Friday, June 12, 2009

U.N. widens sanctions on North Korea, China joins in

U.N. widens sanctions on North Korea, China joins in
By Louis Charbonneau and Claudia Parsons
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously approved expanded sanctions against North Korea over its May 25 nuclear test, a move close ally China said showed firm opposition to Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.
The sanctions resolution bans all weapons exports from North Korea and most arms imports into the Communist state. It authorizes U.N. member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, requiring them to seize and destroy any goods transported in violation of the sanctions.
Both China and Russia, which had been reluctant to support punitive measures against North Korea in the past, supported the U.S.-drafted resolution, which is now binding under international law.
China's U.N. ambassador, Zhang Yesui, said the resolution showed the "firm opposition" of the international community to North Korea's nuclear ambitions, but he urged countries to exercise caution when inspecting North Korean cargo.
"Under no circumstances should there be use or threat of the use of force," Zhang said, adding that the inspections should be done in accordance with domestic and international law.
Council diplomats said on condition of anonymity that it was not clear whether China, which is the closest its neighbor, North Korea, has to a major ally, was prepared to actively implement the new sanctions resolution.
Beijing had ignored an earlier round of sanctions against Pyongyang passed after North Korea's first nuclear test in October 2006.
U.S. envoy Rosemary DiCarlo told the 15-nation Security Council that the resolution created "markedly stronger sanctions" against Pyongyang to persuade it to abandon its atomic weapons ambitions.
"North Korea chose a path of provocation," she said. "This resolution will give us new tools to impair North Korea's ability to proliferate and threaten international stability.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the sanctions resolution was an "appropriate" and "balanced" response to Pyongyang's nuclear test, which he said "jeopardizes security and stability in the region."
The new resolution broadens the arms embargo against North Korea to ban the sale of all arms -- heavy and small -- by Pyongyang but allows it to keep purchasing small arms. Diplomats said it was the Chinese who argued against the banning the sale of small arms to Pyongyang.
The resolution also urges North Korea to return to the six-nation aid-for-disarmament talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea and offers the possibility of suspending the sanctions if North Korea alters its course.
(Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: Reuters

U.N. warns of catastrophe as hungry people top one billion

U.N. warns of catastrophe as hungry people top one billion
By Silvia Aloisi
ROME (Reuters) - High food prices have pushed another 105 million people into hunger in the first half of 2009, the head of the U.N. World Food Programme said on Friday, raising the total number of hungry people to over 1 billion.
Urging rich nations at a meeting of G8 development ministers not to cut back on aid, Josette Sheeran said the world faced a human catastrophe as more people struggle to eat a decent meal.
"This year we are clocking in on average four million new hungry people a week, urgently hungry," Sheeran told Reuters.
"For the first six months of this year, 105 million people have been added," she said, citing figures to be released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization next week that will raise the total number of undernourished people to over 1 billion.
In 2008, FAO said the world's hungry numbered 963 million.
The WFP needs $6.4 billion this year for food aid, but donors' contributions have fallen way behind that level -- it had around $1.5 billion at the end of last week.
The agency says it has had to cut food aid rations and shut some operations in eastern Africa and North Korea because of the credit crunch.
"I know it seems a big figure, but if you compare it with the global stimulus package, it means that for less than 1 percent of that we could help meet the urgent human crisis that is unfolding, and that is just as essential to the stability of the world," Sheeran said.
She said despite a decline in most food prices from record peaks last year, they remained high in developing countries, while global food aid was at a 20-year low.
The financial crisis has made things worse, and in terms of staple food, people in poorer countries today can only afford about a third of what they could afford three years ago.
AID PROMISES
In a statement after a two-day meeting in Rome, G8 ministers reaffirmed their commitment to honor existing aid promises and the head of USAID said President Barack Obama wanted to double U.S. aid funds to $52 billion by 2015.
"(This) sends a signal, I think, to the rest of the world that we cannot pull back on our support," USAID Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham told Reuters.
But a report this week said the G8 was collectively off course in delivering on a pledge -- made at a G8 summit in Scotland in 2005 -- to more than double aid to Africa to $25 billion a year by 2010.
The report, by anti-poverty body ONE, was particularly critical of Italy, saying Rome was trailing far behind other nations in meeting aid targets and that undermined its credibility as G8 president this year. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iranians vote in droves, rival victory claims

Iranians vote in droves, rival victory claims
Iran votes in tight election
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By Parisa Hafezi and Zahra Hosseinian
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians streamed to polling stations on Friday in a hotly contested election and allies of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main moderate challenger issued rival victory claims.
Sadegh Kharazi, a senior backer of former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, said surveys made by reformers showed that Mousavi was getting about 58-60 percent of the votes.
But Ahmadinejad's representative at a supervisory body, Ali Asghar Zarei, said the incumbent was ahead with about the same level of support, the semi-official Mehr News Agency reported.
A victory for Mousavi might help ease tensions with the West, which is concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and improve chances of engagement with U.S. President Barack Obama who has talked about a new start in ties with Tehran.
In Washington, Obama said his administration was excited about the debate taking place in Iran and he hoped it would help the two countries to engage "in new ways."
Due to heavy turnout, voting was extended by three hours to 9 p.m. (12:30 p.m. EDT) to allow more people to cast ballots, the Interior Ministry said.
Long queues had formed at voting centers and officials said they expected a turnout of about 70 percent or more, approaching the record of nearly 80 percent when reformist Mohammad Khatami swept the 1997 presidential election.
Some people said they had waited for more than two hours to cast ballots, both in northern, affluent areas of Tehran where Mousavi draws support and in southern, poorer neighborhoods seen as Ahmadinejad strongholds.
High turnout could indicate voting by many pro-reformers who stayed away when Ahmadinejad won four years ago on a pledge to revive the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Political analysts have said they expect a close race.
The vote has generated interest around the world with policymakers looking for signs of a change of approach by Tehran, whose ties with the West worsened under Ahmadinejad.
For Iranians it is a chance to pass judgment on his management of the Islamic Republic's oil exporting economy.
Although Ahmadinejad, 52, says his government has revived economic growth and curbed price rises, inflation and high unemployment were the main campaign issues. Official inflation is around 15 percent.
"MIRACLE"
Social issues, such as strict dress codes for women, as well as Iran's ties with the outside world, also featured in the campaign but the outcome of the vote will not bring a major shift in Iran's foreign policy, which is determined by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The United States has had no ties with Iran since shortly after the revolution but Obama has offered a new relationship if Tehran "unclenches its fist" Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iraq Sunni leader killed at mosque, fears of fallout

