Biden opens door to lethal aid for Ukraine
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Vice President Biden on Wednesday raised the possibility of providing lethal arms to Ukraine, calling the issue a "debate worth having."
"Much of the debate in Washington has been focused on whether we should provide additional defensive lethal weapons to Ukraine. That's a debate worth having and continues," Biden said in remarks at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"But let's not also lose sight of the fact Ukraine also needs basic military equipment and training, which we are also providing on the ground," Biden continued, defending the administration's efforts. "But more [needs] to be done."
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President Obama has so far refused to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, despite support for the idea from lawmakers in both parties. Officials say providing offensive weapons to Ukraine could further provoke Russia, which has annexed territory from its smaller neighbor and is backing separatist groups.
In March, the administration provided armored Humvees, drones, radios and other nonlethal aid to Ukraine. But critics say Ukraine needs more offensive weapons to defeat Russian-backed rebels.
"In total, we have provided over $470 million in economic assistance since the start of the crisis," Biden said Wednesday, noting it included nearly $200 million for Ukraine's armed forces, national guard and border services.
Obama met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday and is expected to discuss Russia's moves near Ukraine during talks at the G-7 summit in Germany in early June. Russia will not attend.
Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to "scare" the U.S. and its allies, and "rattle the cage" of the international community.
Biden cast the Ukraine-Russia conflict as not isolated but as a fight "about the rights of nations on the frontier of Europe to choose their own futures."
The crisis carries "consequential implications for the nature of the international order in the years to come," Biden said. He encouraged European economic growth and less of a dependence on energy from Russia, a top natural gas provider.
U.S.-Russia tensions flared after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, followed by the downing of a commercial jetliner in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies blamed the crash on Russian-backed separatists, but Russia has denied responsibility.
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- The Hill (blog)
Biden cracks door to lethal aid to Ukraine
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LONDON (Reuters) - With its two biggest victories in nearly a year in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has energized its fighters, littered the streets of two cities with the bodies of its enemies and forced Washington to re-examine its strategy.
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 Reuters |
Emboldened in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State may be reaching limits of expansion
Reuters LONDON With its two biggest victories in nearly a year in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has energized its fighters, littered the streets of two cities with the bodies of its enemies and forced Washington to re-examine its strategy. The near simultaneous capture this ... Limit US action in Syria: Your SayUSA TODAY Islamic State says it will preserve Palmyra ruinsIrish Times Monitor: Islamic State Executes 20 in Palmyra Roman TheaterVoice of America ARA News-CNN all 1,152 news articles » |
BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Peruvian rape victims who have become pregnant have no legal option but to keep an unwanted pregnancy after Congress voted against a bill to legalize abortion in such cases, an issue that has divided ordinary Peruvians.
The French position came as negotiators reconvened with the aim of reaching a final agreement on the nuclear dispute by June 30.
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NEW YORK (AP) -- A lawyer seeking to free two chimpanzees from a state university told a judge Wednesday that their confinement for research purposes is akin to slavery, the involuntary detention of mentally ill people and imprisonment....
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Nearly 100 people killed in Saudi-led aerial assault on Yemen
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Italian public opinion has moved decisively in favour of legally recognising same sex couples after Ireland's "Yes" to gay marriage, the first poll issued since the landmark referendum revealed Wednesday. Duration: 01:11
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Russian officials were quick to claim Wednesday that a U.S. conspiracy is behind the corruption scandal that shook the world of international soccer. Early that morning, police in Switzerland complied with a U.S. request to arrest nine senior officials at FIFA, the sport’s governing body, as part of a far-reaching probe into decades of alleged bribe-taking and backroom deals.
But why, the Russians asked, would a nation as indifferent to soccer as the U.S. pursue a corruption probe at the heart of the game? Even more suspect to many in Moscow was the timing of the dragnet in Zurich: The next FIFA World Cup tournament is due to be held in Russia in 2018, and President Vladimir Putin has been overseeing the preparations personally.
“So there are clearly forces in America that are trying to turn anything positive that we have into a new channel of confrontation,” Kirill Kabanov, who monitors corruption in Russia as a member of the Kremlin’s council on civil society, told TIME on Wednesday. “And even if there was bribery going on [at FIFA], why would the Americans only bring it up now, just after FIFA refused the demands of [U.S.] Senators to revoke Russia’s right to host the champions?”
