A powerless Gadhafi could stay in Libya, some NATO countries concede

Moammar Gadhafi remains defiantly in power after more than four months of bombing, and the nations carrying out most of the air strikes want to end the war, even if it means allowing the dictator to step down but remain in Libya.

The bloody stalemate in the ground war has dimmed early hopes that ill-equipped but enthusiastic rebels could topple the despot. With the holy Muslim month of Ramadan looming and no military end in sight, Britain has publicly echoed an offer first floated by France that would allow for Colonel Gadhafi to talk his way into retirement.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/a-powerless-gadhafi-could-stay-in-libya-some-nato-countries-concede/article2110834/

China, Russia issue joint statement on major international issues

China and Russia on Thursday issued a joint statement on a broad range of key international issues.

The statement was signed by visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

Countries of the world have become increasingly interdependent against the backdrop of profound changes and major adjustments in the international situation as well as the emergence of global challenges and regional threats such as the international financial crisis, regional conflicts, natural disasters, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,terrorism and climate change, said the statement.

The two sides recognize the need to make concerted efforts to effectively cope with such global challenges and threats, it said.

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-06/16/c_13934280.htm

President Obama hosts star-studded farewell dinner

US President Barack Obama has hosted a dinner in honour of the Queen at the end of his state visit to the UK.

The president and his wife Michelle organised the intimate evening as a thank-you to the Queen for Tuesday's state banquet at Buckingham Palace.

It was held in London at the official home of the US ambassador to Britain.

Oscar winners Tom Hanks and Colin Firth, England footballer David Beckham and Harry Potter author JK Rowling were among the guests.

While the state banquet on Tuesday night had been a white-tie affair, the dress code for the Obamas' dinner was black tie.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were welcomed when they arrived by the Obamas. The two couples greeted each other warmly, shaking hands, and exchanging smiles and a few words before posing for the waiting international media.

The Queen wore an Angela Kelly white evening dress with gold and silver sequins, and an emerald necklace and matching earrings.

Mrs Obama was dressed in a black off-the-shoulder dress, and wore what appeared to be a diamond necklace and matching bracelet.

The two heads of state led the way through the residence's entrance, which was flanked by two US marines.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13554520

Obama begins tough trip with family time in Ireland

Reporting from Dublin, Ireland—
President Obama lands Monday in Ireland to begin a weeklong visit to Europe, trying to forge a common way forward with allies facing two wars, turmoil in the Middle East, and economies still struggling to recover from the 2008 collapse.

But before he gets down to the hard stuff, Obama will indulge in a dash of the Irish roots politics so beloved by American presidents who trace their ancestry to this island.

The White House and Irish officials planned the one-day stop in Ireland around a drop-in visit to Moneygall, a one-pub village about 48 miles from Dublin on the road to Limerick. In 1850, Fulmouth Kearney, the second son of a Moneygall shoemaker, joined the mass exodus fleeing the Irish famine in hopes of finding a better life in America.

Now, 160 years later, his great-great-great-grandson returns as president of the United States, to be welcomed by a tiny village that sees its own possibilities for prosperity in the connection.

It won't be the first time. Whether greeting Irish American presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan or pouring a pint for Bill Clinton, the Irish have been eager to boast of their ties to the U.S. presidency. And presidents have been happy to go along with propping up an ethnic connection that could appeal to some voters. "There is special symbolism in going to the country of origin for many Americans of European immigrant descent," says Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, a political science professor at Northwestern University.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obama-europe-20110523,0,7833376.story

War crimes prosecutor calls for arrest of Gaddafi

ICC prosecutor Luis Mareno Ocampo believes he has a strong case for the arrest of Gaddafi, one of his sons and his intelligence chief

PETER CAVE: The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is calling for the arrest of Moamar Gaddafi, his son and his brother-in-law. The three are wanted on charges of crimes against humanity.

Saif al Islam was long considered the future face of Libya but the ICC says it now has firm evidence that Colonel Gaddafi's second son was closely involved in the mass killing of civilians.

Europe correspondent, Emma Alberici.

EMMA ALBERICI: The International Criminal Court in The Hague claims that members of the Libyan regime have secretly handed over evidence that proves without doubt that Colonel Gaddafi has been systematically killing his own people with the close assistance of his second son and his brother-in-law, who acts as his intelligence chief.

Luis Moreno Ocampo is the ICC's chief prosecutor

LUIS MORENO OCAMPO: Shot demonstrators with live ammunitions, use of heavy weaponry against participants in funeral processions and placed snipers to kill those leaving mosques after the prayers. The crimes are crimes against humanity.

EMMA ALBERICI: But the history of the world's first permanent tribunal to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide doesn't augur well for the prosecutor's efforts.

It was created in 2002 in response to the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but its credibility has long suffered from the refusal of some of the world's most powerful countries to recognise its jurisdiction.

The US, Russia, China, India and all Middle Eastern countries, and Libya, are among those who have not signed the ICC treaty which has been ratified by 114 of the 193 recognised states.

The Libyan government issued a statement, claiming that the ICC was merely a baby of the EU that only targets African leaders.