Iraq Sunni leader killed at mosque, fears of fallout
By Ahmed Rasheed and Khalid al-Ansary
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's biggest Sunni Muslim parliament bloc was killed at a mosque on Friday, officials said, an assassination which could undermine efforts for sectarian reconciliation in Iraq.
Recently picked as leader of the Accordance Front, Harith al-Ubaidi was seen as a moderate able to broker peace among the bloc's groups and also with Shi'ites, Kurds and others who have struggled for power since the 2003 U.S. invasion.
An independent lawmaker and member of parliament's human rights committee, Ubaidi was also seen as a leading defender of the rights of Iraqi prisoners.
His killing comes as parties hold talks to form alliances ahead of a parliamentary poll due in January that is seen as a test of whether Iraq's feuding factions can live in peace after the sectarian bloodshed triggered by the war.
U.S. combat forces are due to leave Iraqi cities by the end of this month, and withdraw completely by 2012. Washington hopes political rapprochement can be reached before the troops depart.
The leader of Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, ordered an investigation and condemned the killing, as did other leaders of Iraq's Shi'ite majority.
"This cowardly, repulsive murder is a failed attempt to plant sectarian strife and to strengthen the presence of the terrorist groups that have received fatal blows from our security forces," he said in a statement.
Ubaidi was leaving a mosque in west Baghdad after Friday prayers when he was killed.
"A man shot him with a pistol then threw a grenade at him inside the al-Shawaf mosque," said Saleem al-Jubouri, a spokesman for the Accordance Front.
"It could be al Qaeda behind this, or another armed group," he added, calling on the government to provide more security.
POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS
Iraq's police and army have had success curbing violence in the past year, but deadly bombings and shootings remain common.
Police said six people died in the attack, including the assailant. They said the assassin, believed to be a teenager, shot Ubaidi twice in the head before opening fire on worshippers and throwing a grenade. He was then killed by mosque guards.
"Assassinations of political leaders have a huge effect on national peace, and these acts are meant to stoke renewed sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites, and also within feuding factions among the Sunnis," said Hazim al-Nuaimi, a political analyst at Baghdad University.
He predicted Ubaidi's death would cause splits within the Accordance Front, which has more than 30 seats in Iraq's 275 member parliament. Although small compared to Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs, the Front did well in this year's local polls. Continued...
Source: Reuters

NATO backs U.S. shake-up in Afghan command

NATO backs U.S. shake-up in Afghan command
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO ministers have backed a U.S. shake-up of military command in Afghanistan based on a model used in Iraq, as well as plans to step up training of Afghan security forces, a NATO spokesman said on Friday.
Washington has named U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal to overall command of the international operation in Afghanistan, with a deputy to run day-to-day military operations and another to oversee training.
The structure draws heavily on U.S. experience in Iraq.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said defense ministers from the 28-nation NATO military alliance backed the plan at a meeting in Brussels.
"Details will have to be now worked out and consulted amongst allies exactly how it will be implemented, but the general outlines have been agreed in principle," he said.
Lieutenant-General David Rodriguez, a former U.S. and NATO commander in eastern Afghanistan who now serves as Defense Secretary Robert Gates' right-hand military man, will effectively run day-to-day war operations.
This will leave McChrystal, a workaholic veteran of the secretive world of special operations who is currently director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, to focus on strategy and other tasks such as liaising with Afghan and NATO leaders and pushing forward the training of Afghan security forces.
AFGHANISTAN OBAMA'S TOP PRIORITY
The decision last month to dismiss U.S. Army General David McKiernan as the top commander in Afghanistan and, effectively, replace him with not one but two highly rated generals reflects a sense of urgency in the Obama administration about the war.
With insurgent violence on the rise, U.S. officials have acknowledged they are not winning in Afghanistan and the administration has declared the war its top military priority.
Appathurai said the command shake-up was needed given the big surge in troop numbers announced by Obama.
The United States has increased its military presence to 56,000 troops, from about 32,000 in late 2008, and expects a rise to some 68,000 by autumn. This is in addition to some 33,000 troops from NATO and partner countries.
Washington and its allies are also stepping up efforts to build up the Afghan army and police to more than 200,000 personnel.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the international effort in Afghanistan faced "real challenges," citing August 20 presidential elections, insurgent violence, and slow progress in reconstruction and development efforts.
"Meeting them will not be easy," he told the NATO meeting, at which McChrystal was presented. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.N. warns of catastrophe as hungry people top 1 billion