His question referred to an appeal that 13 U.S. Senators sent last month to the President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, asking him to move the 2018 World Cup to another country. After Putin decided last spring to invade and annex Ukraine’s Crimea region, “allowing Russia to host the FIFA World Cup inappropriately bolsters the prestige of the Putin regime at a time when it should be condemned,” the Senators wrote in the letter, which was dated April 1.
Less than three weeks later, Blatter met with Putin in the Russian resort city of Sochi and issued an apparent rebuttal to the appeals from Capitol Hill. “If politicians are not too happy that we are taking the World Cup to Russia, I always say to them, ‘Well, you can stay home, and in Russia we will hold the biggest world cup ever,'” the FIFA chief told Putin on April 20, according to a transcript on the Kremlin website.
Putin responded with a promise that day: “We will at the very least achieve one objective and will organize this big event in Russia,” he said. But the President had no comment on the unfolding firestorm in Switzerland on Wednesday. “This is not our issue,” the Kremlin said through a spokesman. And indeed, no Russian citizens were among the 14 people indicted by the Eastern District of New York, including two FIFA vice-presidents.
The acting U.S. Attorney in the case, however, made clear that the probe was far from over: “This indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation,” Kelly Currie told reporters in New York.
Swiss authorities then gave another sign that Russia could yet become a target.
As part of a separate investigation, the Attorney General of Switzerland said investigators had also raided FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich on Wednesday, seizing a trove of documents related to FIFA’s decision in December 2010 to award Russia and Qatar the rights to host the next two World Cup tournaments. These files would be used as evidences in “criminal proceedings against persons unknown on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and of money laundering in connection with the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups,” the Swiss Attorney General said in a statement.
Asked at a crowded news conference on Wednesday whether these tournaments could be under threat, FIFA’s spokesman insisted that both would carry on as planned. “Russia and Qatar will be played,” said the spokesman, Walter de Gregorio. “This is what is fact today. I don’t go into speculation about what will happen tomorrow.”
In the coming days, the Russian official most likely to face scrutiny over this scandal would seem to be Vitaly Mutko, Putin’s Minister of Sport. In 2009, FIFA elected him to its main decision-making body, the Executive Committee, and the following year, Mutko became the driving force behind Russia’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
The legality of that bid’s success is now a key focus of the Swiss investigation. But as Mutko told reporters on Wednesday, “We have nothing to hide.” Despite media reports to the contrary, he said, Swiss investigators had not asked to question him in relation to their case: “This is not related to the [Russian] campaign to host the world championships.”
But some of Mutko’s peers in Moscow were not so ready to profess Russia’s innocence, at least not in any investigation where the U.S. plays a role. “The Americans can investigate whatever and however they want,” says Viacheslav Fetisov, the Russian hockey legend who served as Russia’s top sporting official under Putin from 2004 until 2008. “So we’ll just have to see what they come up with,” he tells TIME in a phone interview.
Even more measured was the response from Vasily Shestakov, who was Putin’s friend and sparring partner in the 1960s, when they were both teenagers studying judo at the same gym in Leningrad. Now a member of the Russian parliament’s committee on sport, Shestakov admits that in the world of international soccer, “There is very big money swirling around. Temptation is unavoidable.” And in the upper echelons of FIFA, “there may have been an element of corruption,” he told Russia’s state news agency on Wednesday.
What bothers him, though, is the fact that the U.S. is pursuing this case against corruption now, of all times, just as Russia prepares to host the premier tournament of global sports. What if the roles had been reversed, he wondered. What if the U.S. had been chosen to host one of the upcoming World Cup championships? To Shestakov the answer seemed clear: “There would never have been any of these arrests.”
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Drugs to keep people with HIV alive should be given without delay, trial finds by Sarah Boseley Health editor
Scientists in Europe and Africa find that antiretroviral treatment should be administered before HIV virus has weakened the immune system
Drugs to keep people with HIV alive should be given as early as possible – before the virus has weakened their immune system – and not delayed as they are now, according to scientists involved in a major trial.
The Start (Strategic Timing of AntiRetroviral Treatment) trial, carried out in Europe and Africa, was stopped because of overwhelming evidence that people with HIV did better if they were put on antiretroviral treatment when their CD4 count (a measure of how well their immune system is functioning) was above 500 rather than 350, as guidelines currently advise in the UK and many other countries.