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http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3218734.htm

Kerry Visits Pakistan with Warning on Aid

Saying this is a "critical moment" in relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, Sen. John Kerry was set to arrive in Islamabad Sunday night with a firm message: Cooperate more in uprooting terrorists in Pakistan or face losing vital aid.

On a visit to Kabul before traveling to Islamabad, Mr. Kerry said Sunday that Pakistan faces "profound" changes in its relationship with the U.S. unless it recognizes that the dynamics have fundamentally changed in the two weeks since U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in a night raid at a comfortable sanctuary 40 miles from the country's capital.

His location, in a garrison town that also is home to Pakistan's chief military academy, has prompted U.S. officials to suggest that bin Laden may have received some measure of support from elements of Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment though so far they have offered no proof.

"This is not a moment for anything except very sober, serious discussions with an understanding that there's a lot at stake," Mr. Kerry told reporters as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Afghanistan. "There's no other way to put it."

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281504576325274176490968.html

U.S. wants other nations to pitch in on Libya

President Obama has touted his emphasis on multilateralism in the U.S. military intervention in Libya, but — for political, operational and legal reasons — his “coalition of the willing” is smaller than any major multilateral operation since the end of the Cold War.

The Cable compiled a list of the countries that contributed at least some military assets to the five major military operations in which the United States participated in a coalition during the past 20 years: the 1991 Persian Gulf War (32 countries participating), the 1995 Bosnia mission (24 countries), the 1999 Kosovo mission (19 countries), the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan (48 countries) and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (40 countries), at the height of the size of each coalition.

As of today, only 15 countries, including the United States, have committed to a military contribution to the war in Libya.

Experts quickly point out that all of these military interventions happened in different contexts. However, they added that the reason Obama’s Libya war coalition has less international involvement than all the others was also because of his administration’s behavior in the lead-up to the war, its approach to multilateralism, the speed at which it was put together, and the justifications for the war itself.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the administration’s effort to build the coalition was hampered by its stated desire to hand off the leadership of the Libya intervention to NATO.

“Obama, in his deference to [getting out of the lead], has not only wanted other countries to do as much as they could, he has essentially forgone his responsibility to build the coalition,” he said.

The mission in Libya is, by definition, smaller in scale than those in Iraq or Afghanistan, and a no-fly zone doesn’t require as many countries as a full-on invasion, O’Hanlon pointed out. However, the relatively few Arab countries contributing military assets — three so far — could pose a problem for the mission’s legitimacy.

Although the Libya intervention was endorsed by the Arab League, the endorsement doesn’t require any Arab countries to contribute materially to the effort, said David Bosco, an assistant professor at American University.

“At a certain point, the administration is going to have to decide whether just to say this is a coalition of willing countries,” he said. “That’s not the end of the world.”

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-wants-other-nations-to-pitch-in-on-libya/2011/03/30/AFh2IY6B_story.html

President Obama defends U.S. role in Libya

President Obama fended off criticism from both the right and left last night as he sought to justify the first war launched by his administration — saying air strikes in Libya prevented massive slaughter while cautioning that inaction would carry “a far greater price for America.”

Obama sought to defend the intervention while insisting that the United States is pulling out of the Libya operation, handing control to NATO after halting Moammar Gadhafi’s brutal attacks. But he took fire from the left last night while getting mocking attaboys from the right.

“For those who doubted our capacity to carry out this operation, I want to be clear: the United States of America has done what we said we would do,” said Obama in his 25-minute address delivered last night to midcareer military officers at the National Defense University in Washington.

U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Somerville), said, “How do you win when you don’t know what the objective is?” He said Congress should have been allowed to vote on the intervention. “I still believe that Congress has a role to play, a constitutionally mandated role. There was nothing that explained his ability to take direct action.”

University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, the conservative blogger known as Instapundit, declared, “Eerily like a Bush speech, but without the conviction.”

William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, meanwhile, said, “You’ve come a long way, baby. That was a pretty unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, no-shrinking-from-the-use-of-force, presidential speech.”

But Boston College law professor Richard Albert said, “He hasn’t articulated in a compelling or coherent fashion the organizing logic that frames his administration’s foreign policy.”

Obama said, “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

“The democratic impulses that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship, as repressive leaders concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power,” Obama said. But he added, “Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.”

Citing Iraq, he said, “Regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.”

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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/2011_0329obama_defends_us_role_in_libya/

Yemen general is feared player: WikiLeaks

(Reuters) - The top Yemeni general backing pro-democracy protesters is, like Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a crafty survivor who has wielded power for his own benefit, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

General Ali Mohsen, a powerful figure close to Saleh, threw his support behind the democracy movement earlier this week and sent in troops to protect protesters in the capital of Sanaa, where they have gathered in the tens of thousands to pressure Saleh into giving up his grip on power after 32 years.

Yet as far back as 2005, Thomas Krajeski, then the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa, painted a picture in diplomatic cables of a brutal military commander likely to back a more radical Islamic political agenda and draw little public support.

"Ali Mohsen's name is mentioned in hushed tones among most Yemenis, and he rarely appears in public," Krajeski wrote in a cable obtained by Reuters. "Ali Mohsen... is generally perceived to be the second most powerful man in Yemen. Those that know him say he is charming and gregarious."

