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Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | US and Russia hold nuclear talks - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8015897.stm

US Russia Nuclear Weapons Start I

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • US and Russian negotiators are meeting in Rome to begin work on a new treaty to curb nuclear weapons. The talks are the first step towards replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start-1), signed in 1991, which runs out at the end of the year.
  • In particular, Moscow has expressed concern at US plans to build an anti-missile system in central Europe.
  • "One should bear in mind that the lower we go in terms of the numbers of warheads, the more serious issues linked to missile defence and the strategic potential of other nuclear powers appear," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Russian news agency Interfax.
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  • Russia has also said it would like to see a cut in delivery systems, such as rockets and submarines, not just warheads - an area not covered by existing agreements.
  • But both sides want to reduce their nuclear arsenals, the BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome says.
  • Both presidents want the new deal to improve on an agreement by their predecessors in 2002 to cut deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 on each side by 2012.
Argos Media

Ex-Leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Seeks Presidency - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...23iran.html

Iran Politics Mohsen Rezai Saeed Leylaz Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mir-Hussein Moussavi Mehdi Karroubi

shared by Argos Media on 23 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A hard-line politician and former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, announced Wednesday that he would enter the presidential race, indicating additional splintering among the country’s conservatives.
  • Mr. Rezai, who oversaw the Revolutionary Guards from 1981 to 1997, had been seeking to unite conservative politicians behind another candidate to compete against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he decided instead to become a candidate himself in the presidential election, to be held June 12, Iranian news media reported.
  • Mr. Rezai, who has accused Mr. Ahmadinejad of mismanaging the economy, will run as an independent candidate, the ISNA news agency reported.
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  • His candidacy underscores the political fragmenting of a conservative faction known as the Principlists, which threw its support behind Mr. Ahmadinejad when he ran for president in 2004. Some leading figures who supported Mr. Ahmadinejad then have not publicly backed him this time.
  • Mr. Rezai was a candidate in the 2004 presidential race, but he withdrew before the election.
  • Politicians who favor more political and social openness, along with closer ties to the West, have also been unable to coalesce around a single candidate. They are divided between a former prime minister, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and a former speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi.
  • “Mr. Mousavi had thought that he could easily raise huge support by announcing his candidacy,” said Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst in Tehran, referring to Mr. Mousavi’s unexpected announcement last month that he would run for president.“The situation can dramatically change in his favor if he clarifies his position with reformers,” Mr. Leylaz said.
  • Opponents have accused Mr. Ahmadinejad of economic mismanagement and of using government money to attract support for a second term. His government has come under attack in the past month for distributing about 400,000 tons of potatoes around the country and giving bonuses, including gold coins, to civil servants, Iranian newspapers have reported.
  • In another development, Iran announced Wednesday that it welcomed nuclear talks and said it was ready to offer a proposal to resolve the dispute over its uranium enrichment activities, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Mr. Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran would take part in talks, and Wednesday’s statement appeared to be an official response to an April 8 invitation by six major powers for a meeting.
Argos Media

New Military Command to Focus on Cybersecurity - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB124035738674441033.html

US Pentagon Cyber Security NSA Keith Alexander Rod Beckstrom Department of Homeland Security