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Armenian Church Sues Turkey for Return of Seized Monasteryby webdesk@voanews.com (Dorian Jones)
The Armenian Apostolic Church has filed a case in Turkey's Constitutional Court for the return of land and the iconic Kozan monastery in Adana. The monastery once was the largest belonging to the Armenian Church in Turkey, and it is one of thousands of properties seized by the Turkish state. This is widely seen as a groundbreaking legal case for the prospect of reclaiming the Catholicosate of Cilicia, which dates back to 1293, was taken over a century ago by Turkish authorities,...
Biden: US Stands With Ukraine to Fight Russian Aggressionby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The United States will stand by Ukraine to fight Russian aggression, which has become a prominent consideration for European security, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday. Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Biden said that supporting Ukraine is important for the future of the country, for the future of European security and for the future of the international order. "So long as Ukraine's leaders keep faith with the project of reform, the U.S. will...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ukraine's government needs to investigate and prosecute corruption at all levels and implement difficult political reforms to retain the support of the United States, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.
We’re right to be joyful about the Irish marriage referendum – and even some parts of the Catholic church and right-wing America are on board. But, for my LGBT friends and I, the increasing feeling of security still feels like a fragile thing
The Pope hasn’t watched television in 25 years. The Vatican has responded to the life-affirming, joyful vote for gay marriage in Ireland by declaring it to be “a defeat for humanity” and calling for hatemongers to double-down on evangelism. You can’t help but think that a binge-watch ofTransparent or Orange is the New Black might have done the Apostolic Palace a bit of good. Given that even the archbishop of Dublin accepted this overwhelming will of the people by admitting that theCatholic church needs a “reality check”, it is extraordinary to see the Vatican in such denial about the standards the modern west expects for its citizens. It’s as if they’ve lost the match but, instead of shaking hands at the net, they’ve thrown their racket at the ball boy. (Apologies to all lesbians for being unable to come up with a non-tennis sporting reference.)
But there is also something oddly heartening in witnessing such bigotry laid bare, because it is a reminder that the dinosaurs are flailing. What a contrast between an overwhelmingly positive democratic vote and the cloth-eared prejudice of the high and cloistered. And what a remarkable indication of how far certain parts of the world have come – and how quickly – with LGBT equal rights, which are now entrenched in the least likely quarters.
Continue reading...Biden Defends Cooperation With Russia Amid Ukraine Standoffby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
Vice President Joe Biden says the United States should pursue cooperation with Russia on areas of mutual interests as long as it is not "asked to back off matters of principles" crucial to the "security and well-being" of Washington and its allies.
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Prehistoric skull with puncture wounds could be world's first murder mystery by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Pieced together from 52 fragments found in cave in northern Spain, 430,000-year-old skull seems to show victim was bludgeoned to death
Scientists have pieced together the world’s earliest murder mystery, showing that an ancient human appears to have met their end after being bludgeoned to death and thrown down a cave shaft.
The skull, which has two holes above the left eye, belonged to an early human closely related to Neanderthals who lived around 430,000 years ago. The discovery suggests that violence and murder long predate the emergence of modern humans, around 200,000 years ago.
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Construction continued Wednesday on a soccer stadium in St. Petersburg, Russia, that is scheduled to host some of the 2018 World Cup matches.
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Interim president of the Central African Republic Catherine Samba Panza urges donor countries to deliver on promised aid, says she regrets not being informed earlier of investigations into French soldiers raping children claims. Duration: 00:37
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 Los Angeles Times |
Iraqis rename offensive in Sunni area; original title honored Shiite
Los Angeles Times Iraqi officials Wednesday hastily rebranded a just-launched government offensive to retake Anbar province, responding to fears that the operation's original title might inflame sectarian tensions. The abrupt name change came as the opening salvos were ... Emboldened in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State may be reaching limits of expansionReuters Islamic State Shoots Dead 20 in Palmyra Amphitheatre: MonitorNDTV IS kills 20 men in Syria's Palmyra ruinsSky News Australia The Indian Express-Rudaw-CNN International all 898 news articles » |
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World Reacts to FIFA Indictmentsby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Leading figures from the international football world voiced dismay Wednesday over the latest scandal to engulf FIFA, soccer's powerful governing body. Russia accused the United States of illegally applying its legal force "far beyond its borders" following the U.S. indictment against FIFA officials. The awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia forms part of one of the two corruption investigations launched on Wednesday. WATCH: Related video on U.S., Swiss...
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KHUTOR CHKALOVA, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's army is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry including mobile rocket launchers, tanks and artillery at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine, a Reuters reporter saw this week.