Noting Mohsen's role in ruling Yemen with an "iron fist," the cable said he controls at least half of Yemen's military. Despite its detail and strong opinions, other parts of the cable contained key inaccuracies, such as Mohsen's estimated age as well as the region he commands.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have long relied on Saleh to try and stop al Qaeda from using Yemen as a base to plot attacks on both countries. The impoverished Arabian Peninsula country is deeply divided, and was already on the brink of becoming a failed state before protests erupted in January, inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

After Mohsen's defection on March 21, Saleh reacted by warning against a "coup" that would lead to civil war and beefed up his personal security for fear of an assassination attempt.

Days later, Mohsen told Reuters that he had no desire to take power or hold office, and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life in "tranquility, peace and relaxation far from the problems of politics and the demands of the job."

The diplomatic cable also indicates that Mohsen would be viewed by the public as an unpalatable successor to Saleh.

"Ali Mohsen would likely face domestic as well as international opposition if he sought the presidency... Yemenis generally view him as cynical and self-interested."

One reason, according to the U.S. ambassador at the time, was because of his side business in smuggling.

"A major beneficiary of diesel smuggling in recent years, he also appears to have amassed a fortune in the smuggling of arms, food staples, and consumer products," his cable said.

Although the opposition welcomed Mohsen's support earlier this week, they are also wary of his loyalties, which fall along the country's tribal and ideological fault lines.

Northern Shi'ite rebels see Mohsen as a ruthless military leader who led the military campaign against them in a bloody civil war. Leftists and southerners worry that their goals for democracy will be overtaken in a military power struggle, while the Islamist opposition is thought to view Mohsen more favorably.

More than likely, Krajeski wrote in the cable, Mohsen would try and orchestrate a transition where he could anoint Saleh's successor: "If he holds true to form, Mohsen would likely prefer to play kingmaker, choosing another loyal military officer to hold the presidency."

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/26/us-yemen-general-idUSTRE72P1WV20110326

China, U.S. eager to put a happy face on relations

Reporting from Beijing —

The rhetoric in advance of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington that begins Tuesday sounds like an endless loop of the Communist Party's favorite buzzwords: Stability. Harmony. Cooperation.

It speaks to the image that Beijing wants to project to Americans — that of a benign giant whose rise will only benefit its neighbors and trading partners. But it's also a matter of self-interest. Selling that image abroad is key to ensuring that China can keep its economy booming at a time when its growth is alarming large parts of the world.

The White House is answering smiles with smiles: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke all made major speeches last week on the importance of U.S.-Chinese cooperation while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was doing much the same in Beijing.

"You can't find another instance where you have all these different Cabinet-level officials giving speeches before a leader arrives in country," said Kenneth Lieberthal of the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-hu-20110118,0,5131382.story

Assange signs book deals worth more than £1m

Julian Assange has signed book deals worth more than £1m in the US and UK, to allow the WikiLeaks founder to cover his legal fees and maintain the whistleblowing site.

He will be racing a disgruntled former colleague to release an autobiography telling his side of the WikiLeaks story. Both books are to be published by divisions of Random House next year.


Mr Assange is fighting allegations of sexual assault in Sweden while trying to continue the gradual release of thousands of US diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

Released on bail by the British high court in mid-December, he spent Christmas wearing a tracking tag, confined to a friend’s mansion home in East Anglia.

The US administration, which has been angered and embarrassed by successive leaks of its foreign-policy secrets through WikiLeaks, is believed to be exploring ways to prosecute Mr Assange.

The controversy did not dissuade readers of Time magazine voting Mr Assange their “person of the year” for his campaign for freedom of information and radical transparency from governments.

He has agreed an $800,000 (£520,000) contract with Knopf, a US imprint of Random House, the Bertelsmann-owned publisher, and another £325,000 deal for the UK with Canongate, an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh.

But although the deals are expected to net Mr Assange more than £1.1m ($1.7m) after the book is sold in other countries and serialised in newspapers around the world, Mr Assange said he had agreed to write his autobiography only reluctantly.

“I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” he told the Sunday Times. “I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat.”

Mr Assange did not describe how he would divide the proceeds from his autobiography between his own personal legal costs and the operational funds required by WikiLeaks, which he has described as a large and distributed organisation that is not solely reliant on him.

WikiLeaks’ operational costs have more than tripled since it drew up budgeting plans at the beginning of the year, due to the increased scope of information it has reviewed and published. Before “cablegate”, it released huge amounts of files about the Iraqi and Afghan wars.

The whistleblowing site relies largely on donations from individuals, but had its fund-raising channels curtailed after several US financial services firms stopped processing payments to its account.

Bank of America, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal have all stopped directing funds to WikiLeaks in recent weeks. They deny Mr Assange’s accusations that the actions were politically motivated. Mr Assange’s Swiss bank has also frozen his account.

Last week, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks spokesman, announced he would publish a tell-all book next year about his time with the site.

Crown Publishing, another division of Random House, will release “Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website” in 14 countries in February.

The author, who called himself Daniel Schmitt when he worked at WikiLeaks, fell out with Mr Assange over the running and strategic priorities of the site.

He has said that the allegations of Mr Assange’s sexual misconduct would be better handled privately and have become a burden to WikiLeaks.