U.N. warns of catastrophe as hungry people top 1 billion
By Silvia Aloisi
ROME (Reuters) - High food prices have pushed another 105 million people into hunger in the first half of 2009, the head of the U.N. World Food Program said Friday, raising the total number of hungry people to over 1 billion.
Urging rich nations at a meeting of the Group of Eight's development ministers not cut back on aid, Josette Sheeran told Reuters the world faced a "human catastrophe" as more and more people struggle to eat a decent meal.
"This year we are clocking in on average four million new hungry people a week, urgently hungry," Sheeran told Reuters.
"Already for the first six months of this year, 105 million people have been added," she said, citing figures to be released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization next week that will raise the total number of undernourished people to over 1 billion.
In 2008, FAO said the world's hungry numbered 963 million.
The WFP needs $6.4 billion this year for food aid, but donors' contributions have fallen way behind that level -- it had around $1.5 billion at the end of last week.
The agency says it has had to cut food aid rations and shut down some operations in eastern Africa and North Korea because of the credit crunch.
"I know it seems a big figure, but if you compare it with the global stimulus package, it means that for less than 1 percent of that we could help meet the urgent human crisis that is unfolding, and that is just as essential to the stability of the world," Sheeran said.
She said that despite a decline in most food prices from record peaks last year, they remained stubbornly high in developing countries, while global food aid was at a 20-year low.
The financial crisis has only made things worse, and in terms of staple food, people in poorer countries today can only afford about a third of what they could afford three years ago.
In a statement after a two-day meeting in Rome, G8 ministers reaffirmed their commitment to more than double aid to Africa to $25 billion a year by 2010.
But a report this week said the group was collectively off course in delivering on those pledges, made at a G8 summit in Scotland in 2005.
The report, by anti-poverty body ONE, was particularly critical of Italy, saying Rome was trailing far behind other nations in meeting aid targets and that undermined its credibility as G8 president this year.
"We have confirmed our commitment to find the resources this year to bring us back on track and fulfill our undertakings," Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters Friday, responding to the report.
ONE said Italy had delivered only three percent of the aid increase to Africa pledged by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi four years ago.
(Editing by Lin Noueihed)

Source: Reuters

Georgia's Abkhazia less secure without monitors: U.N.

Georgia's Abkhazia less secure without monitors: U.N.
By Matt Robinson
TBILISI (Reuters) - Failure to extend the United Nation's monitoring presence in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region would undermine stability and leave ethnic Georgians there unprotected, the mission head said on Friday.
The mission's mandate expires on June 15, and the U.N. Security Council is split between the West and Russia over the wording of a resolution to extend it.
Russia wants it to reflect Abkhazia's assertion that it is an independent state, recognized by the Kremlin and secured by Russian forces since last year's five-day war between Russia and Georgia over the rebel region of South Ossetia.
Georgia, backed by the United States and European members of the Security Council, insists the document must reaffirm Georgian sovereignty over the Black Sea region, which broke away in war in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
U.N. special representative Johan Verbeke did not discuss the chances of a deal, which diplomats say is on a knife-edge.
But he cautioned that without the mission, "you end up having a situation where there is no longer the security regime, where there are no longer the monitors, and therefore intrinsically a situation where stability is less secured than it is currently."
"You basically leave the population on its own," the Belgian diplomat told Reuters in Tbilisi.
"It (the population) has to stay there, but there is no ... international presence on which they can rely for securing a minimum environment that allows them to live normally."
Abkhazia's ethnic Georgian community complains of discrimination and harassment, and says security has worsened since last year's war.
INSTABILITY, REFUGEES
Analysts warn that instability in Abkhazia and the possibility of a new refugee wave could worsen political tensions in Tbilisi, where the opposition has been protesting for two months demanding President Mikheil Saakashvili quit.
Several dozen egg-throwing protesters scuffled with security guards outside parliament on Friday after the assembly defied the protests and sat for the first time since the opposition took to the streets in April.
The mandate for around 170 U.N. observers in Abkhazia was extended in February with a resolution that largely fudged the issue of territorial integrity and even the name of the mission -- officially the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia.
Saakashvili said on Thursday Georgia would not compromise on its territorial integrity, "regardless of how much we might want to maintain the U.N. mission."
Georgian U.N. ambassador Kakha Lomaia told Reuters that a draft resolution prepared by Western powers would beef up the mission's monitoring role, but that veto-holding Moscow remained opposed to the text. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Bosnian Serb jailed for 25 years for town massacre

By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The Bosnian war crimes court jailed a Bosnian Serb wartime commander for 25 years Friday for ordering a mortar attack in 1995on a northern town that killed 71 people and wounded more than 150.
Novak Djukic was found guilty of war crimes against civilians and violations of international law and the Geneva conventions on the protection of civilians during warfare, the court council said.
"Novak Djukic is guilty ... because he ordered on May 25, 1995 his artillery unit on the Mountain Ozren to shell Tuzla, which had been declared a United Nations safe zone," said Darko Samardzic, the court council president.
"One missile hit the very center of the town, Kapija, killing 71 people and injuring more than 150," said Samardzic, reading the verdict. "It is clear that all persons who had been killed and wounded were civilians."
Relatives cried as he read out the names of those killed and wounded. Most victims were aged between 18 and 25. The youngest was a two-year-old boy, hit while in the arms of his father.
Djukic was a commander of the Bosnian Serb army in the Tuzla region during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Tuzla was declared a U.N. safe zone in 1993.
Djukic was promoted to the rank of general after the war and became the Bosnian Serb army chief of staff before retiring in 2005. He was arrested in 2007 on suspicion that he had ordered one of the worst massacres of the Bosnian war.
"Any attack on Tuzla, a U.N. safe zone, represented an attack on civilians," Samardzic said. He added the court was aware the sentence would be regarded as mild by families of the victims, and harsh by Djukic's brothers-in-arms.
Hilmo Bucuk, who led a group of parents of child victims to the Sarajevo court, said the prevailing mood was one of satisfaction that Djukic was punished, but that they had hoped for a life sentence.
"We do have a verdict, but our children are gone," Bucuk told reporters.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: Reuters