shared by Argos Media on 22 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Obama administration plans to create a new military command to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, according to current and former officials familiar with the plans.
  • The initiative will reshape the military's efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia. The new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks, Pentagon officials said.
  • The move comes amid growing evidence that sophisticated cyberspies are attacking the U.S. electric grid and key defense programs. A page-one story in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that hackers breached the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter, and stole data.
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  • A White House team reviewing cybersecurity policy has completed its recommendations, including the creation of a top White House cyberpolicy official
  • Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to announce the creation of a new military "cyber command" after the rollout of the White House review, according to military officials familiar with the plan.
  • The cyber command is likely to be led by a military official of four-star rank, according to officials familiar with the proposal. It would, at least initially, be part of the Pentagon's Strategic Command, which is currently responsible for computer-network security and other missions.
  • Pentagon officials said the front-runner to lead the new command is National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander, a three-star Army general.
  • Former President George W. Bush's top intelligence adviser, Mike McConnell, first proposed the creation of a unified cyber command last fall. The military's cybersecurity efforts are currently divided between entities like the NSA and the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is responsible for ensuring secure and reliable communications for the military. The Air Force also runs a significant cybersecurity effort.
  • Cyber defense is the Department of Homeland Security's responsibility, so the command would be charged with assisting that department's defense efforts. The relationship would be similar to the way Northern Command supports Homeland Security with rescue capabilities in natural disasters. The NSA, where much of the government's cybersecurity expertise is housed, established a similar relationship with Homeland Security through a cybersecurity initiative that the Bush administration began in its final year.
  • NSA's increasingly muscular role in domestic cybersecurity has raised alarms among some officials and on Capitol Hill. Rod Beckstrom, former chief of the National Cyber Security Center, which is charged with coordinating cybersecurity activities across the U.S. government, resigned last month after warning that the growing reliance on the NSA was a "bad strategy" that posed "threats to our democratic processes."
  • In a rare public appearance Tuesday at a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, Gen. Alexander called for a "team" approach to cybersecurity that would give the NSA lead responsibility for protecting military and intelligence networks while the Department of Homeland Security worked to protect other government networks.
Argos Media

Delegates Walk Out of Racism Conference as Ahmadinejad Speaks - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...21geneva.html

Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Israel Zionism UN Ban Ki-moon Navi Pillay

shared by Argos Media on 21 Apr 09 - Cached
  • President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Monday used the platform of a United Nations conference in Geneva on combating racism to disparage Israel as a “cruel and repressive racist regime,” prompting delegates from European nations to desert the hall and earning a rare harsh rebuke from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
  • As Mr. Ahmadinejad began to speak, two protesters wearing rainbow-hued clown wigs — their statement on the tenor of the proceedings — pelted him with red foam noses. Hustled out the door by security agents, they were soon followed by lines of stony-faced diplomats from the 23 European nations attending the conference. They walked out to the sound of some other delegates applauding Mr. Ahmadinejad.
  • The United States and more than a half-dozen other nations had already boycotted the gathering out of concern that it would focus on maligning Israel rather than on the global problems of discrimination, replaying the disputes that marked the first United Nations conference on combating racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.
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  • Member states, who wrangled for months over the draft document for the Geneva conference, had ultimately removed controversial statements about Israel; about what constitutes defamation of religion, a position pushed by Muslim states; and about compensation for slavery.
  • Besides the United States, the countries staying away included Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. Canada and Israel announced months ago that they would not attend.
  • “Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, grinning as he spoke, his remarks coincidentally falling on the day that Jewish communities mark the Holocaust. “And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine.”
  • The speech prompted the normally mild-mannered Mr. Ban and other top United Nations officials to voice uncommon criticism of the leader of a member state. “I have not experienced this kind of destructive proceedings in an assembly, in a conference, by any one member state,” Mr. Ban said.“I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian president to accuse, divide and even incite,” he said, urging members to “turn away from such a message in both form and substance.”
  • Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad for “grandstanding” from a United Nations dais and said his performance should not be an excuse to derail the important topic of the conference. She also made a not-so-subtle dig at Iran’s treatment of its own minorities, after noting that the president’s remarks were outside the scope of the conference. “This is what I would have expected the president of Iran to come and tell us: how he is addressing racial discrimination and intolerance in his country,” Ms. Pillay said.
  • Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland to protest both the conference and meeting Sunday between the Swiss president, Hans-Rudolf Merz, and Mr. Ahmadinejad.
  • Not everyone at the conference was critical of the speech, which also wandered through topics like the economic collapse and Iraq and Afghanistan. “If we actually believe in freedom of expression, then he has the right to say what he wants to say,” the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Zamir Akram, told The Associated Press. “There were things in there that a lot of people in the Muslim world would be in agreement with, for example the situation in Palestine, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, even if they don’t agree with the way he said it.”
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Technology | Facebook users say yes to changes - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8016532.stm