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0d0e164-1142-11e0-a26b-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=9a36c1aa-3016-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8.html

Obama’s Remarks on the Strategy in Afghanistan

Good morning, everybody. When I announced our new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last December, I directed my national security team to regularly assess our efforts and to review our progress after one year. That's what we've done consistently over the course of the past 12 months —- in weekly updates from the field, in monthly meetings with my national security team, and in my frequent consultations with our Afghan, Pakistani and coalition partners. And that's what we've done as part of our annual review, which is now complete.

I want to thank Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates for their leadership. Since Joint Chief of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mullen, is in Afghanistan, I'm pleased that we're joined by Vice Chairman, General Cartwright.

Our efforts also reflect the dedication of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, whose memory we honor and whose work we'll continue. Indeed, the tributes to Richard that have poured in from around the globe speak to both the enormous impact of his life and to the broad international commitment to our shared efforts in this critical region.

I have spoken with President Karzai of Afghanistan as well as President Zardari of Pakistan and discussed our findings and the way forward together. Today, I want to update the American people on our review —- our assessment of where we stand and areas where we need to do better. I want to be clear. This continues to be a very difficult endeavor. But I can report that thanks to the extraordinary service of our troops and civilians on the ground, we are on track to achieve our goals.

It's important to remember why we remain in Afghanistan. It was Afghanistan where al Qaeda plotted the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 innocent people. It is the tribal regions along the Afghan-Pakistan border from which terrorists have launched more attacks against our homeland and our allies. And if an even wider insurgency were to engulf Afghanistan, that would give al Qaeda even more space to plan these attacks.

And that's why, from the start, I've been very clear about our core goal. It's not to defeat every last threat to the security of Afghanistan, because, ultimately, it is Afghans who must secure their country. And it's not nation-building, because it is Afghans who must build their nation. Rather, we are focused on disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and preventing its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.

In pursuit of our core goal we are seeing significant progress. Today, al Qaeda's senior leadership in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan is under more pressure than at any point since they fled Afghanistan nine years ago. Senior leaders have been killed. It's harder for them to recruit; it's harder for them to travel; it's harder for them to train; it's harder for them to plot and launch attacks. In short, al Qaeda is hunkered down. It will take time to ultimately defeat al Qaeda, and it remains a ruthless and resilient enemy bent on attacking our country. But make no mistake -- we are going to remain relentless in disrupting and dismantling that terrorist organization.

In Afghanistan, we remain focused on the three areas of our strategy: our military effort to break the Taliban's momentum and train Afghan forces so they can take the lead; our civilian effort to promote effective governance and development; and regional cooperation, especially with Pakistan, because our strategy has to succeed on both sides of the border.

Indeed, for the first time in years, we've put in place the strategy and the resources that our efforts in Afghanistan demand. And because we've ended our combat mission in Iraq, and brought home nearly 100,000 of our troops from Iraq, we're in a better position to give our forces in Afghanistan the support and equipment they need to achieve their missions. And our drawdown in Iraq also means that today there are tens of thousands fewer Americans deployed in harm's way than when I took office.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/world/asia/17afghan-text.html?src=twrhp

WikiLeaks row: China wants Korean reunification, officials confirm

Night dancing in Kim Il-Sung Square, Pyongyang, North Korea.

China supports the "independent and peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula in the long term" and cannot afford to give the North Korean regime the impression it has a blank cheque to act any way it wants, Chinese officials based in Europe said today.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, spoke after the Guardian reported that senior figures in Beijing, exasperated with North Korea acting like a "spoiled child", had told South Korean counterparts China was leaning towards acceptance of reunification under Seoul's control.

China's moves to distance itself from the North Korean regime were revealed in the latest tranche of leaked US embassy cables obtained by WikiLeaks and published yesterday by the Guardian and four international newspapers.

Reunification was not going to happen overnight and China's first priority was to calm the situation, restart dialogue, and maintain regional stability, a Chinese official said. But Beijing had always backed peaceful reunification as a future goal.

The officials said there was frustration in Beijing over North Korea's recent actions, including its nuclear and missile tests – which China opposed – and last week's lethal artillery attack on a South Korean island. A general discussion was continuing about the direction of North Korea policy, another official said. North Korea produced strong feelings among the Chinese leadership and public, and China had to be careful. Beijing wanted to maintain its friendship with Pyongyang. But it did not want to be led by the nose.

The officials expressed optimism that talks between the North and its regional interlocutors, South Korea, China and Japan, could be successfully restarted, despite Washington's dismissal of China's proposal as "PR activity".

South Korea may be tempted to indulge in tit-for-tat actions against the North, one official said. But a new war on the peninsula was unimaginable; it would be devastating for the two Koreas and the region. China was trying to be a steadying hand.

Referring to the artillery attack, a senior Chinese diplomat said it could be part of what North Korean leaders described as their strategy of "setting a fire under the Americans" in order to get their attention and win concessions. There was growing evidence the Chinese public was running out of patience with the North's behaviour and this influenced the Chinese leadership's thinking, the diplomat said.

Officials described the WikiLeaks disclosure of secret and classified US embassy cables relating to the Korean question as mischievous. When reading the reports, they said, it was essential to distinguish between the personal opinions of those quoted and official government policy.