Iranians vote in droves, Mousavi ally claims lead

Iranians vote in droves, Mousavi ally claims lead
Iran votes in tight election
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By Parisa Hafezi and Zahra Hosseinian
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians streamed to polling stations on Friday in a hotly contested election and a senior ally of Mirhossein Mousavi said the moderate candidate was on track to defeat hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
An Ahmadinejad adviser dismissed the claim as "psychological war" and said the outcome was impossible to predict.
They were speaking a few hours before voting was officially due to end at 6 p.m. (9:30 a.m. EDT), even though state media said it was likely to be extended due to an unprecedented turnout.
A victory for Mousavi might help ease tensions with the West, which is concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and improve chances of engagement with U.S. President Barak Obama who has talked about a new start in ties with Tehran.
Sadegh Kharazi, an ally of the former prime minister, told Reuters that surveys made by reformers showed Mousavi was getting enough votes to win outright in the first round.
"I can say that based on our surveys ... Mousavi is getting 58-60 pct of the vote and we are the winner," he said.
Ahmadinejad adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr said in response: "How can they predict? This is a psychological war they launched to influence voting."
Long queues formed at voting centers and the Interior Ministry said it expected a turnout of more than 70 percent, approaching the record of nearly 80 percent when reformist Mohammad Khatami swept the 1997 presidential election.
Some people said they had waited for more than two hours to cast ballots, both in northern, affluent areas of Tehran where Mousavi draws support and in southern, poorer neighborhoods seen as Ahmadinejad strongholds.
High turnout could indicate voting by many pro-reformers who stayed away when Ahmadinejad won four years ago on a pledge to revive the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, although political analysts have said they expect a close race.
The vote has generated interest around the world with policymakers looking for signs of a change of approach by Tehran, whose ties with the West worsened under Ahmadinejad.
For Iranians it is a chance to pass judgment on his management of the Islamic Republic's oil exporting economy.
Although Ahmadinejad, 52, says his government has revived economic growth and curbed price rises, inflation and high unemployment were the main campaign issues. Official inflation is around 15 percent.
"MIRACLE"
Social issues, such as strict dress codes for women, as well as Iran's ties with the outside world, also featured in the campaign but the outcome of the vote will not bring a major shift in Iran's foreign policy, which is determined by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Anti-Taliban cleric killed in Pakistani blast

Anti-Taliban cleric killed in Pakistani blast
Anti-Taliban cleric killed
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By Mubasher Bukhari
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A prominent anti-Taliban Muslim cleric who condemned suicide bombings was killed on Friday in a suicide attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore, police said.
In another blast at around the same time, a suicide car-bomber set off explosives in an attack on a mosque in the northwestern town of Nowshera, killing at least four people, police said.
The blasts came as Pakistani forces stepped up attacks on militants across the northwest after the U.S. House of Representatives approved tripling aid to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for the next five years.
Security forces have made progress in more than a month of fighting against Taliban militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, and in recent days have begun operations in several other parts of the region.
The militants have responded with a series of bomb attacks.
Moderate cleric Sarfraz Naeemi was attacked at his office at his mosque complex after leading Friday prayers. Three people including Naeemi were killed and 11 wounded, top city administrator Sajjad Bhutta told reporters.
The young attacker posed as a religious student and avoided police checks at the main gate of Naeemi's complex.
"He came through a small door that opens onto a side alley and entered the office in the guise of a disciple," Bhutta said.
In the garrison town of Nowshera, in North West Frontier Province, four people were killed and more than 20 were wounded when a car-bomber attacked a mosque next to an army depot.
Rising Islamist violence has raised fears for Pakistan's stability and for the safety of its nuclear arsenal but the offensive in Swat has reassured the United States about its commitment to the global campaign against militancy.
Pakistan is a vital ally of the United States as it struggles to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan and defeat al Qaeda.
U.S. officials said on Thursday insurgent violence in Afghanistan had accelerated sharply alongside the arrival of new U.S. troops, reaching its highest level since 2001.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta said he believed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan and he hoped joint operations with Pakistani forces would find him.
HELICOPTERS ATTACK
The offensive in Swat has broad public support and the bombs in response appear to be hardening opinion against the militants. Continued...
Source: Reuters

