Sudan's ruling party, in an apparent bid to heal a rift over accusations of vote fraud, said on Wednesday it would invite opposition groups to join the government if it won elections currently in progress, As election officials were considering re-running ballots in a very few constituencies.
Sudan is four days into presidential and legislative polls aimed at helping to bring the oil-producing state back to democracy more than two decades after a military-led coup.
The poll's credibility was cast in doubt after some main opposition parties decided to boycott large parts of the poll, accusing incumbent president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his northern National Congress Party (NCP) of widespread rigging.
"If we are declared winners in the elections ... we would extend the invitation to all parties, even those who have not participated in the elections, to join the government because we believe this is a critical moment in our history," senior NCP official Ghazi Salah Eddin told reporters.
"We are facing important decisions like self-determination in the south and would like to garner as much support and as much consensus as we can."
The elections were set up under a 2005 peace accord that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war and also promised a referendum on whether the south should secede in January 2011.
The decision by south Sudan's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to boycott the vote and most polls in northern Sudan had raised fears of unrest in the build up to next year's referendum.
No one from the SPLM or other boycotting groups, including the opposition Umma party, was immediately available to comment on Salah Eddin's offer.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2010 00:00 ||
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Former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei has expressed support for Palestinian resistance, calling Gaza the world's largest jail.
In a report published by UPI on Tuesday, ElBaradei described resistance the only path open to the Palestinian people, because the Israeli occupation only understands the language of force.
This is the man who was supposed to keep North Korea, Libya, and Iran from developing nukes. Personally, I wouldn't trust him to fetch me a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk from the grocery store -- we'll see whether the Egyptians trust him to run the country when President-for-life Mubarak wanders off into the vasty Beyond.
"The peace process has become a stupid joke which we talk about without achieving any progress," the Egyptian diplomat reportedly said,
True enough. Perhaps it's time to give it a rest, remembering that Egypt achieved its peace ages ago while acquiring the Sinai with its tourist developments and small amount of oil.
adding that the Arabs should back their negotiation option with force and deterrence.
That's been tried a number of times, Dr. Elbaradei. Quite, quite unsuccessfully. It seems to me Israel occasionally comes across another couple of tanks the Egyptian soldiers left in the desert the last time they were involved in such adventures.
He also criticized Cairo's construction of a steel wall along the border with the Gaza Strip, aimed at disrupting Palestinians' "survival" tunnel network, as harmful to Egypt's reputation.
My dear man, the local Egyptians are quite happy to be cut off from the Gazans thieving ways. You've been gone for a couple of decades or you'd know that.
He described Egypt's construction of the wall as joining Israel in its closure of the strip, which he said "has become the world's largest prison."
"The logical solution to the problem would be to close the tunnels and open border crossings while creating a free trade zone in Rafah where Palestinians can trade and then return to Gaza."
More than two years of a crippling Israeli blockade has pushed some 1.5 million Gazans on the verge of starvation
But only the verge, as can be seen by the choice of smuggling potato chips and automobiles instead of flour and cooking oil...
and has irreparably hurt Gaza's economy as the siege totally cuts off the territory from the outside world.
Gaza has lived off of UN largess instead of local industry since the 1950s. There's no proper economy to harm.
As Israel refuses to open Gaza border crossings it has closed since 2007, the Rafah crossing -- the only terminal not under Tel Aviv's control -- is sealed off by Egyptian officials.
The 67-year old ElBaradei is largely expected to run in Egypt's 2011 presidential elections, as opposition parties are seeking to pressure President Hosni Mubarak for democratic reforms.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2010 00:00 ||
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#6
Problem is.... Israel doesn't occupy Gaza - it withdrew as part of the 'peace process'. It hasn't occupied it for many years.... Gaza also has a border with Egypt - and even Egypt doesn't want them.
Good to see El Baradei is just as stupid and blind as he always was.
A former senior executive with the National Security Agency has been indicted on 10 felony charges related to the leaking of classified information to a national newspaper in 2006 and 2007, the Justice Department announced Thursday morning.