Speaking about the leaks, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular press briefing: "We do not want to see any disturbance in China-US relations."

Asked about a senior official's reported description of North Korea behaving "like a spoiled child", Hong replied: "China takes note of the leaked reports. We hope the US side will properly handle the relevant issues. As for the content of the documents, we do not comment on that."

The WikiLeaks page where cables are being posted is blocked from China. Although the Wall Street Journal's website reported that Chinese news media had received orders not to report on the US cables, numerous articles could be found on several Chinese websites. The Guardian did not find any referring to material on China, suggesting that any propaganda directive related to those subjects.

Dr Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul said he believed Chinese officials were "sick and tired" of the North, and would not support the regime if it was collapsing, but would back it until then because of their shared border and worries about stability. "The majority view seems to be that sooner or later Korea will be reunified and it's almost certain to happen under Seoul's control. But they also believe that later is better."

Lankov added: "The North Koreans have always known what China thinks of them, but it might become a face-saving problem if they feel they have to show their displeasure."

"All those cynics that said China would never put up with a united Korea are simply wrong," said Professor Hazel Smith of Cranfield University, another expert on the North. But she believed China would insist US troops remained below the 38th parallel dividing the Koreas and added: "We are talking about scenarios that may not happen for 50 years here."

She added that the comments on Seoul taking charge sounded like a South Korean interpretation of the Chinese position, rather than a direct quote, because senior Chinese officials were "incredibly cautious" even in private conversation.

Professor Shi Yinhong, an expert in international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said there was "nothing to prove" the claims in the document, adding: "Even if they were true, if we look at this year's relations between the DPRK and China they are much better."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/china-wants-korean-reunification

WikiLeaks founder in hiding

For Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and guiding spirit, it must have been sweet.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to smooth over the embarrassment, while the White House huffed that a criminal investigation was underway. The French government was decrying "the height of irresponsibility," and Pakistan was reckoning with a rebuke from its traditional patron, Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the pasty-faced Assange, a self-appointed knight-errant who has been doing battle with official secrecy since 2006, was in the shadows somewhere - few knew where - undoubtedly savoring the ruckus caused by WikiLeaks' exposure of confidential State Department cables.

In an uncomfortable irony, however, he had to do the savoring in a secret location, because Interpol, the international anti-crime organization, has issued a high-priority "red notice" asking member countries to arrest him.


President Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, has said the U.S. government might want to prosecute Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, for violating U.S. secrecy laws and perhaps even for espionage. But that is not the reason for the notice - at least not yet. Swedish authorities on Nov. 18 asked Interpol to help them take Assange into custody for questioning on accusations of rape and sexual harassment.

The charges were brought by two Swedish women in August after what both described as consensual sexual encounters in Sweden that escalated into something unwanted and illegal. Assange, who has long expressed fear of reprisal from Washington and other governments, denied anything but consensual sex and suggested that the two women were part of a plot to smear his name and undermine his campaign to get government secrets into the open.

Before the women came forward, Assange had sought a Swedish residence visa, hoping to benefit from the country's strong protection of press freedoms. But since then, he has been traveling constantly and staying below the radar, popping up in London, appearing on a videoconference in Amman, Jordan, and answering questions from Time magazine via Skype, reluctant to show himself in flesh and blood.

In the Time Q&A, he said Clinton should resign because of her cable suggesting that U.S. diplomats surreptitiously gather personal data on their counterparts, something Assange said would violate the Vienna Convention on diplomatic activity. Gibbs dismissed that idea as "ridiculous" and said the problem is rather that Assange violated the diplomatic convention.

An underground existence is nothing new for Assange, his associates have pointed out. Driven by his anti-secrecy crusade and convinced that governments are out to get him, he has long avoided fixed residences, borrowing travel funds and sleeping on other people's couches between marathon sessions at the computer.

WikiLeaks announced via Twitter, meanwhile, that it has been the target of repeated hacker attacks since the publication of more than 250,000 leaked State Department communications, a claim in line with Assange's frequent assertions that U.S. intelligence agencies are intruding on his work.

While Assange stayed out of sight, his Stockholm lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, filed an appeal Wednesday against the Swedish government's arrest order. At the same time, his London attorney, Mark Stevens, said the Stockholm prosecutor's tactics show that she is out to get Assange for more than legal reasons.

"Since Sweden is a civilized country, I have to come to the conclusion that this is persecution and not prosecution," Stevens said in an e-mail to the Associated Press.

One news report suggested that Assange is considering asking for asylum in Switzerland. But that country is known for keeping secrets, so that seemed an unlikely solution. Moreover, WikiLeaks has announced that its next big project is to reveal the confidential documents of a major bank, believed to be Bank of America, which could make the land of numbered accounts an awkward haven for Assange.

A surprising possibility seemed to arise Monday, when a deputy foreign minister of Ecuador, Kintto Lucas, said Assange would be welcome in that South American country. "We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forms," Lucas announced.