NATO ministers back shake-up in U.S. Afghan command

NATO ministers back shake-up in U.S. Afghan command
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO ministers have backed a U.S. shake-up of military command in Afghanistan based on a model used in Iraq, as well as plans to step up training of Afghan security forces, a NATO spokesman said on Friday.
Washington has named U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal to overall command of the international operation in Afghanistan, with a deputy to run day-to-day military operations and another to oversee training.
The structure draws heavily on U.S. experience in Iraq.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said defense ministers from the 28-nation NATO military alliance backed the plan at a meeting in Brussels.
"Details will have to be now worked out and consulted amongst allies exactly how it will be implemented, but the general outlines have been agreed in principle," he said.
Lieutenant-General David Rodriguez, a former U.S. and NATO commander in eastern Afghanistan who now serves as Defense Secretary Robert Gates' right-hand military man, will effectively run day-to-day war operations.
This will leave McChrystal, a workaholic veteran of the secretive world of special operations who is currently director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, to focus on strategy and other tasks such as liaising with Afghan and NATO leaders and pushing forward the training of Afghan security forces.
AFGHANISTAN OBAMA'S TOP PRIORITY
The decision last month to dismiss U.S. Army General David McKiernan as the top commander in Afghanistan and, effectively, replace him with not one but two highly rated generals reflects a sense of urgency in the Obama administration about the war.
With insurgent violence on the rise, U.S. officials have acknowledged they are not winning in Afghanistan and the administration has declared the war its top military priority.
Appathurai said the command shake-up was needed given the big surge in troop numbers announced by Obama.
The United States has increased its military presence to 56,000 troops, from about 32,000 in late 2008, and expects a rise to some 68,000 by autumn. This is in addition to some 33,000 troops from NATO and partner countries.
Washington and its allies are also stepping up efforts to build up the Afghan army and police to more than 200,000 personnel.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the international effort in Afghanistan faced "real challenges," citing August 20 presidential elections, insurgent violence, and slow progress in reconstruction and development efforts.
"Meeting them will not be easy," he told the NATO meeting, at which McChrystal was presented. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Mediators await Netanyahu speech, hoping for change

Mediators await Netanyahu speech, hoping for change
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to deliver a major policy speech on Sunday that Western power-brokers hope will make a clear commitment to pursue peace with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu's refusal to declare a building freeze in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and to endorse the goal of establishing a Palestinian state -- both set out in a 2003 peace "road map" -- has opened a rare rift in U.S.-Israeli relations.
Anxious to preserve the alliance but also beholden to his fractious and right-leaning governing coalition, Netanyahu has spoken of stop-gap proposals such as Palestinian self-government shorn of sovereign powers like the right to set up an army.
The Palestinians, having won limited autonomy under 1993 interim accords, insist on full statehood. Yet theirs is now a divided polity, with Hamas Islamists who reject coexistence with the Jewish state in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007.
U.S. President Barack Obama says containing Iran's nuclear aspirations -- which Israel considers a major threat -- would be helped by progress toward a Palestine deal.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu was still putting final touches to the speech which would "present a vision of moving forward in the peace process with the Palestinians."
"In the framework of that, we want to see the Arab states play an increased role," the official said. "The speech will acknowledge the road map and deal with the issue of statehood."
WHAT ISRAELIS WANT
Briefing counterparts in the so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators after talks with Netanyahu, U.S. officials this week were skeptical he would make the clear, far-reaching and tangible commitments on settlements or statehood Obama wants.
"I don't know what he wants to say but what I would like to hear ... is that (Israel) will stop settlements and will resume negotiations with the Palestinians," European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said during a West Bank visit.
Polls show Israeli opinion is divided, but one survey indicates voters have a more hard-nosed attitude to giving up land for a peace they are not sure they would have.
Tamar Hermann, a sociologist who has conducted a monthly "peace index" survey for years, said she found that until a month ago, between 60 and 75 percent of Israelis answered in surveys that they supported a two-state solution.
But this month just 41 percent saw Palestinian statehood as a viable option, said Hermann, dean of Israel's Open University.
Fewer Israelis say they are willing to yield the minimum Palestinians seek for a deal -- the eventual dismantling of most Israeli settlements built in the occupied territory.
Hermann said 53 percent now oppose removing the enclaves. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Myanmar court delays Suu Kyi trial to June 26

Myanmar court delays Suu Kyi trial to June 26
Suu Kyi trial off till late June
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By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - A court in army-ruled Myanmar has delayed the widely-condemned trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for at least two weeks, her lawyer said on Friday.
The Yangon District Court set a new date of June 26 to hear the charges against Suu Kyi and American John Yettaw, whose uninvited visit to her home last month was deemed a breach of her house arrest.
Lawyers for the Nobel laureate asked for the adjournment to allow her only remaining defense witness, legal expert Khin Moe Moe, to testify at the trial.
"We requested the further adjournment since Daw Khin Moe Moe has to come here from southern Shan State," Nyan Win told reporters.
Suu Kyi faces up to five years in prison if found guilty of violating her house arrest after Yettaw, 53, swam across Inya lake and stayed for two nights at her Yangon home.
Suu Kyi says the trial is politically motivated to keep her in detention during next year's multi-party elections, which critics say will entrench nearly half a century of military rule in the former Burma.
Even some of Myanmar's neighbors are worried about the legitimacy of next year's polls. Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong told the generals that future investment in Myanmar hinged on the progress of democratic change there.
"I believe no Singapore investor will come in a big way before this move toward democracy is seen to yield some results," Goh was quoted as saying by the Straits Times newspaper on Friday after his visit to Myanmar.
FINAL ARGUMENTS
A conviction for the charismatic National League for Democracy (NLD) party leader is widely expected in a country where the courts often bend the law to suit the military.
The Supreme Court on Thursday accepted an appeal over a lower court's decision to bar two of her defense witnesses, senior NLD member Win Tin and the party's detained vice-chairman, Tin Oo. The appeal will be heard on June 17.
If the court overturns the bans and allows the pair to testify, final arguments and a verdict on Suu Kyi's case would be reached "much later," Nyan Win added.
He said Khin Moe Moe's testimony will highlight flaws in the prosecution's case and "explain that these charges are all politically motivated."
Suu Kyi is charged under Section 22 of an internal security law to protect the state from "subversive elements" but her lawyers say all charges should be dropped because the legislation is outdated.
She has blamed lax security for allowing Yettaw to swim to her home. She has spent more than 13 years in detention since her first period of house arrest in July 1989. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iraq parliament Sunni leader killed at mosque