Facebook Web 2.0

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Facebook users have voted to back changes which give them control over data and content they post on the site. Early results suggest 75% of those who voted support the proposals.
  • The vote was triggered by changes Facebook made to its terms and conditions in February. The move drew fire because it appeared to hand the social network site ownership of images, videos and data that users posted on profile pages. Low turnout In response to the criticism, Facebook withdrew the changed terms, wrote a new set and invited its 200 million members to make their views known.
  • In total about 600,000 people took part in the week-long vote. Initially, Facebook said it would only adopt those new terms if 30% of its members voted in support of them.
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  • However, writing in a blog posting on Facebook announcing the early results, Ted Ullyot, Facebook's legal chief, said it would adopt them anyway.
  • He said a preliminary count suggested 74.4% backed the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
Argos Media

Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...20detain.html

Abu Zubaydah CIA Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Michael Hayden Ramzi Binalshibh Torture

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.
  • The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum.
  • A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
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  • The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
  • Mr. Obama said C.I.A. officers who had used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods with the approval of the Justice Department would not be prosecuted. He has repeatedly suggested that he opposes Congressional proposals for a “truth commission” to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programs, including interrogation and warrantless eavesdropping.
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a yearlong, closed-door investigation of the C.I.A. interrogation program, in part to assess claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment, including slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in standing positions for days and confining them in small boxes, was necessary to get information.
  • The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines.
  • A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.
  • Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, would not comment when asked on the program “Fox News Sunday” if Mr. Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times. He said he believed that that information was still classified.
  • Mr. Hayden said he had opposed the release of the memos, even though President Obama has said the techniques will never be used again, because they would tell Al Qaeda “the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist.”
  • He also disputed an article in The New York Times on Saturday that said Abu Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying that he believed that after unspecified “techniques” were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.
Argos Media

The Waiting Game: How Will Iran Respond to Obama's Overtures? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618764,00.html

Iran US Nuclear Proliferation

shared by Argos Media on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Ahmadinejad's program includes a visit to Isfahan's nuclear facilities on the outskirts of the city, where scientists are working on uranium enrichment. This is one of the mysterious factories the world fears, because it believes that the Iranians are building a nuclear bomb there.
  • This is the Iranian theocracy that sends shivers down the world's collective spine. For many, Iran is a nightmarish country, a combination of high-tech weapons and a religious ideology based on 1,400-year-old martyr legends that focuses on suffering. It is an isolated and unpredictable country, a wounded civilization whose leaders are taking their revenge on the West by striving to develop nuclear weapons and financing radical Islamists from Hamas to Hezbollah.
  • The Iranian president is currently under more pressure than usual. He is being asked to venture into new territory and respond to America's offer to relax tensions. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, threatened Tehran with "regime change" of the sort he announced and implemented in neighboring Iraq. Bush refused to so much as negotiate over the Iranian nuclear program and, with the arrogance of a superpower, helped unify the Iranian public against the "USA, the Great Satan." It was Bush who ensured that the relatively unpopular regime of mullahs, despite its mishandling of the economy, could stabilize itself.
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  • Since the election of the new American president, who promised a change in foreign policy, it is no longer as easy for Ahmadinejad to demonize the United States, especially now that Obama has lived up to his promise of a new beginning -- with a practically revolutionary gesture.
  • The initial reaction from the Iranian leadership was muted. In a televised address, the powerful religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 69, said he was disappointed that Obama had not at least released Iran's frozen assets in the United States.
  • As hysterical as the Iranian leadership's anti-Americanism seems to be at times, it has valid historical reasons. In 1953, Washington's intelligence service brought down democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and then massively supported the Shah dictatorship for a quarter century. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was only able to launch his war against Iran with the help of American weapons and logistical guidance from Washington. The war lasted eight bloody years and ended in stalemate.
  • Hostility to the United States has become one of the key pillars of the theocracy. Will it collapse under Obama's friendliness and potentially substantial American good will? Can an American "grand bargain," a mixture of comprehensive political and economic concessions, stop the Iranians from building the nuclear weapons many believe they are seeking to develop? The United States, at any rate, will participate in all nuclear talks in the future, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday. The previous members of the negotiating group promptly invited Iran to enter a new round.
  • The US president is also under pressure to achieve progress on the nuclear issue. Time is running out for Obama, because the Iranians, according to a report released in February by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, may already have reached "breakout capability." This means that with their centrifuges and more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium hexafluoride, the Iranians could soon be able to flip the switch in the direction of having their own bomb.
  • Tehran installed and placed into service about 6,000 centrifuges needed for uranium enrichment in its nuclear facilities.
  • Now the existing, low enriched uranium hexafluoride can be refined to make weapons-grade uranium, either in the country's known enrichment facilities or, as many experts assume, in a location that remains unknown. If one thing is clear, it is that once it becomes known that Iran has embarked on this next enrichment step -- which, until now, has apparently been held up by a political decision -- a military strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities will be all but unavoidable. Experts believe that once this decision is reached, it could take less than six months for the Iranians to build their first bomb.
Argos Media

