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran and Syria put on show of unity in alliance Clinton finds 'troubling' | World news ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...lliance-clinton-america-israel

Iran Syria US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Iran and Syria put on a show of defiant unity today, scorning US efforts to break up their alliance and warning Israel not to risk attacking either of them.
  • "The Americans want to dominate the region but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that," Ahmadinejad said during a press conference with Assad."We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs to pack their things and leave. If the Zionist entity wants to repeats its past errors, its death will be inevitable."
  • Assad made clear that Syria would not distance itself from Iran, its ally since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. "We hope that others don't give us lessons about our region and our history," he said. "We are the ones who decide ... and we know our interests. We thank them for their advice. I find it strange how they talk about Middle East stability and at the same time talk about dividing two countries."
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  • Al-Jazeera reported that Ahmadinejad also met Khaled Mash'al, the Damascus-based leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas, and Ramadan Shallah of Islamic Jihad, both of which are supported by Tehran
  • Two years ago the military leader of Lebanon's Hizbullah, Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated in Damascus in an attack that was also blamed on Israel's secret service, the Mossad
  • Syria and Iran announced they were cancelling visa restrictions between their countries
  • Clinton said the US wanted Syria "generally to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran, which is so deeply troubling to the region as well as to the United States".
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran steps up pace and capacity of uranium enrichment, says IAEA report | World news | ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...an-uranium-enrichment-red-line

Iran Nuclear Weapons IAEA

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Iran has expanded its enrichment capacity and is enriching uranium at a pace that would bring it to what Israel has declared an unacceptable red line in just over seven months, according to a report by the UN nuclear watchdog.
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency also found that Iranian technicians had removed the fuel rods from the country's only functioning nuclear power station at Bushehr, suggesting the new reactor has serious problems.
  • Israeli official stated that the red line drawn by Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, during his UN appearance in September, represented 240kg of 20%-enriched uranium, enough to make a warhead if further enriched to weapons grade.
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  • The sensitivity of 20% uranium figure is that it can be turned into weapons grade relatively fast and easily.
  • The last time the IAEA inspectors drew up a report, three months ago, Iran had made 189kg of 20% uranium but had used nearly 100kg for civilian purposes, leaving an outstanding 96kg.In the last three months, that stockpile has grown by 43kg and Iran has not diverted any more of it to civil uses. At the current steady rate of production, that would bring Iran to the Israeli red line by mid-June. But it also installed new centrifuges at its underground enrichment plant in Fordow, with which it could double its rate of production if it chose to do so
Pedro Gonçalves

untitled - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...official-accused-mossad-murder

Israel Hamas Dubai Austria

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 18 Feb 10 - Cached
  • A key security operative of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was under arrest in Syria tonight on suspicion of having helped an alleged Israeli hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was assassinated in Dubai, the Guardian has learned.
  • Nahro Massoud, a Hamas security official, was in detention and under interrogation in Damascus in connection with the 19 January killing, which is now widely assumed to have been mounted by Israel's Mossad secret intelligence service.
  • Killings of Palestinians by Israel have often involved Palestinian agents being used to identity the target.
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  • Middle East experts and diplomats see the Dubai plot as part of a wider clandestine struggle between Israel and Hamas – and a deliberate attempt to weaken the Palestinian organisation's links with Iran. Israel considered Mabhouh to be the point man in smuggling longer-range Iranian rockets into Gaza that would be capable of striking Israel's urban heartland.
  • Dubai police identified Austria as ­"command centre" for the assassins, after mobile phone data showed at least seven numbers originating there.
  • In December 2008 radical Islamic terrorists also coordinated their bomb attacks in Mumbai, in which 160 people were killed, using Austrian mobile phone numbers.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel to propose removing some West Bank settlements | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...l-remove-west-bank-settlements