By Ahmed Rasheed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The head of the Iraqi parliament's biggest Sunni Muslim bloc was killed at a mosque on Friday, officials said, an assassination which could undermine efforts for sectarian reconciliation in Iraq.
The killing coincided with coalition negotiations by parties before parliamentary polls due in January, seen as a key test of whether Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds can live at peace after years of bloodshed since the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Harith al-Ubaidi, head of the Accordance Front, and a member of the parliament's human rights committee, was leaving a mosque in west Baghdad after Friday prayers when he was killed.
"He was at a mosque. An armed man shot him with a pistol, then threw a grenade at him inside the Al-Shawaf mosque," said Saleem al-Jubouri, a spokesman for the Accordance Front.
"It could be al Qaeda behind this event or another armed group. This shows that the security situation is still fragile and dangerous. The government must provide more security," he added.
Accounts of the assassination varied.
A witness said the attacker was a suicide bomber, who ran up to Ubaidi and hugged him before detonating one or more grenades.
Police said six people were killed, including the attacker, after the assassin opened fire randomly on worshippers before detonating a grenade. They said the attacker, aged from 15 to 18 years old, shot Ubaidi twice in the head.
"Assassinations of political leaders have a huge effect on national peace, and these acts are meant to stoke renewed sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites, and also within feuding factions among the Sunnis," said Hazim al-Nuaimi, a political analyst at Baghdad University.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned on Thursday of the likelihood of increasing violence before next year's election. The withdrawal by U.S. combat troops from urban centers by the end of the month is another flashpoint for increasing attacks.
(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim, Khalid al-Ansary and Muhanad Mohammed, Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Charles Dick)

Source: Reuters

Voting starts in Iran's presidential election

Voting starts in Iran's presidential election
U.S. stakes in Iranian election
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By Parisa Hafezi and Zahra Hosseinian
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians began voting on Friday in a closely-fought election which pits hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against a former prime minister who sharply criticizes his economic record and wants detente with the West.
Four candidates are standing in the poll but Ahmadinejad's strongest challenger appears to be the moderate Mirhossein Mousavi, whose supporters have paraded through the capital Tehran in their thousands to demonstrate their backing.
The election outcome could help set the tone for Iran's relations with the West, which is concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. A victory for Mousavi could increase the prospects for Western investment in the country, analysts say.
But for Iranians it is a chance to pass judgment on Ahmadinejad's four years in office, particularly his management of the Islamic Republic's oil exporting economy, which is suffering from high inflation and unemployment.
Voting started at 8 a.m. (11:30 p.m. EDT) and officials expect a high turnout from Iran's 46 million eligible voters. Preliminary results are expected early on Saturday. If no clear winner emerges from Friday's vote, a run-off will be held on June 19 between the two front-runners.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's top authority, urged people to turn out for the election as he cast his ballot.
"Everybody go and everybody vote and act based on their judgment," Khamenei said in comments broadcast live on state television, urging people to do so early in the day.
Khamenei also warned of people who might seek to stir tension at polling stations. "If some wanted to create such tension people should not let them," he said.
State television, showing live footage of people queuing at a Tehran polling station, said a record turnout was expected.
"SHEER LIES"
Although Ahmadinejad says his government has revived economic growth and curbed price rises, the economy was the primary campaign issue. Official inflation is around 15 percent.
Social issues, such as strict dress codes for women and Iran's ties with the outside world, also featured in the campaign but the outcome of the vote will not shift Iran's foreign policy, which is determined by Khamenei.
The United States has had no ties with Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution and remains the "Great Satan" in the leadership's demonology. U.S. President Barack Obama has offered a new relationship if Tehran "unclenches its fist."
Mousavi rejects Western demands that Iran halt uranium enrichment but analysts say he would bring a different approach to Iran-U.S. ties and Tehran's nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs. Iran denies this.
The standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions has deterred Western investors in particular from doing business in Iran, which sits on the world's second-largest oil and gas reserves. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. says N.Korea unlikely to take military action