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...08moldova.html

Facebook Moldova Politics Politics 2.0 Social Media Twitter Web 2.0

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.
  • The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.
  • The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.
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  • By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.
  • Young people have increasingly used the Internet to mobilize politically; cellphones and text messages helped swell protests in Ukraine in 2004, and in Belarus in 2006.
  • The immediate cause of the protests were parliamentary elections held on Sunday, in which Communists won 50 percent of the vote, enough to allow them to select a new president and amend the Constitution. Though the Communists were expected to win, their showing was stronger than expected, and opposition leaders accused the government of vote-rigging.
  • Election observers from the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had tentatively accepted the voting as fair, though they expressed some concern about interference from the authorities. But the results were a deep disappointment in the capital, where Communist candidates lost the last round of municipal elections.
  • Behind the confrontation is a split in Moldova’s population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought benefits to much of Eastern Europe, but in Moldova it ushered in economic decline and instability. In 2001, angry citizens backed the return of the Communists and their social programs.
  • But Moldova remained desperately poor, and young people flocked overseas to work. They have looked to the West as the best path to economic stability and have defied Mr. Voronin’s government by urging closer integration with Romania.
  • “I wouldn’t necessarily call it an anti-Communist movement,” Mr. Patterson said. “This really is a generational squeeze. It’s not really the Communists versus the opposition. It’s the grandmothers versus the grandkids.”
Argos Media

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

www.nytimes.com/...01diplo.html

Iran Afghanistan US Richard Holbrooke Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh Hillary Clinton