Thomas A. Drake, 52, headed an office in the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate at Fort Meade between 2001 and 2005, and continued to work with the agency as a high-ranking contractor through 2008, U.S. officials said. The indictment alleges that Drake exchanged hundreds of e-mails with an unidentified reporter for a national newspaper and served as a source for its articles about Bush administration intelligence policies between February 2006 and November 2007, U.S. officials said.
Drake was indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland, the Justice Department said.
Drake has been charged with willful retention of classified information, obstruction of justice and making false statements, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said.
"Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here -- violating the government's trust by illegally retaining and disclosing classified information -- be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously," Breuer said.
#1
Shock.
The DOJ actually DOING something?
Seriously, shock!
Maybe all is not lost in DOJ-land.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/15/2010 14:16 Comments ||
Top||
#2
OK. So why isn't the NYT or its reporter charged with conspiracy?
Posted by: Matt ||
04/15/2010 14:23 Comments ||
Top||
#3
A word to the rest of the puzzle palace misfits. Don't expect General Alexander to look the other way. Enjoy the polygraphs and extensive periodic reinvestigations.
#5
Actually the NYT is not even mentioned in the indictment. But we all know which newspaper it was. It will be interesting to see how long they tip toe around it. Because if they convict this guy and it does come out at trial that it was the NYT they are going to have a hard time not going after the NYT employees who received and passed on the classified data. And that's the last thing bambi wants to do to his BFF Pinch.
#9
#7 Hang him. He compromised methods & sources and endangered lives. Posted by: MobileOldSpook
I have to disagree with you on this one, OldSpook. Hangin's too good for him. He should receive 30 lashes with a barbed wire whip for each life he has endangered.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/15/2010 20:47 Comments ||
Top||
#10
The DOJ actually DOING something?
The DoJ acted for the simple reason that, if this guy released classified information while Bush was in office, then it's highly likely he'd do the same to Obama.
Besides, finding the guy's body in Fort Marcy Park would be too... coincidental.
#11
my guess is he was about to release classified info that would embarrass 0bama admin and the NYT dropped the dime... cant talk about the release that would embarrass the one, so we dredge up the old stuff that lets the rubes revisit the 'hate bush' days and punish Drake at the same time for his 'loyalty issues'
Posted by: abu do you love ||
04/15/2010 23:09 Comments ||
Top||
It was just a phrase at the end of President Obama's news conference on Tuesday, but it was a stark reminder of a far-reaching shift in how the United States views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how aggressively it might push for a peace agreement.
When Mr. Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a vital national security interest of the United States,' he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests.
This shift, described by administration officials who did not want to be quoted by name when discussing internal discussions, is driving the White House's urgency to help broker a Middle East peace deal. It increases the likelihood that Mr. Obama, frustrated by the inability of the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to terms, will offer his own proposed parameters for an eventual Palestinian state.
Mr. Obama said conflicts like the one in the Middle East ended up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure' drawing an explicit link between the Israeli-Palestinian strife and the safety of American soldiers as they battle Islamic extremism and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Mr. Obama's words reverberated through diplomatic circles in large part because they echoed those of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the military commander overseeing America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent Congressional testimony, the general said that the lack of progress in the Middle East created a hostile environment for the United States. He has denied reports that he was suggesting that soldiers were being put in harm's way by American support for Israel.
But the impasse in negotiations does create an environment,' he said Tuesday in a speech in Washington. It does contribute, if you will, to the overall environment within which we operate.' It's an excuse. Nothing else. To be replaced by another excuse shortly after the ink from any agreement were to dry.
The glimmers of daylight between United States and Israeli interests began during President George W. Bush's administration, when the United States became mired in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three years ago, Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, declared during a speech in Jerusalem that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was a strategic interest' of the United States. In comments that drew little notice at the time, she said, The prolonged experience of deprivation and humiliation can radicalize even normal people.'
But President Bush shied away from challenging Israeli governments.