By Wednesday, however, that idea had fallen apart. President Rafael Correa said neither he nor his foreign minister had approved the invitation to Assange and gave a strong impression that they never would.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120105941.html

Obama Rallying Support for Arms Pact With Russia

President Obama appears to be building momentum for Senate approval of a new arms control treaty with Russia by the end of the year, but it may have to come at the expense of other legislative priorities with far greater support among his liberal base.

With more Republicans signaling a willingness to vote for the so-called New Start treaty, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of finessing relationships with supporters who want him to focus more energy in the short lame-duck session on issues like immigration and gay rights while giving enough members of the opposition reason to vote for the pact.

The White House and Senate Democrats have grown increasingly optimistic that they can gather the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required for Senate consent despite resistance by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the lead Republican negotiator. Senate Republican officials said that they were hoping to find a way to make it possible for Mr. Kyl to support the treaty and that if he does, a number of his party colleagues are ready to endorse it.

But having the votes will make no difference if there is no time on the Senate calendar to debate the treaty.

The tradeoff could be other Democratic initiatives, like repealing the ban on gay members of the military serving openly and creating a path to legal residency for some illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. While the White House said all of these matters could still be addressed, some Democratic officials said they realized something might have to be sacrificed.

Senate Republicans said Wednesday that they would block consideration of any other issue until the Senate extended the Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of the month and financed continuing government operations. Mr. Kyl, who is also the top Senate Republican negotiator on the tax cuts, said that issue would have to be resolved by Monday to have enough time to also address the treaty.

Mr. Kyl has sought additional assurances of Mr. Obama’s support for modernizing the nuclear weapons complex but has never ruled out a vote this year. Other Republicans have told the White House that if the president shows he is responding to every question posed by Mr. Kyl, it may make it harder for Republicans to oppose the treaty.

In that vein, Senate treaty supporters secured a letter Wednesday from the directors of the three nuclear laboratories declaring themselves “very pleased” with the administration’s plan to spend $85 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade their facilities.

The plan provides “a workable funding level for a balanced program that sustains the science, technology and engineering base,” said the letter, signed by George Miller of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Michael R. Anastasio of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Paul Hommert of the Sandia National Laboratories.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the letter was “the nonpartisan gold standard” on the issue and showed that “the administration is making good on every promise that President Obama has made on this critical issue.” Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Kyl and other Republican senators on Tuesday.

Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, Mr. Kerry’s Republican counterpart and his party’s most vocal advocate of the treaty, said the word of the laboratory directors should decide the modernization issue. “I do not believe we should question their judgment,” Mr. Lugar said.

The White House brought another high-profile Republican, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, to the Oval Office on Wednesday to join Mr. Obama in lobbying the Senate. “This treaty is in the best interest of the United States of America, best interest of the world and frankly the best interest of the Russian Federation,” said Mr. Powell, a retired four-star general.

He also signed a Washington Post opinion article, posted on its Web site Wednesday, along with four other former Republican secretaries of state, Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III and Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

The full-bore press demonstrated that Mr. Obama has made the treaty his top legislative priority for the rest of the year, other than a tax-cut deal. By contrast, while he has spoken in favor of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” restrictions in the military and passing the Dream Act on immigration, he has not staged the same sort of sustained public campaign, which some took as a sign that he might sacrifice one or the other to get the treaty approved.

But that represents a complex political calculation. Gay and Hispanic Democrats make up important parts of the president’s base, while there is no domestic constituency for an arms control treaty. Moreover, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, is strongly committed to passing the Dream Act after making promises to Hispanic constituents in his hard-fought re-election battle.

How Mr. Obama will navigate those crosscurrents remains unclear. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, insisted that all these issues could be addressed in the next four weeks. “There is plenty of time to get plenty of work done,” he said.

He expressed confidence that the White House had made progress on the treaty. “Last week, we were ready to pronounce Start — or two weeks ago — ready to pronounce Start dead,” he said. Now, after positive statements from some Republican senators, he said, “there’s an understanding that it’s something that’s tremendously important to do.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02start.html?src=twrhp

Russia Backs China’s Call for Six-Party Talks on North Korea

Russia supports China’s proposal to hold six-nation talks on military tensions stemming from North Korea’s Nov. 23 artillery attack on a South Korean island, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations said.

“We think that if everybody could come to those talks, they could be useful,” Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said in an interview today. “We sort of view this initiative as a positive one.”

China proposed on Nov. 28 that “emergency” talks to address the increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula be held early next month in Beijing. They would involve China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea and the U.S., a group that met several times, starting in 2003, to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program until the government in Pyongyang pulled out of the talks in April 2009.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea haven’t agreed to China’s proposal, saying they want to see more concrete action by North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program before restarting the talks.

Japan’s bid to bring the issue to the UN Security Council has run into resistance from China.

“We are trying our best,” Ambassador Tsuneo Nishida of Japan told reporters at the UN. “We have been really trying to form a consensus in the Security Council. You have noticed that the Security Council has not yet been in a position to do that.”

The U.S. and Japan, which has a seat on the Security Council until Dec. 31, have been holding bilateral talks with China, Russia and other panel members. The U.S. and Japan haven’t formally proposed action by the Security Council.

Russian Suggestion

Churkin suggested that Russia also would be open to Security Council involvement in the issue.

