Group items tagged

Speaking in Geneva, an expert from the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN's health agency, expert said the swine flu virus could be capable of mutating into a more dangerous strain but that more information was needed before raising the WHO's pandemic alert phase.

Only a handful of the Mexican cases have so far been laboratory-confirmed as swine flu, while in the US confirmed cases had only mild symptoms. Health experts want to know why some people become so seriously ill, while others just get a bit of a cold, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Switzerland.

Officials said most of those killed so far in Mexico were young adults - rather than more vulnerable children and the elderly. It is unclear how effective currently available flu vaccines would be at offering protection against the new strain, as it is genetically distinct from other flu strains.

H1N1 is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans but the newly detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

It is spread mainly through coughs and sneezes.

Ten New Zealand students from a group which visited Mexico have tested positive for Influenza A, making it "likely" they are infected with swine flu In France, a top health official told Le Parisien newspaper there were unconfirmed suspicions that two individuals who had just returned from Mexico might be carrying the virus Spain's health ministry says three people who returned from a trip from Mexico with flu symptoms are in isolation and being tested In Israel, medics are testing a 26-year-old man who has been taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from a trip to Mexico Two people in Queensland, Australia, are being tested in hospital after developing flu-like symptoms on returning from Mexico

Officials in Mexico confirmed that 20 people had died from the virus while another 61 deaths were suspected cases of swine flu. More than 1,300 people have been admitted to hospital with suspected symptoms since 13 April. With Mexico City apparently the centre of infection, many people are choosing to leave the city, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs reports.

Dr Fukuda said on Sunday there was no proof that eating pork would lead to infection. "Right now we have no evidence to suggest that people are getting exposed, or getting infected, from exposure to pork or to pigs, and so right now we have zero evidence to suspect that exposure to meat leads to infections," he said.

Although all of the deaths so far have been in Mexico, the flu is spreading in the United States and suspected cases have been detected elsewhere: Eleven confirmed infections in the US In addition, eight suspected cases are being investigated at a New York City high school where about 200 students fell mildly ill with flu-like symptoms Ten New Zealand students are among a group which travelled to Mexico have tested positive for influenza A - making it "likely", though not definite, that they are infected with swine flu, said Health Minister Tony Ryall In France, a top health official told Le Parisien newspaper there were unconfirmed suspicions that two individuals who had just returned from Mexico may be carrying the virus But a UK hospital conducting tests for swine flu on a British Airways cabin crew member said the tests proved negative.

Public buildings have been closed and hundreds of public events suspended.

Schools in and around Mexico City have been closed until 6 May, and some 70% of bars and restaurants in the capital have been temporarily closed.

People are being strongly urged to avoid shaking hands, and the US embassy has advised visitors to the country to keep at least six feet (1.8m) from other people. Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said a total of 1,324 people had been admitted to hospital with suspected symptoms since 13 April and were being tested for the virus.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon has announced emergency measures to deal with the situation. They include powers to isolate individuals suspected of having the virus without fear of legal repercussions.

SPIEGEL: Only 13 percent of Germany's stimulus funds are slated for environmental measures. There is little evidence here of the "crisis as opportunity" you repeatedly mention. Gabriel: That puts us in fourth place worldwide, which isn't bad. If you added the money other countries earmark for renewable energy in their national budgets, which goes through the cost of electricity in Germany, we would be even higher up in the ranking, perhaps even at the top.

SPIEGEL: At least that would have deserved the name environmental premium. Gabriel: But, as environment minister, I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry, because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes. The increase in expenditures for environmental and climate protection in the federal budget from €875 million ($1.14 billion) under a Green environment minister to €3.4 billion ($4.4 billion) today would not work without the economic success of German industry.

SPIEGEL: And what happens to your own credibility, when you reward people for buying cars by paying a so-called environmental premium that makes no environmental sense? Gabriel: I still call it the scrapping premium, because the main goal is to stabilize auto sales. But the project clearly has an economic impact, because new vehicles emit less CO2 and pollutants per kilometer driven than old ones. SPIEGEL: But the production of new car consumes enormous resources. Gabriel: One could take that argument a step further and say: It would be best for the environment if we stopped buying or producing any new products. That would be the way to save the most energy and CO2. The next thing you'll ask me is why the government didn't give people €2,500 ($3,250) to buy tickets for public transportation.