The Obama administration's new thinking, and the tougher policies toward Israel that could flow from it, has alarmed American Jewish leaders accustomed to the Bush administration's steadfast support. They are not used to seeing issues like Jewish housing in the West Bank or East Jerusalem linked, even by implication, to the security of American soldiers. Some fret that it raises questions about the centrality of the American alliance with Israel, which the administration flatly denies.
In the past, the problem of who drinks out of whose well in Nablus has not been a strategic interest of the United States,' said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel and the vice president and the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He said there was an interest now because of the tens of thousands of troops fighting Islamist insurgencies abroad at the same time that the United States was trying to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Will resolving the Palestinian issue solve everything?' Mr. Indyk said. No. But will it help us get there? Yes.' Not.
The administration's immediate priority, officials said, is jump-starting indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians. There is still a vigorous debate inside the administration about what to do if such talks were to go nowhere, which experts said is the likeliest result, given the history of such negotiations. Some officials, like Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, advocate putting forward an American peace plan, while others, like the longtime Middle East peace negotiator Dennis B. Ross, who now works in the National Security Council, favor a more incremental approach.
Last week, National Security Council officials met with outside Middle East experts to discuss the Arab Israeli conflict. Two weeks before, General Jones and Mr. Obama met with several national security advisers from previous administrations and discussed putting forward an American proposal, even though it would put pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians.
Several officials point out that Mr. Obama has now seized control of Middle East policy himself, particularly since the controversy several weeks ago when Israeli authorities announced new Jewish housing units in Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Obama, incensed by that snub, has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a list of demands, and relations between the United States and Israel have fallen into a chilly standoff.
The president is re-evaluating the tactics his administration is employing toward Israel and the entire Middle East,' said Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman who resigned in January to lead the Center for Middle East Peace, a Washington-based nonprofit institution that is working for a peace agreement.
I don't think that anybody believes American lives are endangered or materially affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' said Mr. Wexler, who has close ties to administration officials. That's an oversimplification. However, you'd have to have blinders on not to recognize that there are issues in one arena that affect other arenas.'
For their part, administration officials insist that their support for Israel is unwavering. They point to intensive cooperation between the American and Israeli militaries, which they say has allowed Israel to retain a military edge over its neighbors.
The sense of urgency in Washington comes just as many Israelis have become disillusioned with the whole idea of resolving the conflict. Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government has long been skeptical about the benefits of a peace deal with the Palestinians. But skepticism has taken root in the Israeli public as well, particularly after Israel saw little benefit from its traumatic withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
Among American Jewish groups, there is less skepticism than alarm about the administration's new direction. On Tuesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, publicized letters to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, signed by 76 senators and 333 House members, that implored the administration to defuse tensions.
In an open letter to Mr. Obama from the World Jewish Congress, the organization's president, Ronald S. Lauder, asked, Why does the thrust of this administration's Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks?' Because the "Palestinians" are incorrigible? Because Bambi is planning on capitulating to Iran?
Mr. Lauder, who said the letter was scheduled to be published Thursday as an advertisement in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, said he discussed the letter with Mr. Netanyahu and received his support before taking out the ad.
#3
"Appeaser in Chief to balance support for Israel against other American interests"
Since when has Barry given a flying furk about "American" interests?
It's past time for the public to realize that when leftists say they "hate America", it doesn't mean that they are "differently-loving", to use their PC lingo.
#4
Obama is naive, idealistic, and dangerous. Hopefully the very large US Jewish population that overwhelmingly elected the Appeaser in Chief will recognize his concern is only for a few special pc interests. Their vote and voice can help turn the tide and throw them all out next November, as it is in American interests to have a strong democratic Israel. Heaven forbid Iran succeeds with this Mahdi-through-nuclear-chaos plan Dinnerjacket is intent on--the entire ME will be drunk on the blood of kaffirs.
[Geo News] Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Wednesday that a video shown on media about the public flogging of a woman by masked Taliban was real. A local news agency had claimed in its report that the video was fake.
The report said the law enforcement agencies had also arrested some people from Swat and Kohat in this regard. The arrested men alleged that an Islamabad-based non NGO, which was not part of the local or state or federal government organization, had financed preparation of fake video and paid 0.5 million rupees for doing so.