Israel Israeli Settlements Amona Benjamin Netanyahu Ehud Barak

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 May 09 - Cached
  • Israel to propose removing some West Bank settlements Barak hopes dismantling two dozen small outposts will win US support for more expansion in main areas Buzz up! Digg it Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 May 2009 11.52 BST Article history Israel is to propose removing two dozen Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in the hope of winning US support for the continued expansion of its main settlements, reports said today.
  • Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, will take the proposal to senior US administration officials in Washington next week, the Associated Press said.
  • Netanyahu held what was apparently a tense meeting with members of his Likud party yesterday and told them that Israel needed to make some compromise over its settlement-building enterprise in order to encourage Washington to take a tougher stance on Iran and its nuclear programme.
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  • Israel is to propose removing two dozen Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in the hope of winning US support for the continued expansion of its main settlements, reports said today.
  • "Soon we will have to take down outposts," Netanyahu told his party, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. "The first thing, as I see it, is to ensure the existence of the state of Israel … we are going to have to subordinate our priorities to existential needs and reach as broad a national unity as possible to repel the danger. Our relations with the United States are important and we must preserve them."
  • The proposal would mean taking down nearly two dozen settlement outposts – some of the smallest and most distant Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are not even sanctioned by the Israeli government. Netanyahu has made it clear he intends to continue building within the main settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, home to nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers.
  • In early 2006 nine homes in the outpost of Amona were taken down, but that required an operation involving thousands of Israeli police and soldiers. One small, new outpost near Ramallah was taken down last week, but settlers began rebuilding within hours. The settler movement has become ever more vocal and determined to protect its growing community. They can also count on considerable political support. Netanyahu's Likud party and other members of his rightwing coalition government remain deeply opposed to any retreat over settlements.
Argos Media

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

www.guardian.co.uk/...clinton-nato-russia

Russia NATO EU

shared by Argos Media on 11 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The Obama administration moved today to resume high-level relations with Moscow when Hillary Clinton led a western push to revive contacts between Russia and Nato.Making her European debut as secretary of state, Clinton told a meeting of Nato foreign ministers that Washington wanted "a fresh start" in relations with Moscow.
  • "I don't think you punish Russia by stopping conversation with them," she said, adding that there could be benefits to the better relationship. "We not only can but must co-operate with Russia."
  • The meeting in Brussels agreed to reinstate the work of the Nato-Russia council, a consultative body that was frozen last year in protest at Moscow's invasion and partition of Georgia.
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  • Diplomats said the accord and the talks in Geneva tomorrow could pave the way for the Obama administration to press ahead with a common agenda with Russia which would entail talks on nuclear arms control and on Russian co-operation with US policy on Afghanistan and Iran.The new White House team are clearly hoping to bypass the prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, and focus its diplomacy on President Dmitry Medvedev.
  • For any big shifts in the Russian-­American relationship, Moscow would insist on the shelving of the Pentagon's missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic and a freeze in the ­prospects for Ukraine and Georgia joining Nato.
  • The US and Germany tabled a joint proposal for yesterday's Nato meeting, leaving the contentious issue of Ukraine's and Georgia's membership chances open and urging greater co-operation with Russia "as equal partners in areas of common interest". It went on: "These include: Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, counter-piracy, counter-narcotics, non-proliferation, arms control and other issues."
  • "Russia is a global player. Not talking to them is not an option," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato secretary-general.
  • In the first big foreign policy speech from the Obama administration, in Munich last month, the vice-president, Joe Biden, said the White House wanted to "press the reset button" in relations with Moscow after years of dangerous drift.
  • The agreement today was held up for several hours by Lithuania, which strongly opposed the resumption of dialogue with the Kremlin.France and Germany, keen to develop close links with Moscow, threatened in turn to cancel scheduled meetings last night between Nato and Ukraine and Georgia if "the opening with Russia" was not given a green light, diplomats said.
Argos Media

Alistair Darling on the recession: it'll be over by Christmas | Business | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...recession-alistair-darling

UK Economy Alistair Darling

shared by Argos Media on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • Alistair Darling insists the recession will be over by Christmas, despite growing doubts over his economic forecasts.In an interview with the Times, the chancellor stuck by his predictions, even though other forecasters, including the International Monetary Fund, have published a much gloomier assessment of the economy. "I am not going to change my forecasts," Darling said. "I remain confident that we will see a return to growth at the turn of the year."In last month's budget, Darling predicted the economy would shrink by 3.5% this year and surprised the City when he forecast a rapid economic recovery, with growth of 1.25% in 2010 and the year after.
  • Since then, government figures have shown a shock 1.9% plunge in Britain's gross domestic product in the first three months of this year - the sharpest decline in almost three decades.The IMF does not share the chancellor's optimism and believes the economy will continue to shrink next year. It has forecast falls of 4.1% in output this year and 0.4% in 2010.
  • The chancellor shrugged off fears that Britain could slide into a deflationary spiral after figures yesterday showed retail prices plummeting at the fastest rate since 1948. The government's benchmark consumer price index, which excludes housing costs, still stands at 2.3%, above the Bank of England's 2% target. Darling said the fall in inflation "is in line with expectations. Deflation is something quite different".
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 … 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