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PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter called on Wednesday for a halt to island-building by all parties in the South China Sea and an end to militarization of the dispute, saying the United States would be the principle security power in the region for decades to come.
Suge Knight refuses to leave jail cell for hearing in camera robbery case by Associated Press in Los Angeles
A judge delayed Wednesday’s proceedings after the rap music mogul told deputies he was too ill to leave his downtown LA jail cell
A judge stopped short of ordering Marion “Suge” Knight forcibly removed from his jail cell onWednesday, after the rap music mogul said he was sick and refused to go to court for a hearing in his robbery case.
Los Angeles superior court judge Ronald S Coen said Knight told deputies he was too ill to leave his downtown LA jail cell. Coen said he did not order deputies to forcibly remove Knight because the Death Row Records co-founder has a hearing in his murder case on Friday.
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Switzerland, famously secretive, has gradually become more cooperative with foreign authorities as its banking sector and companies seek to expand and flourish abroad.
Hours after news of the ‘hijacking’ accusations broke, Coca-Cola became the first major sponsor to call for Fifa to put its house in order
Coca-Cola, one of football’s biggest sponsors, said Wednesday the allegations of corruption now swirling around Fifa, soccer’s governing body, have “tarnished” the reputation of the World Cup.
Hours after the justice department accused nine senior current or former Fifa officials of “hijacking” international football to run “a World Cup of fraud”, Coca-Cola became the first major sponsor to call for the organisation to put its house in order.
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Vladimir Kara-Murza’s role as an opposition activist raised suspicions of poisoning, but there was no confirmation of this from doctors or the authorities.
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Unexploded ordnance, covered over in haste or in oversight, is cause for alarm — and for wide-scale evacuations — long after World War II has ended
Pentagon accidentally sent live anthrax to as many as nine labs, officials say by Associated Press in Washington
Department of Defense meant to send dead or inactivated spores, but government does not believe there is a risk to the public, spokesman says
The Pentagon says it inadvertently shipped live anthrax spores to as many as nine laboratories and is investigating how that happened.
The labs were supposed to receive dead – or inactivated – anthrax samples for research use.
Continue reading...Brazilian radio journalist known for anti-drug trafficking views killed by gunmen by Staff and agencies in Sao Paulo
- Djalma Santos da Conceição spoke out against local crime and drugs trade
- Second attack against country’s press in less than a week
A radio journalist known for denouncing drug traffickers and organized crime groups has been murdered in north-eastern Brazil, in the second attack on the country’s press in less than a week.
Three men armed with machine guns and pistols killed Djalma Santos da Conceição on Saturday night in the small town of Conceicao da Feira in the state of Bahia, police inspector Gustavo Coutinho told the Associated Press.
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Authorities confirm 2 more storm-related deaths, raising combined Texas and Oklahoma death toll to 19 people
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State militants shot dead around 20 men inside an ancient amphitheatre in the Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday, accusing them of being government supporters, a group monitoring the conflict said.
Saudi Arabia sanctioned two top Hezbollah commanders allegedly involved in regional terrorist operations, in a sign of the kingdom’s growing coordination with the U.S. Treasury Department.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will step down as the representative of the Quartet of Middle East powerbrokers at the end of June, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday.
 Channel 4 News |
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(BAGHDAD)—Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) extremists unleashed a wave of suicide attacks targeting the Iraqi army in western Anbar province, killing at least 17 troops in a major blow to government efforts to dislodge the militants from the sprawling Sunni heartland, an Iraqi military spokesman said Wednesday.
The attacks came just hours after the Iraqi government on Tuesday announced the start of a wide-scale operation to recapture areas under the control of the ISIS group in Anbar.
Brig. Gen Saad Maan Ibrahim, the spokesman for the Joint Military Command, told The Associated Press the attacks took place outside the Islamic State-held city of Fallujah late Tuesday night.
The militants struck near a water control station and a lock system on a canal between Lake Tharthar and the Euphrates River where army forces have been deployed for the Anbar offensive, he said.
Ibrahim added that the Islamic State extremists used a sandstorm that engulfed most of Iraq on Tuesday night to launch the deadly wave of bombings. He said it was not clear how many suicide attackers were involved in the bombings but they hit the military from multiple directions.
Last month, the water station near Fallujah fell into the hands of Islamic State militants — following attacks that also included multiple suicide bombings and that killed a general commanding the 1st Division and a dozen other officers and soldiers, he said.