When contacted by Geo News, Kohat DIG said that no arrest was made in connection with the flogging video. IG Kohat Abdullah Khan was contacted and asked whether any arrests were made from Kohat where police had registered a case in this regard, replied that arrests are made every day in Kohat as part of the ongoing operation against miscreants. But, he added, that so far as arrests in connection with Swat case are concerned, no one has been held by police or security agencies. However, he said, DPO Swat or DIG Malakand would be in a better position to say something.
In this connection, DIG Malakand Qazi Jameel said investigations into the incident of public flogging of a girl was still underway. He said Kabal police station had lodged an FIR after the release of the video. The case was registered under sections 120, 337, 345, 365, 364 of the Anti Terrorism Act and that investigation into the incident is still in progress. We have set up an investigation team in this regard, he added.
"So, the investigation is still on as to whether this incident did actually take place or not. SP Investigation Swat is leading the above team and the investigation is still underway," DIG Malakand said.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said so far no such person has come forward claiming that the video of public flogging of a girl was fake. When asked about the originality of the video, Rehman Malik said the media had first shown the video which people watched and believed everything that was being shown in the video. But then the media came up with another report saying the video 'was fake and made on payment', he added.
The Interior Minister said he had talked to IG and that the investigation conducted so far reveals that the video was real. "No one has, as yet, come forward with a claim that he had taken money for making that video," he added.
When contacted, Interior Ministry and ISPR denied arresting any such person. Muslim Khan, then Tehrik-e-Taliban spokesman, had confirmed the incident but criticized doing it publicly. While talking to media, Muslim Khan condemned Muslims for creating such hype like Europeans wanted it to be. He was of the view that the girl deserved punishment either outside or inside but it was wartime and giving punishment inside was not possible and scholars were also not present.
This video is nine months old and why not the video of men punished later was not shown, he asked.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2010 00:00 ||
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Judge Richard Goldstone, who headed a war crimes probe that has infuriated Israel and Jewish communities around the world, will not be attending his grandson's bar mitzva in Johannesburg next month, according to a South African newspaper.
Goldstone will not be present when his grandson performs the religious rite, following an agreement between the family, the South African Zionist Organization (SAZF) and the Beith Hamedrash Hagadol synagogue in Sandton, where the event will take place, the South African Jewish Report said.
The leaders of Turkey and Brazil have informed the US president that they are still opposed to imposing sanctions on Iran.
In a meeting with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC on Tuesday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey opposed the US calls for sanctions to be imposed on Iran.
The two leaders advised President Obama to seek a "negotiated solution" to the dispute over Iran's nuclear program in order to avoid imposing new UN sanctions on the country.
The meeting, which was not on the agenda and lasted barely 15 minutes, focused "exclusively on Iran," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters at a press conference after the trilateral meeting.
It was "a frank, sincere exchange," Amorin said, adding that President Lula had asked President Obama to "give a chance" to further negotiations.
However, both leaders failed to obtain a firm response from the US president that he would "wait" on the sanctions issue, the Brazilian foreign minister said.
But President Obama's reaction "was not categorical," Amorim noted, adding that the US leader is "not at all negative about attempting a negotiated solution."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2010 00:00 ||
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that he has sent a letter to US President Barack Obama, the contents of which will be made public in the near future.
Ahmadinejad made the announcement in an interview televised live on Channel One of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on Tuesday night.
He said that Iran is the "only chance" for Obama to realize his change motto.
"What formula can he propose to make any development in Palestine that could be considered a victory for him and could strengthen his position in the US?" Ahmadinejad asked.
"He can't do anything in Iraq or Afghanistan either because the situation is so complicated there that he can't create a tangible change there that could be considered a victory," IRNA quoted the Iranian president as saying.
Ahmadinejad also noted that Obama will not be able to improve the US economy through a miracle.
"Obama only has one way to tell the world that he has created change, and that is Iran," he stated.