The environmental industry, with its new technologies, is the biggest market worldwide. We must retain our leading position, because other countries, like the United States, have started to compete with us.

SPIEGEL: US President Barack Obama is depriving the Germans of their leadership role in climate protection?

Gabriel: No, but his economic stimulus programs are good, and he introduced an overdue change of direction in climate policy. But as far as concrete reduction targets are concerned, his current proposals are still not sufficient. America remains well removed from the European targets and the necessary international targets in climate protection. Many in politics are so pleased about the new American administration that they want to be nothing but nice to the United States. But in doing so, we fail to recognize that the American president, no matter who he is, will always strongly champion American interests.

SPIEGEL: Obama has offered to reduce American CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Gabriel: But that is still far from enough. International climate scientists believe it is vital that we reduce CO2 emissions by 2020 to a level 25 to 40 percent lower than in 1990. And the developing and emerging nations expect serious efforts on the part of the industrialized nations. The Americans must also show some movement if the December climate summit in Copenhagen is to be a success. Otherwise, many will hide behind the United States. If that happens, our efforts will fall far short of what is needed to stop climate change and its devastating consequences. We must now discuss this openly worldwide.

Some Republicans in Congress have mounted stiff resistance to closing Guantánamo, and officials in some American communities, fearing that terrorism suspects could be tried or held in their courts or prisons, said they would fight any such plans. Also, while some European governments have promised to resettle detainees, specific agreements have been slow in coming.

The Yemenis not only are the biggest group of detainees, but also are widely seen as the most difficult to transfer out of Guantánamo. Other countries are wary of many of the Yemeni detainees because jihadist groups have long had deep roots in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world and the homeland of Osama bin Laden’s father. If the Yemenis are not sent home, there may be few other options for many of the 97 men, detainees’ lawyers and human rights groups say.

The Bush administration also failed to reach a deal with President Saleh, but the Obama administration had hoped to get increased cooperation from Yemen, which critics say has a history of coddling Islamic extremists and releasing convicted terrorists. Complicating the task is the fact that security in Yemen has been deteriorating for more than a year, with several terrorist attacks, including a suicide bombing outside the American Embassy compound in September that killed 13 people.

Perhaps a dozen or more Yemeni detainees could face prosecution in the United States, including Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was charged in the Bush administration’s military commission system with being a coordinator of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

David H. Remes, a lawyer for 16 Yemeni detainees, said it appeared that many of the men might remain in American custody. “Unless President Obama reconsiders his decision to close Guantánamo,” Mr. Remes said, “the Yemeni detainees would have to be brought to the U.S. and put in some sort of prison.”

The complexities of the issues surrounding the detainees are a reflection of Yemen’s tangled domestic and international problems. It is a state that often appears on the verge of chaos. A weak central government is fighting a persistent insurgency in the north, restive separatists in the south and a growing Qaeda presence.

Some Yemeni officials say President Saleh, a wily former army officer, has used the internal threats — and perhaps even nurtured them — to press the United States and Yemen’s neighbor Saudi Arabia for more aid.As a result, people who have discussed the detainee issues with Yemeni officials say the Obama administration’s frustration with the Yemeni government may be well founded.

One senior Yemeni official, she said, seemed to suggest that Yemen would require a huge payment from the American government to resettle the detainees. A proper rehabilitation program, the official claimed, could cost as much as $1 million for each detainee, totaling nearly $100 million.

The outbreak has been dubbed swine flu — now officially called influenza A(H1N1) — because scientists believe it started in pigs, but they do not know if that was recently or years ago. The name change was designed to allay fears about pigs and eating pork.

The great majority of Egyptians are Muslim and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions, but about 10 percent of the population is Coptic Christian. As a result, Egyptian pig farmers are overwhelmingly Christian. And although some of the country’s Christians are middle class or wealthy, the Christian farmers are generally poor.

On Thursday, several urban pig farmers in Cairo said they see the government’s decision as just another expression of Egyptian Muslims’ resentment against Christians. Last year, there were several violent incidents that some believed were aimed at Christians, including the kidnapping and beating of monks. The Egyptian government denied the incidents had sectarian overtones, saying they were each part of other disputes, including a fight over land.