MI6 and CIA heard Iraq had no active WMD capability ahead of invasion | World news | gu... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd-claims

Iraq War

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 18 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.
  • British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries.
  • Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, told the CIA's station chief in Paris at the time, Bill Murray, through an intermediary that Iraq had "virtually nothing" in terms of WMD.Sabri said in a statement that the Panorama story was "totally fabricated".
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  • three months before the war an MI6 officer met Iraq's head of intelligence, Tahir Habbush al-Tikriti, who also said that Saddam had no active WMD. The meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, took place days before the British government published its now widely discredited Iraqi weapons dossier in September 2002.
  • Butler says of the use of intelligence: "There were ways in which people were misled or misled themselves at all stages."
Pedro Gonçalves

Westminster rejects Alex Salmond claim on Scotland's EU membership | Politics | guardia... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...salmond-scotland-eu-membership

EU Scotland UK

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The UK government statement stressed that, unlike the Scottish government, it had obtained formal advice from its law officers and that Scotland would have to negotiate the terms of its EU membership with the UK and all other 26 member states.It said: "This government has confirmed it does hold legal advice on this issue. Based on the overwhelming weight of international precedent, it is the government's view that the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise the UK's existing international rights and obligations and Scotland would form a new state."The most likely scenario is that the rest of the UK would be recognised as the continuing state and an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU as a new state, involving negotiation with the rest of the UK and other member states, the outcome of which cannot be predicted."Referring to statements by European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and his deputy, Viviane Reding, that a newly independent country would be seen as a new applicant, it added: "Recent pronouncements from the commission support that view."
  • Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said an independent Scotland would have to "join the queue" for EU membership.
  • almond retaliated by quoting from an expert on the EU's borders, Graham Avery, a former strategy director at the commission who was made one of a number of honorary directors general of the European commission after he retired.In a submission to the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Avery supported Salmond's position that it was inconceivable that an independent Scotland would be expected to leave the EU and then reapply. Salmond said his opinion "rather puts the lie to the scaremongering campaign of Labour and their unionist colleagues in the Conservative party".
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  • "For practical and political reasons, they could not be asked to leave the EU and apply for readmission," Avery told the committee. "Negotiations on the terms of membership would take place in the period between the referendum and the planned date of independence. The EU would adopt a simplified procedure for the negotiations, not the traditional procedure followed for the accession of non-member countries."But Avery, now at St Antony's College, Oxford University, directly contradicted Salmond's assertions that an independent Scotland would not be expected to join the euro instead of sterling, and that it would not need to sign up to the Schengen agreement rules on security and immigration.Avery said independence would give Scotland a louder and stronger voice in the EU, but new member states "are required to accept [the euro and Schengen] on principle". While Scotland's position was still not clear, Avery warned: "In accession negotiations with non-member countries, the EU has always strongly resisted other changes or opt-outs from the basic treaties."
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran demands change in US policy - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7956504.stm

Iran Ali Khamenei US Obama

shared by Argos Media on 21 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded concrete policy changes from the US as the price for new relations between the two states.
  • Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded concrete policy changes from the US as the price for new relations between the two states. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he had seen no change in America's attitude or policy, singling out US support for Israel and sanctions against Iran. But he also said that if President Barack Obama altered the US position, Iran was prepared to follow suit. President Obama on Thursday offered "a new beginning" in relations with Iran.
  • BBC Iranian affairs analyst Sadeq Saba says that a minimum requirement for Iran would be a move by Washington to ease US sanctions.
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  • Speaking to a large crowd in the holy city of Mashhad, Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran had "no experience with the new American government and the new American president". One gesture the US administration could make would be to ease some sanctions on passenger aeroplanes and spare parts Cyrus, Tehran Iran views: Obama message "We will observe them and we will judge," he said. "If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude." In the speech, which was carried live by Iranian television, he said Iran was yet to see such a change. "What is the change in your policy?" he asked.
  • Speaking to a large crowd in the holy city of Mashhad, Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran had "no experience with the new American government and the new American president".
  • Speaking to a large crowd in the holy city of Mashhad, Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran had "no experience with the new American government and the new American president". One gesture the US administration could make would be to ease some sanctions on passenger aeroplanes and spare parts Cyrus, Tehran Iran views: Obama message "We will observe them and we will judge," he said. "If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude." In the speech, which was carried live by Iranian television, he said Iran was yet to see such a change. "What is the change in your policy?" he asked. "Did you remove the sanctions? Did you stop supporting the Zionist regime? Tell us what you have changed. Change only in words is not enough."
Argos Media