shared by Argos Media on 01 Apr 09 - Cached
  • It was brief, it was unscheduled and it was not substantive, but a meeting Tuesday between Richard C. Holbrooke, a presidential envoy, and an Iranian diplomat marked the first face-to-face encounter between the Obama administration and the government of Iran.
  • Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that Mr. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, greeted Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, on the sidelines of a major conference here devoted to Afghanistan.
  • “It was cordial, unplanned and they agreed to stay in touch,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters at the end of the conference. “I myself did not have any direct contact with the Iranian delegation.”
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  • Mrs. Clinton also said the United States handed the Iranian delegation a letter requesting its intercession in the cases of two American citizens who are being held in Iran and another who is missing.
  • Some officials, including Mrs. Clinton, are skeptical that Iran’s leaders will ever embrace the American overtures. But reaching out, analysts say, keeps Iran on the defensive by demonstrating to the Europeans, the Russians and others that the United States is sincerely trying. And talking about Afghanistan is easier than confronting more divisive issues, especially Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
  • Mrs. Clinton also reacted warmly to remarks delivered by Mr. Akhondzadeh about what Iran would do to aid reconstruction in Afghanistan and to cooperate in regional efforts to crack down on the booming Afghan drug trade, which is spilling across the Iranian border.
  • “The fact that they came today, that they intervened today, is a promising sign that there will be future cooperation,” she said. “The Iranian representative set forth some very clear ideas that we will all be pursuing together.”
  • Iran cooperated with the United States on Afghanistan in the days after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and administration officials still view it as one of the most promising avenues for a reconciliation. Mrs. Clinton had pushed for Iran to be included on the invitation list for the United Nations-sponsored conference.
  • Iran, which was a no-show at the last Afghanistan conference, in Paris, did not send an official of Mrs. Clinton’s level, unlike most participants. But by sending Mr. Akhondzadeh, a former ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, it was clearly not trying to avoid contact.
  • At the conference, Iran offered support and criticism of the Obama administration’s new policy on Afghanistan. It praised the focus on regional cooperation, but it argued that sending more foreign troops to Afghanistan would be ineffective.
Pedro Gonçalves

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."
  • 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".
  • Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said an independent Scotland would have to "join the queue" for EU membership.
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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."
Pedro Gonçalves

Saudi appointment sheds new light on family succession | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...saudiarabia-middleeast

Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Nayef

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 07 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • appointment of the kingdom's new interior minister, Mohammed Bin Nayef. The significance of the sudden move is that he is the first of the younger generation of the Al Saud to be given one of the top jobs in the kingdom — which is being taken as a good indicator of the likely future succession.
  • Bin Nayef is well known and respected in the west, especially by its security and intelligence agencies, from his years as deputy minister of the interior, coordinating counter-terrorist efforts and running a successful "de-radicalisation" programme for repentant jihadis. He had an extraordinarily lucky escape in August 2009 when an al-Qaida suicide bomber from Yemen blew himself up in the minister's palace but left his target only lightly injured.
  • MBN, as he is known in leaked US diplomatic cables, is just 53 and thus counts as a youngster in the Saudi system. He is the son of the late Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, who died last June after serving as interior minister for three decades.
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  • MBN is the first grandson of the kingdom's founder Abdulaziz Ibn Saud to be appointed to one of the main leadership positions in the country in recent years. It certainly puts him in the running to be crown prince-in-waiting - and a future king. Change at the top in Saudi Arabia still takes place at a glacial pace - despite (or perhaps because of) the winds of change elsewhere in the region. This therefore counts, most observers agree, as a highly significant move.
  • back in 2009 MBN was marked as a favourite by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, the Emirati commentator, who pointed to another factor which seems to put the new minister in line for the very top job: MBN's claims to the throne are unrivalled in one aspect: out of some thousands of Al-Saud royals, including the top 100 or so involved in security affairs, MBN is one of the very few to be able to claim that he has 'paid in blood' for his country – and that is a tough claim to beat.
Pedro Gonçalves

New Cyberwar Rules Of Engagement: Will The U.S. Draft Companies To Fight? - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...s-draft-companies-to-fight.php