U.S. says N.Korea unlikely to take military action
UN turns up pressure on North Korea
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By Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - North Korea is unlikely to respond militarily to planned U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test, although the possibility should not be completely dismissed, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.
The draft U.N. Security Council resolution, written by the United States and endorsed by the four other permanent members plus Japan and South Korea, aims to hit the North's meager finances and authorize inspections of its cargo shipments. It is scheduled to be put to the vote on Friday.
"I don't think that there has been a commensurate change in the posture of the North Korean military that would suggest an attempt to undertake operations," Gates told reporters as he arrived in Brussels for a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
But he said Pyongyang was so unpredictable that it was probably "not wise" to dismiss out of hand North Korean threats of military action.
A Russian foreign ministry source, quoted by Itar-Tass news agency, took a similar line, saying Moscow did not expect the resolution to "whip up" the situation.
"We don't expect any actions to follow, including from North Korea, that would lead to an escalation of tension."
North Korea has been subjected to sanctions for years for military moves condemned by regional powers. Analysts are not sure if new measures will have much impact on the impoverished state, whose economy has grown weaker since leader Kim Jong-il took over in 1994.
Some experts believe the resolution could draw sharp rebuke from the prickly North, which has threatened to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the Security Council apologizes for punishing it for an April rocket launch widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.
North Korea has angered Asian neighbors and countries beyond in the past few weeks with missile launches, threats to attack the South and the nuclear test, prompting U.S. and South Korean forces to raise a military alert on the peninsula to one of its highest since the 1950-53 Korean War.
BLACKLIST INEFFECTIVE
President Barack Obama's special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said the United States is taking defensive measures and preparing sanctions against Pyongyang due to the nuclear test but prefers to settle matters through diplomacy.
"Our strong preference is to engage in serious, effective diplomacy," Ambassador Stephen Bosworth told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.
Bosworth said putting North Korea back on the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism would do little to penalize Pyongyang because most of the related sanctions are already applied under other U.S. laws.
Bosworth told the panel Washington was working through the United Nations and with allies Japan and South Korea to step up sanctions and pressure on the North but preferred to return to six-nation nuclear talks with Pyongyang that also includes Russia and China.
Asked about curbs on North Korean finances, Bosworth told the committee: "We are looking at additional measures which will be very carefully targeted." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Ahmadinejad faces election challenge from moderate

Ahmadinejad faces election challenge from moderate
U.S. stakes in Iranian election
Play Video
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians vote on Friday in a presidential election which pits hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against a former prime minister who sharply criticizes his economic record and seeks detente with the West.
Four candidates are standing in the poll but Ahmadinejad's strongest challenger appears to be the moderate Mirhossein Mousavi, whose supporters have paraded through Tehran in their thousands to demonstrate their backing.
The election result could help set the tone for Iran's relations with the West, which is concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. A victory for Mousavi could increase the prospects for Western investment in the Islamic Republic, analysts say.
But for Iranians it is a chance to pass judgment on Ahmadinejad's four years in office, particularly his management of Iran's oil exporting economy, which is suffering from high inflation and unemployment.
Although Ahmadinejad says his government has revived economic growth and curbed price rises, the economy was the primary campaign issue. Official inflation is around 15 percent.
Social issues, such as strict dress codes for women and Iran's ties with the outside world also featured in the campaign but the outcome of the vote will not shift Iran's foreign policy, which is determined by supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
U.S. TIES
The United States has had no ties with Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution and remains the "Great Satan" in the leadership's demonology. President Barack Obama has offered a new relationship if Tehran "unclenches its fist."
Mousavi rejects Western demands that Iran halt uranium enrichment but analysts say he would bring a different approach to Iran-U.S. ties and Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs. Iran denies it.
Voting starts at 8 a.m. (0330 GMT) and officials expect a high turnout from the country's 46 million eligible voters. If no clear winner emerges from Friday's vote a run-off will be held on June 19 between the two front-runners.
Ahmadinejad's opponents, who also include liberal cleric Mehdi Karoubi and former Revolutionary Guard leader Mohsen Rezaie, have urged the Interior Ministry and Khamenei to ensure there is no vote rigging.
"I have concerns...and we have prepared our forces to monitor the election," Karoubi told Reuters on the eve of the vote. "I believe that if there is a high turnout it will neutralize the fact that some forces are trying to influence the vote."
Ahmadinejad has ruled out any possibility of fraud and candidates' representatives will be allowed to witness the vote at each of the 45,000 polling stations across the country.
(Editing by Dominic Evans and Angus MacSwan)

Source: Reuters

Afghan insurgent violence accelerates in 2009

By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Insurgent violence in Afghanistan has accelerated sharply alongside the arrival of new U.S. troops, reaching its highest level since 2001 just last week, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Insurgent attacks soared 59 percent to 5,222 incidents from January through May, compared with 3,283 attacks in the first five months of 2008, according to U.S. military officials and excerpts of a report by NATO's International Security Assistance Force obtained by Reuters.
That is more than double the growth rate for violence in Afghanistan between the same months in 2007 and 2008, when military officials estimate insurgent attacks rose about 25 percent. All told, insurgent violence climbed 33 percent in 2008, they said.
"The past week was the highest level of security incidents in Afghanistan's history, at least that post-liberation history," said Army General David Petraeus, who is responsible for military strategy in the Middle East and Central Asia as the head of U.S. Central Command.
U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan's former Taliban regime in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which U.S. officials say were planned from al Qaeda safe havens on Afghan territory.
"There are some tough months ahead. Some of this (violence) will go up because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and their safe havens as we must," Petraeus told a Washington forum in a presentation unrelated to the ISAF report.
Accelerating violence could pose political risks for President Barack Obama, as his administration pours thousands of fresh troops into Afghanistan as part of a larger strategy to thwart Taliban influence and stabilize the war-torn nation.
Petraeus, whose strategic thinking is widely credited with rescuing Iraq from the brink of open civil war in 2007, is overseeing the military segment of the Obama strategy.
The United States has already increased its military presence in Afghanistan to 56,000 troops, from about 32,000 in late 2008, and Petraeus said he expects to see a total 68,000 troops in the war zone by autumn.
Analysts have warned the counterinsurgency strategy could lead to sharply higher U.S. casualty rates, potentially diminishing support for the war at home as members of Congress head into mid-term elections in 2010.
ISAF statistics show the number of insurgent attacks in May at 1,450 -- surpassing the 1,400-mark for only the second time since January 2007. Monthly attacks first topped 1,400 in August 2008. In May 2008, there were 944 insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
The data include attacks on U.S. and NATO forces as well as Afghan military, police, government and civilian targets.
Military officials blame the increase partly on a mild winter, which enabled Taliban and other insurgents to cross freely into Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan.
But rising violence was also driven by heightened NATO and Afghan military operations, which increased by about one-third from January through May, ISAF said.
The ISAF report showed a 78 percent jump in attacks from January through May in southern Afghanistan, where most of the additional U.S. troops are headed. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Gaddafi tells Italy to scrap political parties