Iraqi government forces recaptured the station a few days later. Fallujah lies to the east of the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi, which was captured by the Islamic State militants nearly two weeks ago in what was a major, humiliating defeat for Iraqi troops at the hands of the extremists.
The Iraqi operation to retake Anbar, which is said to be backed by Shiite militias and Sunni pro-government fighters, is deemed critical in regaining momentum in the fight against the Islamic State.
The extremists captured Ramadi in Iraq and the Syrian ancient town of Palmyra earlier this month, showing that it is able to advance in both countries despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes. Capt. Andrew Caulk, a U.S. Air Force spokesman in Qatar, told the AP it will continue to provide air support “to government-controlled Iraqi forces” throughout the country, including near Ramadi, where it has been carrying out airstrikes for several months.
Syria’s foreign minister said Wednesday that his government is not pinning any hopes on the U.S.-led coalition striking at Islamic State group militants in his country.
At a news conference in Damascus, Walid al-Moallem said the coalition was active in preventing the Kurdish town of Kobani from falling to the extremists last year but that this support seems to have “evaporated” after that.
The United States did nothing to prevent the ancient town of Palmyra in Syria or the province of Anbar in Iraq from falling into their hands, he said.
“We’re not pinning any hopes on that alliance and anyone who does is living an illusion,” al-Moallem added.
Al-Moallem also said Iraq and Syria were fighting the same battle but added that security coordination between their two armies “has not reached the desired levels.”
Also Wednesday, Syrian activists said the Islamic State group released two elderly Christian women who had been held along with dozens of others since February in northeastern Syria.
At the time, they kidnapped more than 220 Assyrian Christians after overrunning several farming communities on the southern bank of the Khabur River in Hassakeh province.
The two women, who are 70 and 75 years old, were released on Tuesday and have now reached the northwestern city of Hassakeh, said Osama Edwards, director of the Assyrian Network for Human Rights.
Another activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the two were likely released because of their poor health. Some of the captives had been released previously.
Edwards said the Islamic State group is still holding 210 Assyrian Christians and is demanding $100,000 for each hostage.
___
Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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From: itnnews
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US Lawmakers: Russia Incinerating Dead Troops in Ukraineby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Two U.S. lawmakers say Russia is using mobile crematoriums to hide its military involvement in eastern Ukraine. The charge came in an interview of House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA) with Bloomberg News, excerpts of which were published Tuesday. The congressmen were part of a fact finding mission to Ukraine last March. "The Russians are trying to hide their casualties by taking mobile crematoriums with them,”...
CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian police brigadier general was killed in a roadside bomb attack on Wednesday in North Sinai, the interior ministry said, one of the most high-profile police deaths in the Islamist insurgency raging in the region.
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An investigation into the incident is under way as experts say it is a "very unusual occurrence" for both engines to lose power.
HERZLIYA, Israel (Reuters) - The chief of Israel's air force on Wednesday played down worries voiced by some fellow officials about the possibility of Egypt acquiring advanced Russian-made air defenses.
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Vice President Biden(Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The debate over whether to provide lethal defensive aid, such as anti-tank missiles, to is "worth having," Vice President Biden said Wednesday.
Biden accused Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, of flouting international rules including "brutal" aggression in Ukraine.
He called for strengthening NATO and energy independence for Europe, which relies heavily on Russia for natural gas.
Biden's remarks in a speech at the Brookings Institution follow more than a year of heightened U.S.-Russian tensions over the seizure of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. Russian-supplied separatists — backed by Russian artillery strikes at times — have destabilized eastern Ukraine.
Russia has mounted a "hyper-aggressive" state-sponsored propaganda program, Biden said. But it had not yet shaken European unity.
The Pentagon has sought to reassure Baltic-state countries by holding joint training exercises and sending advances warplanes to the region.
American support to Ukraine, a non-NATO ally, has been limited to training its national guard and "non-lethal" aid such as Humvees. There have been hints that sending lethal weapons could be possible. Most notably Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said at his confirmation hearing in February that he would consider such a move.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, supports a more robust package of military aid.
Putin's incursion into Ukraine was more a matter of opportunism than strategy, Biden said. But he can be persuaded to act responsibly, Biden said, because "at his core he's practical."
Brookings' Vice President Martin Indyk called Biden's speech "admirably tough."