“It could be discussed in the Security Council,” Churkin said. “No one has brought it up.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed similar willingness to back a Security Council position on the artillery attack during a Nov. 25 news conference in Moscow.

“I hope that soon the Security Council will express its opinion, which will help calm the situation,” Lavrov said, according to a transcript provided by the Foreign Ministry.

China, while not openly rejecting the call for Security Council involvement, is pushing hard for the six-party format.

Yang Tao, political director of China’s mission to the UN, called the six-party talks “one of the most useful platforms” and said it had “some success” dealing with the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program.

“It is very important for this platform to play its dual role,” Yang said in an interview.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-30/russia-backs-china-s-call-for-six-party-talks-on-north-korea.html

Iran May Have Missiles from North Korea, Cables Posted by WikiLeaks Show

Iran obtained 19 advanced missiles from North Korea, potentially giving the Islamic nation the capability of attacking Moscow and cities in Western Europe, according to embassy cables posted by WikiLeaks.org and provided to the New York Times.

U.S. officials denounced the release, coming on the eve of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s departure for a security conference in the Persian Gulf, as jeopardizing U.S. ties with foreign governments and endangering individuals. WikiLeaks began posting the cables yesterday.

The 19 North Korean BM-25 missiles, based on a Russian design known as the R-27, might give Iran the “building blocks” for producing long-range missiles, according to a Feb. 24 cable posted on WikiLeaks. The cable didn’t provide specific evidence, according to the Times, which agreed not to publish the document at the Obama administration’s request.

“North Korea and Iran have had a decades-long missile relationship and also most likely a nuclear relationship,” said Bruce Klingner, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington and former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Korea branch. “The leaking of the classified documents provides a greater sense of confidence” for analysis conducted previously by outside experts and most recently illustrated in photos from a North Korean parade, he said.

Pressured the U.S.

Diplomatic cables posted by the Guardian, which also received advance copies from WikiLeaks, indicate as far back as early 2008 Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments pressed the U.S. for attacks on Iran to stop it getting a nuclear bomb, even as some expressed concern that a military strike might destabilize the region.

The Obama administration has won stiffer United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran and sealed arms agreements such as a $60 billion deal with Saudi Arabia over the next 10 years.

The State Department declined to confirm information in what WikiLeaks says is more than 250,000 documents, covering a period from December 1966 through February 2010.

“I can’t provide veracity of anything WikiLeaks has released to the media,” Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, said in an interview, adding the agency’s policy is to refrain from commenting on specific leaked materials.

About 9,000 documents were listed as containing information too sensitive to be shared with a foreign government, the New York Times said. None was listed as “top-secret,” according to the Times.

Similar Tone

Along with the Guardian of the U.K., France’s Le Monde, Spain’s El Pais and Der Spiegel of Germany obtained the WikiLeaks documents.

On the threat from Iran, a cable posted by the Guardian quoted Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., as citing Saudi King Abdullah’s “frequent exhortations to attack Iran and put an end” to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The exchange took place in an April 20, 2008 meeting between al- Jubeir, then-U.S. Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. Central Command commander General David Petraeus, the Guardian said.

A similar tone was struck by King Hamad of Bahrain in a Nov. 4, 2009 conversation with Petraeus.

King Hamad “pointed to Iran as the source of much trouble” in the region and “he argued forcefully to take action to terminate their nuclear program by whatever means necessary,” according to a classified cable.

Hamad said “the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,” according to the cable cited by the Guardian.

Increased Monitoring

Bahrain is home to the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters. The cable also disclosed that the king agreed to a NATO request to base Awacs air surveillance aircraft in his nation as part of increased monitoring of Iran.

Israeli military officials 14 days later in a Nov. 18, 2009 meeting with U.S. State and Defense Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro, said 2010 would be a “critical year” for Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s capability to attack, according to a cable posted by the Guardian.

“If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them,” the cable said, summarizing Israel’s concerns.

The cable said both sides discussed the need to avoid publicity for an “upcoming delivery” of GBU-28 bunker-buster bombs to Israel “to avoid any allegations that the U.S. is helping prepare for a strike against Iran.”

Carrying Cash

The leaked documents include details about governments and officials, including an episode last year in which Afghanistan’s then-vice president, Ahmed Zia Massoud, was found carrying $52 million in cash while visiting the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denied taking any money out of Afghanistan, according to the Times.

According to another cable, a Chinese contact told the U.S. embassy in Beijing in January that China’s Politburo directed an “intrusion” into Google Inc.’s local computer networks. The Google hacking was “part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government,” the New York Times said in its account of the WikiLeaks cables.

In July 2009, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, then the defense supreme commander for the United Arab Emirates, declared that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “is Hitler,” the New York Times reported, citing the documents.

Republicans, Cables

The Obama administration said in a statement yesterday that embassy reporting to Washington “is candid and often incomplete information,” not an expression of policy.

“Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders,” according to the statement from the White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs.

Republicans also condemned the release of the cables, with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stating on “Fox News Sunday” that “the people at WikiLeaks could have blood on their hands.”

WikiLeaks, a nonprofit group that posts information the government wants to keep confidential, previously released 400,000 documents in October related to the Iraq war and about 75,000 in July on the Afghan conflict.

