US to finance Syrian oppositionTHE United States will allocate $US5 million to finance the Syrian opposition, the State Department said overnight, two days after announcing a similar initiative for the Iranian opposition.
The State Department said in a statement that it will give the money "to accelerate the work of reformers in Syria."
The money would come from the department's Middle East Partnership Initiative, it said.
The grants "will build up Syrian civil society and support ... (more)
|
|
Bush Sees Need to Expand Role of NATO in SudanORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 17 — President Bush signaled a new American commitment on Friday to addressing the crisis in Darfur, saying he would support an expanded role by NATO to shore up a failing African peacekeeping mission there.
Mr. Bush also said he favored doubling the number of peacekeepers operating in Darfur under United Nations control, as proposed by the Security Council last month. He discussed Darfur, in western Sudan, as an offshoot of a question about the fate of c... (more)
|
|
China Rushes to Complete $100B Deal With IranSHANGHAI, Feb. 17 -- China is hastening to complete a deal worth as much as $100 billion that would allow a Chinese state-owned energy firm to take a leading role in developing a vast oil field in Iran, complicating the Bush administration's efforts to isolate the Middle Eastern nation and roll back its nuclear development plans, according to published reports.
The completion of the agreement would advance China's global quest for new stocks of energy. It could also undermine U.S.... (more)
|
|
Iran calls on Britain to withdraw from BasraTensions between Britain and Iran stepped up a notch yesterday when the Iranian foreign minister called on the UK to pull its troops out of Basra immediately.
"We believe that the presence of the British military forces in Basra has led to the destabilisation of the security situation in the city," Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters, denouncing what he described as human rights violations by British troops in southern Iraq.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran demands the i... (more)
|
|
N.Korean Cheerleaders Banished to CampsWomen who caught South Korea's attention with their charm and cheerleading antics when they accompanied the North Korean athletes to the Busan Asian Games have ended up in North Korean detention camps.
Lee Myeong-ho, a former inmate of the Daeheung concentration camp in South Hamgyeong Province who recently escaped to China, said “21 beautiful women” were detained at the camp since the end of last year. “Later I found out that they were the cheerleading team that... (more)
|
|
Russia’s Army Chief Does not Rule Out Use of Force Against IranRussia’s chief of general staff has not ruled out the use of military force against Iran.
“Will the events lead to a choice of force?” he said speaking to journalists on Thursday. “I do not rule this out but a decision by force is not the best,” RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
On Tuesday, Russian political expert Mikhail Delyagin said the United States would launch a missile attack against Iran this summer already. “... (more)
|
|
Commercial photos show Chinese nuke buildupCommercial satellite photos made public recently provide a new look at China's nuclear forces and bases -- images that include the first view of a secret underwater submarine tunnel.
A Pentagon official said the photograph of the tunnel entrance reveals for the first time a key element of China's hidden military buildup. Similar but more detailed intelligence photos of the entrance are highly classified within the U.S. government, the official said.
"The Chinese hav... (more)
|
|
Iraqi government denounces Abu Ghraib abuseBAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi government Thursday condemned prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, following an Australian TV broadcast of newly released images, the aired timing of which a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq called "irresponsible and "unnecessarily provocative."
A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the events portrayed in the images are a "serious thing that completely conflicts with the human rights charter, and their repetition should... (more)
|
|
Basra authorities refuse to work with British militaryRelations with local Iraqi authorities worsened yesterday after council leaders in Basra voted to withdraw co-operation with the British following the broadcast of a video showing soldiers allegedly beating unarmed youths.
The news emerged as the Ministry of Defence announced that another two soldiers had been arrested in connection with the alleged... (more)
|
|
Iran’s Bushehr Plant Ready to Accept Russian Fuel Soon — OfficialThe Bushehr nuclear plant will be put into operation and launch processing of nuclear fuel in near future, Iran’s Foreign Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday, during his visit to Armenia, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
The development of the Bushehr nuclear power plant has been completed, in full compliance with international standards, Mottaki told a news conference in Yerevan, Armenia. In the near future, that plant will be ready to accept nuclear fuel Russia has pledge... (more)
|
|
Iran shelves Russia nuclear talksIran has postponed talks with Russia on a proposal to enrich uranium on Russian soil, amid reports that Tehran has resumed its own small-scale enrichment.