Cyber Security Cyber Warfare US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • In a speech to business leaders in New York City Oct. 11, Panetta for the first time admitted the U.S. armed forces were prepared to take on an offensive role against any cyber attackers who seek to cause significant harm to the U.S. - or the loss of life to its citizens. Prior to this statement, the military has acknowledged only a defensive stance against such attacks.
  • The Washington Post reports that among those new rules of engagement, "for the first time, military cyber-specialists would be able to immediately block malware outside the Pentagon’s networks in an effort to defend the private sector against an imminent, significant physical attack, The Post has reported. At present, such action requires special permission from the President."
  • at least one academic paper has argued that companies be drafted to participate in cyberwarfare. "Cyberwarfare… will penetrate the territorial borders of the attacked state and target high-value civilian businesses," wrote University of Dayton Professor Susan Brenner in 2011. "Nation-states will therefore need to integrate the civilian employees of these (and perhaps other) companies into their cyberwarfare response structures if a state is able to respond effectively to cyberattacks. "While many companies may voluntarily elect to participate in such an effort, others may decline to do so, which creates a need, in effect, to conscript companies for this purpose," Brenner and her co-author, attorney Leo Clarke, added.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - End of empire for Western universities? - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...business-18646423

Education EU India China US Society OECD

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 11 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The forecasts for the shape of the "global talent pool" in 2020 show China as rapidly expanding its graduate numbers - set to account for 29% of the world's graduates aged between 25 and 34.
  • The biggest faller is going to be the United States - down to 11% - and for the first time pushed into third place, behind India.
  • The US and the countries of the European Union combined are expected to account for little more than a quarter of young graduates.
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  • Across the industrialised world, graduate numbers are increasing - just not as quickly as China, where they have risen fivefold in a decade.
  • This changing world map will see Brazil having a bigger share of graduates than Germany, Turkey more than Spain, Indonesia three times more than France.
  • The UK is bucking the trend, projected to increase its share from 3% in 2010 to 4% in 2020.
  • "There are more students in China than ever before - but they still use Western mechanisms to publish results, they accept the filters," says Prof Mayer-Schonberger.
  • The maps also reveal how much Africa and South America are losing out in this new scramble for digital power.
  • "Each era has its own distinct geography. In the information age, it's not dependent on roads or waterways, but on bases of knowledge. "This is a new kind of industrial map. Instead of coal and steel it will be about universities and innovation."
Pedro Gonçalves

Islamists secure top spot in new Egypt parliament | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...-results-idUKTRE80K0H620120121

Egypt

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 21 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Islamists of various stripes have taken about two thirds of seats in the assembly
  • the Brotherhood's electoral alliance took a 38 percent share of the seats allocated to lists.
  • The hardline Islamist Al-Nour Party won 29 percent of list seats. The liberal New Wafd and Egyptian Bloc coalition came third and fourth respectively.
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  • The Revolution Continues coalition, dominated by youth groups at the forefront of the protests that toppled Mubarak, attracted less than a million votes and took just seven of the 498 seats up for grabs in the lower house.
  • Under a complex electoral system, two thirds or 332 of the seats in lower house are decided by proportional representation on closed party lists. The other third are contested by individual candidates.
  • The arrival of a new generation of politicians with a genuine popular mandate suggests parliament will seek to temper the power of the ruling military council, which has pledged to step aside at the end of June.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Obama unveils new strategy for 'leaner' US military - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-16430405

US Military

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • The future will see fewer counter-insurgency battles in distant lands. It will focus much more on the capacity of America's air and naval forces to balance a competitor like China or face down an antagonist like Iran. And it will scale back America's much-heralded ability to fight two wars at once.
  • The president said the new strategy would end "long-term, nation-building with large military footprints". The Pentagon would instead pursue a national security strategy based on "smaller conventional ground forces".
  • Mr Panetta said on Thursday the review would make the US military "more agile, more flexible, ready to deploy quickly".
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  • The Pentagon has long debated its doctrine on being able to wage two wars simultaneously. In 2001, former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that strategy was not working. And when the US was in fact fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the military suffered a shortage of manpower.
Pedro Gonçalves

Egypt Islamists claim presidency as army tightens grip | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...election-idUKBRE85G01W20120618