Mr. Girgis lives with his extended family, about 30 people, in the first two floors of a building that leans against a cliff. His 60 small pigs live on the ground floor. They have dark, furry skin, and their squeals can be heard a block away from Mr. Girgis’ home.Many of Cairo’s pig farmers live in similar conditions, sharing their small spaces in the teeming city with their animals. After international health officials criticized Egypt’s decision to kill about 300,000 pigs, the Agriculture Ministry’s head of infectious diseases, Saber Abdel Aziz Galal, explained that the cull was “a general health measure,” according to Agence France-Presse."It is good to restructure this kind of breeding in good farms, not on rubbish," the agency quoted him as saying.“We will build new farms in special areas, like in Europe,” he said. “Within two years the pigs will return, but we need first to build new farms."

We feel that Obama must now follow his words with actions.

SPIEGEL: The new US president, who has called your aggressive anti-Israeli remarks "disgusting," has nevertheless spoken of a new beginning in relations with Iran and extended his hand to you. Ahmadinejad: I haven't understood Obama's comments quite that way. I pay attention to what he says today. But that is precisely where I see a lack of something decisive. What leads you to talk about a new beginning? Have there been any changes in American policy? We welcome changes, but they have yet to occur.

We support talks on the basis of fairness and respect. That has always been our position. We are waiting for Obama to announce his plans, so that we can analyze them.

You are aware that we are not the ones who severed relations with America. America cut off relations with us. What do you expect from Iran now?

that could lead to a resumption of diplomatic relations, perhaps even to the reopening of the embassy, which was occupied in 1979, the year of the revolution? Ahmadinejad: We have not received an official request in this regard yet. If this happens, we will take a position on the matter. This is not a question of form. Fundamental changes must take place, to the benefit of all parties. The American government must finally learn lessons from the past.

We do not commit terror, but we are victims of terror. After the revolution, our president and prime minister were killed in a bombing attack in the building adjacent to my office. Our faith forbids us from engaging in terrorism

we have contributed to stabilization in both Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years. While we were making these contributions, the Bush administration accused us of doing the opposite.

For the past 30 years, Germany and other European countries have been under pressure from the Americans not to improve their relations with Tehran. That's what all European statesmen tell us.

He pledged to reduce the US nuclear stockpile, and urged others to do the same. But as long as a nuclear threat existed, the US would retain its nuclear capability, although it would work to reduce its arsenal.

He said his administration would work to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force in order to achieve a global ban on nuclear testing. The agreement would ban all nuclear explosions for any purpose, but cannot currently come into effect as nuclear powers such as the US and China have not ratified it, and India and Pakistan have not signed it.

The most immediate and extreme threat to global security, the president said, was the possibility of terrorists possessing nuclear weapons.

"Al-Qaeda has said it seeks a bomb. And that it would have no problem in using it. And we know that there is unsecured nuclear material across the globe." Mr Obama announced a new effort to secure sensitive nuclear material within four years and break down the black market in the trade in illicit weapons.

He also said he would negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia by the end of this year. The speech came days after he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev - meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London - agreed to reopen negotiations about reducing nuclear warheads. They aim to produce a new arms control treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) that expires at the end of the year.

"As long as the threat from Iran exists, we will go forward with a missile defence system," he said.

The timing of the new law could hardly have been worse. With leaders of NATO member states gathered in Strasbourg on Friday -- just days after a far-reaching conference on the disastrous situation in the country came to an end earlier this week -- the legislation seems designed to offer proof as to just how little the Western alliance has accomplished in Afghanistan. The law provides state backing to the oppression of women and seems designed to almost force Shiite men to debase their wives.

Already, Karzai was under attack in the West for the advances currently being made by both al-Qaida and the Taliban in the country. In response, Kabul has long been quick to point out the progress that has been made -- often emphasizing new schools for girls and the fact that women have been elected into parliament. The new law now makes such claims of improvement seem absurd.

Praise for Karzai comes from an uncomfortable quarter: the Taliban, who Karzai likes to describe as "the enemies of Afghanistan." "The Shiite law is similar to the rules of the Taliban. We support it,"

Upcoming presidential elections in Afghanistan likely played a role in Karzai's signing of the law. His re-election is in no way a sure thing and his influence outside of the capital Kabul is limited. Many in Afghanistan consider him to be little more than a Western puppet and he has few successes to point to. Support for Karzai is particularly thin in religious circles, leading many to suspect that the new law is an attempt to win over the ultra conservative. He may also be hoping to win a few extra votes from among the Hazara.