Palestinian attack suspected after two Israeli policemen shot dead | World news | guard... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...-israel-hamas-prisoner-release

Gilad Shalit Hamas Israel Ofer Dekel Palestine Yuval Diskin

shared by Argos Media on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Palestinian attack suspected after two Israeli policemen shot dead • Prisoner-swap deadline on eve of PM's departure• Gazan militants captured 22-year-old three years ago Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 March 2009 01.42 GMT Article history Two Israeli policemen were shot dead in the West Bank yesterday in what Israeli police said they suspected was a Palestinian attack.No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting, which took place near the mainly agricultural settlement of Massuah, in an area of the West Bank close to the border with Jordan that is under Israeli security control. "The main suspicion points to a nationalistic motive," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.The attack came as the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.
  • the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.
  • He sent Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, and Ofer Dekel, a long-time negotiator and former security official, with a reported offer that would have seen the release of some but not all the prisoners Hamas has demanded be freed in return for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
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  • Reports suggest Hamas has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Of those , around 450 are considered most important and Israeli reports said the Israeli security officials opposed the release of some and wanted certain others released only if they were immediately deported to another country, probably Syria. Around 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails.
Pedro Gonçalves

David Miliband challenged over ministers' differing explanations for Iraq war decision ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...avid-miliband-iraq-war-inquiry

Iraq War UK David Miliband

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Mar 10 - Cached
  • At the start of the foreign secretary's evidence to the Chilcot panel, Sir Roderic Lyne, a member of the inquiry panel, said it had heard "three rather different explanations as to why we took military action against Iraq in 2003".Tony Blair emphasised the need to impose regime change on Iraq, Lyne said. But Jack Straw, the foreign secretary at the time of the war, stressed the importance of dealing with Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction, Lyne said.And Gordon Brown, when he gave evidence on Friday last week, said he supported the war because he thought the will of the international community had to be enforced.
  • In his evidence Blair said the inquiry should consider what would have happened if the Iraq war had not taken place. He said that an Iraq still led by Saddam Hussein, competing with Iran to acquire WMD and support terrorism, could be an even greater threat today than Iraq was in 2003.
  • Miliband went on: "The authority of the UN would have been severely dented. If, in the hypothetical case you are putting, we had marched to the top of the hill of pressure and marched down again without disarming Saddam Hussein, that would really have been quite damaging [to the ability of the UN to work together].
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  • "People in the region will respect those who will see through what they say they favour, even though they disagree with it, and would say to me: 'You have sent a message that when you say something, you actually mean it,'" Miliband said.
  • He also insisted that Britain would not have gone to war if it had been known that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction."If there was convincing evidence there were no WMD, there would have been no UN resolution and ... no [parliamentary] vote."
Pedro Gonçalves

Britain denies any advance warning of plan to murder Hamas leader | World news | The Gu... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...-denies-knowledge-hamas-leader

UK Israel Mossad

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 20 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Britain has flatly denied any foreknowledge of a Mossad plan to assassinate a top official of the Palestinian group Hamas, in Dubai, amidst angry accusations in Whitehall that Israel is seeking to deflect blame from itself by implicating others.British government sources dismissed as "nonsense" a report claiming the Israeli secret service had given the UK advanced warning of possible complications arising from the illicit use of British passports in an unspecified "overseas operation" – the murder of the Hamas commander ­Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
  • Officials complained of misleading briefing, apparently by pro-Israeli sources, reflected in a report in Friday's Daily Mail, which claimed that the Foreign Office was told, albeit only in general terms, of an impending assassination. The Mail story was widely reported today, both in Israel and across the Arab world.
  • if Israeli official involvement were proved Britain would, at the very least, expect a public apology and guarantees that passports would not be stolen again. A more extreme option could be expelling diplomats from Israel's London embassy.
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  • Rival Palestinian factions, meanwhile, continued to trade accusations about involvement in the Dubai killing. Hamas named two Palestinians under arrest in the emirate as Anwar Sheibar and Ahmad Hassanein, former Gazan members of Fatah's security forces with links to the senior Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan. Al-Hayat, the London-based Arabic daily, quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying that the two had provided logistical aid to the alleged Mossad team.
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