Thursday's talks have been pushed back indefinitely, Iranian presidential spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said.
He said the talks had been postponed because of the "new situation".
Earlier this month, the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, voted to report Tehran to the Security Council over its decision t... (more)
|
|
US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sitesStrategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defenc... (more)
|
|
Three specks in the ocean take big step towards little nationhoodTHREE specs of coral in the Pacific inhabited by 1,500 people are bidding today to cast off the colonial yoke and become the world’s smallest state.
The emerging nation of Tokelau, lying midway between Hawaii and New Zealand, and boasting a territory that could easily fit into Guernsey five times, is holding a referendum on self-rule and free association with New Zealand, its colonial master. Votes will be cast first in the Samoan capital, Apia, where many Tokelauans live an... (more)
|
|
France secretly upgrades capacity of nuclear arsenal· Modification increases range of missiles
· Altitude bomb to knock out electronic systems
France has secretly modified its nuclear arsenal to increase the strike range and accuracy of its weapons. The move comes weeks after President Jacques Chirac warned that states which threatened the country could face the "ultimate warning" of a nuclear retaliation.
A military source quoted yesterday by the Libération newspaper claimed France had t... (more)
|
|
Football and pizza point to US staying for long haulThe airbase at al-Asad is the biggest marine camp in western Anbar province. It is in the midst of the most rebellious region in Iraq, where thousands of insurgents have been killed in a series of operations over the past year.
But get "inside the wire" and this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of US suburbia rather than the front line in a war zone.
Its restaurants include a Subway and a fast food pizza shop. There is a coffee shop, football pitch a... (more)
|
|
Brazil poised to join the world's nuclear eliteRIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - While the world community scrutinizes Iran's nuclear plans, Latin America's biggest country is weeks away from taking a controversial step and firing up the region's first major uranium enrichment plant.
That move will make Brazil the ninth country to produce large amounts of enriched uranium, which can be used to generate nuclear energy and, when highly enriched, to make nuclear weapons.
Brazilians, who have long nurtured hopes of becoming ... (more)
|
|
Vodafone embroiled in Greek phone-tapping scandalVodafone's mobile phone operation in Greece has become embroiled in a phone-tapping scandal, nicknamed the Greek Watergate, after it discovered its network was being used to eavesdrop on the country's political and military elite.
Last week, an inquiry was ordered by Costas Karamanlis, the prime minister, who was among the targets. It will focus on how spy software was installed within Vodafone's Greek mobile network before the 2004 Olympics. The spyware, understood to have been l... (more)
|
|
Suicide complicates Greek mobile phone spying conundrum The suicide of a Greek telecommunications expert added to the murkiness surrounding the explosive revelations that eavesdroppers listened in on Greece's entire political and military elite, including the prime minister, for almost a year.
The death of Kostas Tsalikides, 39, who took his own life last March, a day after the discovery of sophisticated spy software at the mobile telephone operator Vodafone, has deepened the mystery of how 100 mobile phones, belonging to senior offic... (more)
|
|
Government denies depleted uranium ammunition claimsThe Government has denied claims that depleted Uranium ammunition is being transported through Shannon Airport on U.S. military cargo planes destined for Iraq.
The allegation was made by a Former U.S. Marine who claims he used the ammunition when serving in Iraq as a Platoon Sergeant.
Jim Massey says the Irish Government is aware that the cargo is carried through Shannon.
"You would have to be a fool. Any person that has ever spent time within the mil... (more)
|
|
Russia confirms missile defence contract with IranMoscow: Amid the escalating crisis around Iran's nuclear programme, Russia said Thursday that it will still arm Tehran with missiles that can secure nuclear facilities from attacks.
"We concluded a contract for the supply of air-defence systems to Iran and there is no reason not to fulfil it," Mikhail Dmitriyev, the head of Russia's military-technical cooperation agency, told journalists here.
Worth an estimated $700 million, the deal for up to 30 Tor M-1 surface-to... (more)
|
|
Violence jumps on US-Mexican borderWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attacks on American border patrol agents along the U.S. border with Mexico have jumped more than 100 percent in the last year, Homeland Security officials said on Thursday.
"There has been an over-100 percent increase in the last fiscal year in border violence aimed at our Border Patrol agents, and that ranges from gunshots fired across the border to rocks being thrown, sometimes flaming rocks," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
... (more)
|
|
| 