Just what tools are available to the West to get Afghanistan to reverse the law is unclear. NATO governments have long been careful to keep a distance from domestic policy decisions in Afghanistan in order to avoid the impression that Karzai is just a puppet.

Obama has already expressed a readiness to have face-to-face diplomatic contacts with Tehran, a major shift from former President George W. Bush's policy of trying to isolate a country he once branded part of an "axis of evil".

Mohammad Hassan Khani, assistant professor of international relations at Tehran's Imam Sadiq University, described Obama's appeal as a positive gesture but noted it came only a week after the extension of US economic sanctions. "This is somehow conflicting and making people here confused," he said. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demanded Washington say sorry for decades of "crimes" against the Islamic Republic. Tehran also says it cannot let down its guard as long as US troops are posted on its borders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Analysts have said that Iran is setting tough conditions for dialogue with the United States to buy time for its ponderous and opaque decision-making process, which is facing a dilemma on whether or not to open up.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he hoped Iran would pay close attention to Obama's appeal. "I hope that that will open a new chapter in relations with Iran," he told reporters before going into an EU summit. To stress the seriousness of Obama's overture, the White House distributed the videotape with Farsi subtitles and posted it on its website to coincide with Iranian observance of the ancient festival of Nowruz, celebrating the arrival of spring. But his appeal was not shown nor mentioned on Iran's main 2pm state television news, although it was reported by Iranian news agencies including the official agency IRNA.

Russia has declared a sphere of privileged interest over Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet states America would like to see admitted to NATO. Russia is considering opening long-range bomber bases in Venezuela. That, in turn, is seen as a response to American plans to position antimissile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

No replacement has been negotiated for Start I, and Russia’s support for Iran’s civilian nuclear industry is thwarting Western efforts to dissuade that country from enriching uranium that could also be used in a bomb.

Along with Mr. Kissinger, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry and Sam Nunn, a retired Democratic senator from Georgia, were scheduled to meet the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, on Friday.

Mr. Baker said the United States should show a new humility in international relations.“We ought to be big enough on both sides to admit that blame can be directed at both countries for this deterioration in Russian-U.S. relations,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with doing whatever we can to get this relationship back on the track it was on up until the last few years.”

The WHO said on Monday that 985 cases of the virus had been officially reported across 20 countries. Person-to-person transmission has been confirmed in six countries.

"Virtually all of the United States probably has this virus circulating now," Dr Anne Schuchat said. "That doesn't mean that everybody's infected, but within the communities, the virus has arrived." She said that although she expected cases to become more severe and to lead to deaths, this in itself would not be unusual as every year 36,000 people die in the US after contracting seasonal flu.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said that the virus appeared to have peaked between 23-28 April. "The evolution of the epidemic is now in its declining phase," he told a news conference.

Relations have also soured over Israel's insistence that it had an "understanding" with George Bush's administration that allowed what it calls "natural growth" of the settlements to build housing for the children of settlers. Israel's intelligence minister, Dan Meridor, said today that the oral commitment qualified a written agreement with the Americans that required a complete halt to construction. "These understandings were a part of the agreement. Its written part and its oral part complement each other," he said.

Israel says it is free to build as it wants in Jerusalem because it has sovereignty over the entire city.

Barak is also expected to tell the Americans that the limited construction freeze must be tied to Palestinian peace efforts and moves by the rest of the Arab world to recognise Israel.Even while proposing a partial construction freeze, Barak is also authorising new building.Last week he acknowledged retroactively legalising 60 flats built without government approval near the Jewish settlement of Talmon.He has also given the go-ahead for the construction of scores of new homes in another settlement.

Barak told the New York Times that the settlement issue should not be treated in isolation and made the most important issue, but must be considered in the context of wider peace negotiations.Sources close to the US administration say that some Obama officials are also concerned at getting bogged down in a dispute over the settlements but for different reasons.They fear that the Israelis will use a protracted disagreement to slow down movement on a broader peace initiative. For that reason, some Obama advisers are pressing for several tracks to be pursued at once, including direct negotiationsnot dependent on each other at this stage.