Ahmadinejad urged Obama to seize the opportunity and to desist from threatening Iran, saying, "The era that they assumed that they could damage Iran is over."
"Thank God, no one can damage the Iranian nation any longer," he added.
Ahmadinejad went on to say that Iran does not want confrontation and is seeking cooperation and negotiation with others.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > AHMADINEJAD: IRAN PAST THE NUCLEAR "POINT OF NO RETURN" BY HUNDREDS OF KILOMETERS.
"Hundreds of kilometers" > HMMMMM, HMMMMMM, is MOUD hinting that Western estimates of Iran's Missle Techs are off, i..e that Iran's BMS are more acurate or capable than curr perceived; or else than iran already possesses LR NUKE MISSLES, WARHEADS???
*YNET > IRANIAN OFFICIAL: IRAN HAS ALREADY PRODUCED FIVE KG OF 20% ENRICHED URANIUM.
and
SAME > US: IRAN MAY HAVE ENOUGH URANIUM FOR ONE BOMB WITHIN A YEAR.
versus
DAILY TIMES.PK > US OFFICIAL:IRAN COULD HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN 3-5 YEARS [2013-2015].
--------------------
YNET POSTER > opines that HIZBULLAH'S NEW SCUDS ADD TO ISLAMIC NUCLEAR, MISSLE INTIMIDATION OF EUROPE, while degrading more real threat of terror attacks launched agz Europe from various pro-ISLAMIST, ILLEGAL ARMS SMUGGLING SHIPS PLOWING THE MEDITERRANEAN ROUTES???
#5
I share your concerns, JM. He's cocky, taunting us, but it is no less than nuclear blackmail. Sanctions will no longer work as even Brazil and Turkey will not comply, China is still supplying them with gasoline and maybe more, plus Kimmy is quite desperate and needs the moola from somewhere. Missiles and technology are NK's only products. I'm betting we are already too late and need to put Israel in our prayers.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Envoys of six major powers met Wednesday to discuss substantive bargaining for new UN sanctions against Iran as the head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said the Islamic Republic could build a nuclear bomb in as little as a year.
The meeting, following a similar exploratory one held last week, was to focus on a U.S. draft resolution outlining sanctions in five areas: arms embargo, energy, shipping, finance and targeted punitive measures against Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, a diplomat familiar with the discussions said.
Diplomats said they anticipated drawn-out discussions on the text and hinted a vote by the full 15-member council might not take place until June.
The closed-door meeting comes two days after foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States discussed the issue in Washington on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit.
The ministers confirmed that substantive negotiations on a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Iran can proceed at ambassador level here in New York, diplomats said.
Tuesday, a top Chinese official said in Washington that China, a veto-wielding Security Council member which has close energy and economic ties with Tehran, was ready to discuss "new ideas" on Iran.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said China still favored continued negotiations to resolve the dispute over Iran's controversial nuclear drive, but said it was open to discussion.
The United States and its Western allies believe Tehran is using uranium enrichment as a cover to build nuclear weapons, a claim the Iranians deny.
Meanwhile Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess told a Senate panel that Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium with the number of centrifuges it has installed to build one nuclear bomb in a year.
The general consensus -- not knowing again the exact number of centrifuges that we actually have visibility into -- is we're talking one year," Burgess said.
However If Tehran makes the decision to develop an atomic arsenal, including enrich uranium to weapons grade, "experience says that it's going to take 3-5 years" for them to have a nuclear weapon, General James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers.
Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, said Obama has made clear all options are on the table to rein in Iran's nuclear program but that "military options are not preferable and we continue to believe that the most effective approach at this point in time is the combination of diplomacy and pressure."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
DRUDGEREPORT > RUSSIA DECLARES: IRAN NUCLEAR REACTOR READY IN AUGUST.
VARIOUS NETTERS > are interpreting this News as a de facto failure of POTUS BAMMER to keep one of his major Campaign + Admin promises???
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
It was just a phrase at the end of President Obama's news conference on Tuesday, but it was a stark reminder of a far-reaching shift in how the United States views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how aggressively it might push for a peace agreement. 