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 The Moscow Times |
Biden cracks door to lethal aid to Ukraine
USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The debate over whether to provide lethal defensive aid, such as anti-tank missiles, to Ukraine is "worth having," Vice President Biden said Wednesday. Biden accused Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, of flouting international rules including ... US Lawmakers: Russia Incinerating Dead Troops in UkraineVoice of America Russia and Ukraine Trade Turnover Falls by Two-ThirdsThe Moscow Times all 225 news articles » |
Campaign finance watchdogs say there is evidence former US governor violated election financing laws
Monitor: Islamic State Executes 20 in Palmyra Roman Theaterby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Islamic State militants have executed 20 men at the ancient Roman Theater in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra, a group monitoring the conflict said Wednesday. The men were shot after accusations of collaborating with the Syrian government, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In neighboring Iraq, suicide bombings killed at least 17 Iraqi soldiers in Anbar province overnight, as pro-government forces in Iraq continue their newly launched campaign to...
Zakariya Ashiq, whose lawyer describes him as ‘a Walter Mitty character’, failed to reach Syria and was arrested upon returning to Heathrow
A young British Muslim has been jailed for six years for making determined efforts to join Islamic State in Syria to fulfil his ambition of becoming a martyr.
Zakariya Ashiq, 20, left the UK on 6 November 2014 on a bus from Victoria station in London and made his way via Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Bulgaria to Jordan, his Old Bailey trial heard.
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 USA TODAY |
Obama cancels emergency over Russian uranium sales
USA TODAY WASHINGTON — President Obama took the rare step of canceling a state of national emergency Tuesday, revoking an executive order that provided for payments for Russianuranium under the "Megatons to Megawatts" program. In doing so, he closed the ... Breakdown in US-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadistsReuters Blogs (blog) all 3 news articles » |
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Al-Qaeda and Isis have more than 25,000 new members, UN says
Former British prime minister faced criticism over his poor relations with Palestinian Authority
Quartet Mideast Envoy Tony Blair Resignsby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday stepped down from his post as the international community's Mideast envoy, officials said, ending a term that began with great promise but which struggled to deliver dramatic changes in its quest to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The officials, who are familiar with the work of the Quartet in the region, said Blair had written a letter to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to confirm his resignation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement, which was expected later Wednesday at a meeting of Quartet officials in Brussels. The Quartet _ which includes the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the United Nations _ appointed Blair to the post in 2007 with the goal of helping develop the Palestinian economy and institutions. The mission was meant to prepare the groundwork for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as part of a peace agreement. But Blair quickly found himself fighting small battles with Israel over the movement of Palestinian goods and people. With peace efforts stalled, the goal of a two-state solution remains as elusive as ever. One official said Blair had suffered"`frustration'' with the limited authority of his mandate. The official also said that Blair felt his office has a strong leadership team and that now is the right time to move on. According to his office's website, Blair's office succeeded in helping remove dozens of Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, easing the movement of workers and Palestinian products to markets. He also helped boost tourism in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, helped secure thousands of permits for Palestinian laborers to work in Israel and helped engineer a $350 million mobile phone investment in the West Bank, creating thousands of jobs. The official said that Blair remains committed to the Quartet's vision of a two-state solution and hopes to play an "informal'' role in promoting peace. One area where he could help is developing relations between Israel and the wider Arab world, the official said.
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A Russian businessman, who died in London while assisting a Swiss probe into a massive money-laundering scheme, may have been poisoned with a substance derived from a highly toxic plant, an inquest has heard. 
The capture by Islamic State forces of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, on May 17, has given the organization a fortified urban base less than an hour’s drive from Baghdad. Its near-simultaneous takeover of the central Syrian city of Palmyra, points to the organization’s permanence and demonstrates its widening operational span, which now ranges from Western Libya to the Iranian border. Without an all-out war effort by outside forces, such as Iran, or the United States, it is difficult to see how the Islamic State could be stopped from permanently establishing itself as a major actor in the region. However, such an eventuality is extremely improbable, as no outside force appears willing to confront ISIS in a symmetrical way.
 The Guardian |
Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza in hospital after falling ill
The Guardian A Russian opposition activist has been taken to hospital in Moscow after a sudden illness. Vladimir Kara-Murza, who works for the Open Russia movement founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch and Putin critic who now lives in Zurich, was admitted ... Russia: Anti-Kremlin activist Vladimir Kara-Murza in hospital after 'poisoning'International Business Times UK all 7 news articles » |
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