“I’m tired of buying the same horse twice,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last week while touring an antimissile site in Alaska that the Bush administration built to demonstrate its preparedness to destroy North Korean missiles headed toward the United States. (So far, the North Koreans have not successfully tested a missile of sufficient range to reach the United States, though there is evidence that they may be preparing for another test of their long-range Taepodong-2 missile.)

In France on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to the same string of broken deals, telling reporters, “I don’t think there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.” He added, “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”

While Mr. Obama was in the Middle East and Europe last week, several senior officials said the president’s national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the North would be willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government, the world’s last Stalinesque regime.

Now, after examining the still-inconclusive evidence about the results of North Korea’s second nuclear test, the administration has come to different conclusions: that Pyonyang’s top priority is to be recognized as a nuclear state, that it is unwilling to bargain away its weapons and that it sees tests as a way to help sell its nuclear technology.

While Mr. Obama is willing to reopen the six-party talks that Mr. Bush began — the other participants are Japan, South Korea, Russia and China — he has no intention, aides say, of offering new incentives to get the North to fulfill agreements from 1994, 2005 and 2008; all were recently renounced.

While some officials privately acknowledged that they would still like to roll back what one called North Korea’s “rudimentary” nuclear capacity, a more realistic goal is to stop the country from devising a small weapon deliverable on a short-, medium- or long-range missile.

In conducting any interdictions, the United States could risk open confrontation with North Korea. That prospect — and the likelihood of escalating conflict if the North resisted an inspection — is why China has balked at American proposals for a resolution by the United Nations Security Council that would explicitly allow interceptions at sea. A previous Security Council resolution, passed after the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006, allowed interdictions “consistent with international law.” But that term was never defined, and few of the provisions were enforced.

North Korea has repeatedly said it would regard any interdiction as an act of war, and officials in Washington have been trying to find ways to stop the shipments without a conflict. Late last week, James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, visited Beijing with a delegation of American officials, seeking ideas from China about sanctions, including financial pressure, that might force North Korea to change direction.

“The Chinese face a dilemma that they have always faced,” a senior administration official said. “They don’t want North Korea to become a full nuclear weapons state. But they don’t want to cause the state to collapse.”

To counter the Chinese concern, Mr. Steinberg and his delegation argued to the Chinese that failing to crack down on North Korea would prompt reactions that Beijing would find deeply unsettling, including a greater American military presence in the region and more calls in Japan for that country to develop its own weapons.

North Korea’s restoration to the list would be largely symbolic, because it already faces numerous economic sanctions.

If a North Korea link is found, it would mark a new turn in Pyongyang's attempts to lash out at the U.S. North Korea has been building up its capability for cyberattacks in the past couple of years, computer security specialists said. North Korea recently increased the number of people in a cyber-warfare unit, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported last month.

U.S. government Web sites attacked included those of the Defense Department, National Security Agency, Treasury Department, Secret Service, State Department, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Aviation Administration, according to the cyber-security unit of VeriSign Inc., a computer-security company, and others familiar with the attacks. The attacks appear to have occurred roughly from Saturday to Tuesday.

Private sites attacked, according to a cyber-security specialist who has been tracking the incidents, included those run by the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, the Washington Post, Amazon.com and MarketWatch.

Most U.S. federal Web sites appeared to be running properly Wednesday. In South Korea, several government sites were down late Tuesday and early Wednesday but many were back to normal by Wednesday afternoon. "There is a connection between what is going on here in the states and what is going on in [South] Korea," said Richard Howard, director of intelligence at VeriSign's iDefense cyber-security unit.

Those responsible used a method similar to attacks in recent years on the governments of Estonia and Georgia, called a "distributed denial of service" attack. It is a maneuver in which many computers act in concert to overwhelm Web sites.

At the White House, spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said the attacks over the weekend "had absolutely no effect on the White House's day-to-day operations." The only effect, he said, was that some Internet users in Asia may not have been able to access the White House's Web site for a time.

President Barack Obama has made bolstering cyber-security a priority. He said in May he would create a new White House cyber-security post, though it hasn't yet been staffed. People familiar with the process say the White House has had difficulty finding someone to take the job.