Gaddafi tells Italy to scrap political parties
By Stephen Brown and Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, addressing Italians in a historic Rome square, embarrassed his hosts on Thursday by saying he would abolish political parties and give Italians direct power if it were up to him.
"There would be no right, left or center. The party system is the abortion of democracy," Gaddafi said in a sunset address in the famous Campidoglio square designed by Michelangelo atop Capitoline hill.
"I would abolish political parties so as to give power to the people," said the idiosyncratic Gaddafi, while some members of the crowd held up pictures of the Libyan leader and banners welcoming him.
His angry host, right-wing Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno -- who had praised the Libyan leader an hour earlier -- told reporters Gaddafi's discourse on political parties was "unacceptable" and that "we don't accept lessons on democracy from anyone."
Gaddafi also praised Italy for condemning fascism after the colonial period. Alemanno, standing beside him, was once the youth leader of a neo-fascist party and sparked controversy last year by refusing to label fascism as evil.
Earlier in the day Gaddafi, making his first visit to the former colonial power, faced protests by students over his human rights record and over a bilateral agreement for Italy to send back boatloads of African migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
The students tried to stop him giving a lecture at a Rome university, hurling paint and scuffling with police.
He told the students terrorism was "the residue of colonialism."
"Terrorism is to be condemned and most victims (of terrorism) are innocent and unarmed," Gaddafi said. But the world community had to look at the root causes of terrorism, such as injustice, he added.
The North African nation, once a pariah accused of sponsoring terrorism, has seen a thaw in its relations with the West since Gaddafi promised to give up the quest for weapons of mass destruction. International sanctions were lifted in 2003.
Italy, which last year apologized for Italian atrocities during its 1911-1943 colonial rule, is at the forefront of the diplomatic thaw and now gets a quarter of its oil from Libya, and more recently Libyan capital injections into Italian firms.
But Gaddafi retains a defiant tone, arriving on Wednesday in Rome with a picture pinned to his uniform of Omar al-Mukhtar, a resistance hero hanged by Italian occupiers in 1931.
Italian television on Thursday screened "Lion of the Desert," a 1981 film about al-Mukhtar which was banned in Italy until now.
Gaddafi, who as current chairman of the Africa Union will attend a G8 summit in Italy next month with U.S. President Barack Obama, also criticized the U.S-led war in Iraq during a speech earlier on Thursday to the Italian senate.
"Iraq was a fortress against terrorism, with Saddam Hussein al Qaeda could not get in, but now thanks to the United States it is an open arena and this benefits al Qaeda," he said. Continued...
Source: Reuters

G8 president Italy "breaking promises to Africa"

By Peter Griffiths and Lesley Wroughton
LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Italy is trailing far behind other rich nations in meeting a promise to more than double aid to Africa by 2010 and risks losing credibility as G8 president, a campaign group said in a report on Thursday.
Anti-poverty body ONE said Italy had delivered only three percent of the aid increase to Africa pledged by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at a G8 summit in Scotland in 2005.
While the United States, Britain, Japan and Germany are on course to meet their aid targets, the report said the poor performance by Italy, and to a lesser extent France, risked undermining the efforts of the G8 as a whole.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was sending a letter to the leaders of the G8 countries expressing his concerns about action on their pledge to raise development assistance by $50 billion by 2010, half of that for Africa.
"Today, only 10 percent of what was pledged to Africa has come through," Ban told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. "The economic crisis cannot become an excuse to abandon commitments. It is even more reason to make them concrete."
Italy will host G8 finance ministers in the southern city of Lecce this weekend before a G8 summit next month in L'Aquila, badly damaged in an earthquake in April.
"There is a credibility problem at the heart of this G8 presidency," Irish singer and ONE campaigner Bob Geldof told Reuters. "Why should any of the other leaders believe what they agree to in your (Berlusconi's) country under your presidency?"
FINANCIAL CRISIS SLOWS AID
The annual ONE report charts progress made by the G8 in meeting an aid promise made at the Gleneagles summit to more than double aid to Africa to $25 billion a year by 2010.
By the end of 2008 the G8 nations had met one-third of their commitments. They are due to reach the half-way mark by the end of this year, the report said. It blamed about 80 percent of the shortfall on falling aid from Italy and France.
Many G8 countries have spent billions of dollars on fiscal stimulus to spur global recovery, affecting their ability to increase foreign assistance for trade, health and schools.
African countries are being hit by the global economic slowdown that threatens to undo more than a decade of progress in reducing poverty and encouraging high economic growth.
The report said the G8's failure to deliver fully on their aid pledges was particularly troubling given that Africa was not to blame for the financial crisis.
Canada, the United States, Japan and Germany have met or exceeded their Gleneagles commitments, the report added.
To get back on course, the seven largest G8 members will need to deliver on average an additional $7.2 billion each year in 2009 and 2010, the report said. Continued...
Source: Reuters
 

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