An Army intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning was arrested in June at age 22 and charged with illegally releasing classified information. He had said in an online chat in May that the documents he downloaded included “260,000 State Department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world,” the New York Times reported.

The Pentagon said yesterday it will take action to prevent future reoccurrences, such as monitoring user behavior in a way similar to steps taken by credit-card companies to detect fraud. The military will also conduct security oversight inspections at forward bases and remove the ability of classified computers to download information onto removable disks.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-29/iran-may-have-missiles-from-north-korea-cables-posted-by-wikileaks-show.html

UK Blamed For Fake Taliban Commander

President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff has said British authorities brought a fake Taliban commander into sensitive meetings with the Afghan authorities.

The British embassy refused to confirm or deny the remarks, made in an interview with the Washington Post.

A man described as Mullah Mansour, a senior Taliban commander, was reportedly taken to Kabul for a meeting with President Karzai himself.

Now it is claimed he was really a Pakistani shopkeeper from Quetta.

The impersonator is said to have disappeared after hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid to him for his co-operation in the process of Taliban reconciliation.

President Karzai's office is blaming the British authorities for this debacle - telling the Washington Post the man was brought to the meeting by British diplomats.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Kabul said they did not comment on operational matters.

The Afghan government's meetings with the Taliban - fake or otherwise - have been described as contacts rather than negotiations.

If there was indeed British involvement, the question is whether this was logistical support or something more active.

"If we are desperate to talk to the Taliban, the Taliban will think, 'we are winning'," said one Western official.

Full negotiations to end this conflict still seem a long way off - and the case of the Taliban impostor will not have helped matters.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11845217

Morgan Tsvangirai takes Robert Mugabe to Zimbabwe court

Morgan Tsvangirai (L) and Robert Mugabe (C) entered a power-sharing deal in 2009

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has begun legal action against President Robert Mugabe over the appointment of regional governors.

Mr Tsvangirai says he should have been consulted over the appointments under the power-sharing deal which saw him become prime minister.

Mr Mugabe's allies have dismissed the claims.

The case is the latest sign of worsening relations between the long-time rivals.

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, the mediator of the power-sharing deal, is due in Harare later to try to iron out the pair's differences.

"In my humble view, submission and plea, all of this is plain, clear and simple. Wherever the Constitution obliges the President to act in consultation with me as Prime Minister, he must first secure my agreement," Mr Tsvangirai said in court papers, reports the AFP news agency.

Last month Mr Mugabe said that elections should be held in 2011 and that the coalition deal should not be renewed when it expires in February.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11844981

China 'opposes force' in Korean Peninsula dispute, Premier Wen Jiabao says

WEN Jiabao has said China "opposes any threat of force" on the Korean Peninsula and is committed to maintaining peace in the wake of North Korea's deadly artillery attack. The statement comes as South Korea beefs up its military presence on five islands bordering the North.

“The current situation we are facing is severe and complicated,” the Chinese Premier was quoted as saying during a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in reports carried in state-run Chinese news agencies today. “All parties concerned should maintain an utmost restraint. The international community should do more to ease the ongoing tension.”

The rhetoric falls short of the level of involvement the rest of the world wants to see from Beijing. The Chinese government is under pressure to help implement sanctions against North Korea, reduce its economic assistance to the rogue state and convince it to stop its attacks on the South and its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said high-level talks between China and the US would probably occur within the next few days and the American government expected Beijing to use its influence to restrain its ally. “China does have influence with North Korea and we hope and expect that they use that influence first to reduce tensions that have arisen as a result of North Korean provocations” and encourage the North to take affirmative steps to denuclearise, he said.

CNN reported yesterday that Barack Obama was expected to hold phone discussions with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in the next few days. The crisis erupted on Tuesday when the North launched an artillery barrage on the South Korean-controlled Yeonpyeong Island as a South Korean naval drill was taking place in nearby waters. Residents clambered into shelters during the hour-long attack, which damaged houses and a military base and left two South Korean marines dead and two civilians dead.

South Korea's presidential palace announced today it would will strengthen its military presence. The government ``has decided to sharply increase military forces, including ground troops, on the five islands in the Yellow Sea and allocate more of its budget toward dealing with North Korea's asymmetrical threats,'' said senior public affairs secretary Hong Sang-Pyo. He said the military - which has faced media criticism for an allegedly weak response to Tuesday's shelling -- would also change its rules of engagement.

Mr Hong described existing rules as ``rather passive'' and focused on stopping a conflict escalating. The new rules would ``change the paradigm'', Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying without elaborating. Nations including Australia, the US and Japan have urged China to help curb Pyongyang's attacks on the South as a leading Korea scholar warned of the risk of a catastrophic war.

Australia's National Security Committee met yesterday on the crisis and Julia Gillard said the government was deeply concerned by the attack on an ally. The US and South Korea will stage joint war games from Sunday in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula and will involve the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington.

The drills, which the US said were planned before this week’s attacks, are a more measured response than the retaliatory attack Seoul initially threatened, but given South Korean naval exercises were the trigger for the North's barrage, the exercises will ensure tension persists on the Korean Peninsula.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/china-opposes-force-in-korean-peninsula-dispute-premier-wen-jiabao-says/story-e6frg6so-1225960883994