Defense officials confirmed Pentagon networks were struck but said the intrusions were detected quickly and did no real damage. Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation's top military officer, said Pentagon networks are under near-constant attack. "I grow increasingly concerned about the cyber-world and the attacks," he said.

James Lewis, a cyber-security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of the attack, "It's really a test of which U.S. agencies are ready and which aren't."

The New York Stock Exchange's parent company, NYSE Euronext, announced at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday that its Web site, but not its trading systems, had been targeted. Exchange officials weren't aware of the attack until notified by the government on Tuesday, said a person familiar with the events. An NYSE spokesman said the exchange's systems detected zero impact either on the Web site or on the separate trading operations. An official of Nasdaq said there wasn't any impact on its business.

North Korea turned more antagonistic after the illness of dictator Kim Jong Il last August and September. The country had done little to prepare for a successor, and Mr. Kim's illness triggered an internal shuffle that apparently raised the influence of hard-line military figures.

The cyberattacks came as Washington's point man on North Korea sanctions, Ambassador Philip Goldberg, concluded a weeklong trip to China and Malaysia aimed at tightening the financial screws on Pyongyang. Last week, the Obama administration announced sanctions on two North Korea-linked arms companies. The U.S. Treasury last month listed 17 North Korean banks and businesses that it is seeking to constrict financially.

On March 28, Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-led government arrested a prominent Sunni leader on charges of heading a secret armed wing of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party. A week later, the prime minister accused Baathists of orchestrating car bombings that killed more than 40 people. On Monday, he lashed out again, saying the Baath Party was “filled with hate from head to toe.”

Mr. Maliki’s earlier effort to reunite the country was one of Washington’s primary benchmarks for measuring political progress in Iraq. The goal was to separate Baathist opponents of the government who were considered more willing to trade violence for political power from intractable extremists, many of them religious. Early last year, under intense American pressure, Mr. Maliki pushed through Parliament a law to ease restrictions on the return of Baath Party members to public life. But 15 months later, the law has yet to be put into effect.

Mr. Maliki’s retreat risks polarizing Iraqis again and eroding hard-fought security gains. One hundred sixty people died in bombings on Thursday and Friday alone. There is no evidence that Baathists were involved, but fears are rising that they and jihadi insurgents are increasingly cooperating in areas, Baghdad especially, that have been largely quiet over the last year.

The prime minister’s return to a hard line appears to be motivated by a number of factors. Despite Mr. Maliki’s success in provincial elections in January and in projecting himself as a strong nonsectarian leader, his Dawa Party recognizes that it still needs his Shiite partners to govern. And his Shiite rivals, many of whom are close to Iran, have accused him of recently orchestrating a wholesale return of Baathists to bolster his standing with the Sunni minority. Mr. Maliki, political experts say, cannot afford to alienate fellow Shiites ahead of the general elections in December.

Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician who led the push six years ago to purge Iraq of the Baath Party, said that despite Mr. Maliki’s pragmatic efforts to court Sunni support, the prime minister retained a visceral hatred for everything associated with the Baath Party and the brutal former regime. Mr. Maliki is also suspicious of bringing back some of the Sunni old guard, which Mr. Chalabi says is part of an American plan “to stiffen Iraq into opposing Iran and help integrate Iraq back into the Arab fold.”

From Washington’s point of view, reconciliation with approachable Baathists would isolate extremists like Mr. Douri’s followers. There lies the fundamental difference with the Iraqi side, which is shackled by its fears. “The mere ideas of the Baath Party are dangerous because they are about conspiracies, infiltration and coups,” Kamal al-Saedi, a member of Parliament and one of Mr. Maliki’s partisans on the government’s reconciliation committee, said Wednesday.

Mr. Maliki’s adviser for reconciliation, Mohammed Salman al-Saady, said he knew nothing of those promises, but he acknowledged that Mr. Maliki’s government had “fundamental differences” with Washington over how far to extend reconciliation.

Mr. Saady said the talks with General Hamdani stalled because many of his demands were against government policy. “According to the Constitution, holding negotiations with the Baath Party is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Mr. Saady said. But he underscored the government’s readiness to engage Baathists who renounced their party affiliation and accepted accountability for crimes they might have committed.