Egypt

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 18 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • The Brotherhood has contested the army's power to dissolve parliament and warned of "dangerous days" ahead. But few expect the Islamists, who were not in the vanguard of the revolt and spent much of the past year in uneasy symbiosis with the army, to launch a violent grab for power any time soon.
  • The failure of the new parliament to agree a consensus body to draft a constitution - liberals accuse the Islamists of packing the panel with religious zealots - has left Egyptians picking their way from revolution to democracy through a legal maze while the generals control the map and change it at will.
  • Under the latest order, writing of the new constitution may pass to a body appointed by the SCAF - if a court rules against the contested panel nominated by the now defunct legislature.Any new constitution would need approval in a referendum, with a new parliamentary election following. By a timetable contained in the decree, it would take another five months or so to complete the planned "transition to democracy".
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Egypt seeks softer US Hamas line - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7949999.stm

Egypt Israel Palestine US Omar Suleiman Middle East Hamas Gaza Fatah

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Egypt's intelligence chief is visiting Washington in what officials say is a push for a more flexible US stance on Hamas, to aid Palestinian unity talks.
  • Talks in Cairo to end the rift between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have faltered over the issue. The division between the factions is also a major barrier to reconstruction in Gaza after Israel's offensive. Cairo's influential head of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, is the chief mediator in the talks aimed at forging a Palestinian national unity government.
  • An unnamed US official told AFP news agency that Mr Suleiman had met US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Tuesday and might meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday.
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  • Egyptian and Palestinian officials told AP news agency that Egypt is suggesting the US would accept a commitment from Hamas to "respect" existing Palestinian agreements with Israel, rather than "commit" to them.
  • Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of Israel, although the group has also offered a long-term truce if Israel withdraws to its pre-5 June 1967 borders.
  • Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit is currently in Brussels for talks with officials including European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Argos Media

US will appoint Afghan 'prime minister' to bypass Hamid Karzai | World news | guardian.... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...s-afghan-plan-to-bypass-karzai

US Afghanistan Hamid Karzai

shared by Argos Media on 23 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.
  • As well as watering down Karzai's personal authority by installing a senior official at the president's side capable of playing a more efficient executive role, the US and Europeans are seeking to channel resources to the provinces rather than to central government in Kabul.
  • The idea of a more dependable figure working alongside Karzai is one of the proposals to emerge from the White House review, completed last week. Obama, locked away at the presidental retreat Camp David, was due to make a final decision this weekend.Obama is expected to focus in public on overall strategy rather than the details, and, given its sensitivity, to skate over ­Karzai's new role. The main recommendation is for the Afghanistan objectives to be scaled back, and for Obama to sell the war to the US public as one to ensure the country cannot again be a base for al-Qaida and the Taliban, rather than the more ambitious aim of the Bush administration of trying to create a European-style democracy in Central Asia.Other recommendations include: increasing the number of Afghan troops from 65,000 to 230,000 as well as expanding the 80,000-strong police force; ­sending more US and European civilians to build up Afghanistan's infrastructure; and increased aid to Pakistan as part of a policy of trying to persuade it to tackle al-Qaida and Taliban elements.
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  • No names have emerged for the new role but the US holds in high regard the reformist interior minister appointed in October, Mohammed Hanif Atmar.
  • The risk for the US is that the imposition of a technocrat alongside Karzai would be viewed as colonialism, even though that figure would be an Afghan. Karzai declared his intention last week to resist a dilution of his power. Last week he accused an unnamed foreign government of trying to weaken central government in Kabul."That is not their job," the Afghan president said. "Afghanistan will never be a puppet state."
Argos Media

Gaza war crime claims gather pace as more troops speak out | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...stinian-territories-war-crimes

Israel War Crimes Palestine Gaza Break the Silence

shared by Argos Media on 22 Mar 09 - Cached
  • An investigation by a group of former Israeli soldiers has uncovered new evidence of the military's conduct during the assault on Gaza two months ago. According to the group Breaking the Silence, the witness statements of the 15 soldiers who have come forward to describe their concerns over Operation Cast Lead appear to corroborate claims of random killings and vandalism carried out during the operation made by a separate group of anonymous servicemen during a seminar at a military college.
  • "This is not a military that we recognise," said Mikhael Manekin, one of the former soldiers involved with the group. "This is in a different category to things we have seen before. We have spoken to a lot of different people who served in different places in Gaza, including officers. We are not talking about some units being more aggressive than others, but underlying policy. So much so that we are talking to soldiers who said that they were having to restrain the orders given."
  • Manekin described how soldiers had reported their units being specifically warned by officers not to discuss what they had seen and done in Gaza.
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  • The outlines of the evidence gathered comes hard on the heels of the disclosure by the Oranim Academy's pre-military course last week of devastating witness accounts supplied by soldiers involved in the fighting, including the "unjustified" shooting of civilians.
  • With Israeli newspapers threatening new disclosures, the New York Times has weighed in with an interview with a reservist describing the rules of engagement for the Gaza operation. Amir Marmor, a 33-year-old military reservist, told the newspaper that he was stunned to discover the way civilian casualties were discussed in training talks before his tank unit entered Gaza in January. "Shoot and don't worry about the consequences" was the message from commanders, said Marmor. Describing the behaviour of a lieutenant-colonel who briefed the troops, Marmor added: "His whole demeanour was extremely gung-ho. This is very, very different from my usual experience. I have been doing reserve duty for 12 years, and it was always an issue how to avoid causing civilian injuries. He said that in this operation, we are not taking any chances. Morality aside, we have to do our job. We will cry about it later."
  • Last Thursday, the special rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Falk, said that the assault on Gaza appeared to be a "war crime of the greatest magnitude" and called on the UN to establish an experts' group to investigate potential violations.
  • Attempts by the Israeli media to publish the rules of engagement for the Gaza campaign have been blocked by the military censor, but in the past couple of weeks the contents of those rules have begun to to emerge in anecdotal evidence - suggesting strongly that soldiers were told to avoid Israeli casualties at all costs by means of the massive use of firepower in a densely populated urban environment.
  • An investigation by reporter Uri Blau, published on Friday in Haaretz, disclosed how Israeli soldiers were ordering T-shirts to mark the end of operations, featuring grotesque images including dead babies, mothers weeping by their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques. Another T-shirt designed for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex" next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A shirt designed for the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion depicts a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills".
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Renault jobs row rocks EU summit - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7955389.stm

EU France Economy Renault Neelie Kroes

shared by Argos Media on 21 Mar 09 - Cached
  • A new row over French protectionism has broken out, as EU leaders hold a summit in Brussels on the economic crisis. It followed the news that carmaker Renault was moving some production from Slovenia to create 400 jobs in France. The European Commission said it would seek urgent clarification. It comes only weeks after the EU agreed France could give state aid to its carmakers.
  • The BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels says the row over Renault could not have come at a worse moment for the EU, just as its leaders are calling on the US and others to tackle the global crisis by avoiding all forms of protectionism.
  • The argument erupted after French industry minister Luc Chatel told French radio that Renault would relocate part of its production from Slovenia to a plant at Flins, near Paris, creating 400 jobs there. A Renault spokeswoman said the company intended to increase production both in Slovenia and France and the shift was intended to meet a shortfall in capacity at its Slovenian plant. It denied the move was linked to a pledge to keep jobs in France in exchange for state aid. But EU competition commission Neelie Kroes told the BBC she was highly surprised and was seeking urgent clarification from the French authorities. Ms Kroes said she had received a pledge from Mr Chatel just a few weeks ago that an $8bn state bail-out for carmakers would not be linked to moving jobs to France, our correspondent reports.
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  • If the aid proves to be linked, Ms Kroes said, it is illegal under EU rules and should be paid back.
  • Last month, the French auto bail-out plan sparked a protectionism row after Mr Sarkozy suggested on TV that the money should not be used to rescue French-owned factories in Eastern Europe.
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