You are currently browsing the Democracy & International Relations category.
Telegraph – Those hoping to have a 50-year secrecy order overturned believe the government is embarrassed by details within that may prove German and Vatican officials colluded in his escape and freedom. The secrecy order is being challenged in a benchmark court case against the BND, Germany’s domestic intelligence service, which wants the 4,500 pages of documents on Adolf Eichmann to remain out of the public domain. The service claims that intelligence agencies in other countries will be “frightened off” in future data-sharing if they are disclosed, Der Spiegel reported. Read article
CNN – At least 75 people have been killed in clashes in the Somali capital of Mogadishu since fighting broke out earlier this week between government forces and Al-Shabaab rebels, medical sources and a witness said Saturday. At least 30 people died on Wednesday, and another 35 died on Thursday, the city’s ambulance service said. Another five died of their wounds while hospitalized, according to Duniyo Ali Mohamed, medical director of Mogadishu’s Medina Hospital. Read article
Press TV – Moscow says the United States and NATO’s inaction in fighting drug trafficking in Afghanistan, translates into an “undeclared war” against Russia. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin slammed the alliance for its loose surveillance on drug trafficking out of Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported on Friday. Afghanistan produces some 90 percent of the world’s opium. The Afghan drugs enter Russia and Central Asia before reaching Western Europe. Read article
Industry Week – Shell said on March 10 it had stopped selling petrol to Iran, becoming the latest major oil company to stop trading with the Islamic Republic. “Shell is not currently selling gasoline to Iran,” a Shell spokesman said. The company declined to say if the decision was linked to sanctions on Iran imposed over its nuclear ambitions. Read article
Reuters – Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had a narrow lead over rival Shi’ites, partial results in Iraq’s tight election race showed on Friday, but a secularist challenger remained far ahead in minority Sunni areas. The race may remain too close to call until initial results are posted for all of Iraq’s 18 provinces, including pivotal areas like Baghdad, the ethnically and religiously diverse capital city, suggesting it may be even harder than expected to form a government if no single bloc emerges as a clear victor. Read article
AFP – Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the army to seal off the West Bank for 48 hours until midnight on Saturday, an army spokesman said. The action was taken “for security reasons” including a risk of attacks, the spokesman said Friday. The area was sealed off at midnight on Thursday. Israeli police have also said they would bar Muslim men under the age of 50 from prayers on Friday at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites, fearing unrest. Read article
Times Online – The Italian Parliament has approved a law that will shield Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, from criminal trials for the next year and a half. The decision led to vociferous protests from magistrates, judges and the centre-Left opposition. The law, passed last night, in effect undermines two trials in which Mr Berlusconi, 73, is accused of corruption. In one he is charged with giving David Mills, his former British tax lawyer and estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, a bribe to lie for him in court in corruption cases in the 1990s. In the second his television company Mediaset is accused of tax fraud over the purchase of Hollywood film rights. Read article
Daily Mail – Princess Diana died after attempts to frighten her into dumping Dodi al Fayed and ending her anti-establishment activities went horribly wrong, a leading lawyer has claimed. Michael Mansfield claimed he was sure Diana’s ‘killers’ had no intention of ending her life in a Paris tunnel in August 1997 and simply wanted to scare her. But he claimed the operation to torpedo her relationship with Dodi, and silence her planned criticism of the British government over foreign arms sales, backfired spectacularly. Read article
Reuters – The ground shook and buildings swayed as billionaire Sebastian Pinera took over as Chile’s president on Thursday, tasked with rebuilding after a massive earthquake killed hundreds just 12 days ago. A series of strong aftershocks rattled central Chile minutes before conservative Pinera was sworn in at Congress in the port city of Valparaiso, as Latin American presidents and other dignitaries looked nervously at the ceiling. Read article
BBC – Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador to Sweden after the parliament voted narrowly to describe as genocide the killing of Armenians in World War I. The Turkish government condemned the resolution, saying it was “based upon major errors and without foundation”. The Swedish government opposed the opposition resolution but it passed by one vote after some MPs voted against party lines. It comes days after a US congressional panel passed a similar resolution. Read article
Times Online – The threat of violent protests loomed over Iraq yesterday as the country’s leading opposition politician said that there was widespread fraud in last week’s elections. Ayad Allawi told Western officials that aides to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, had hidden ballot papers and falsified computer records in an effort to retain power. “They are stealing the votes of the Iraqi people,” his spokesman told a press conference called to set out the main claims. Read article
Guardian – A senior UN official has called for Burma’s military rulers to be investigated over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated against Burmese civilians, in a move that will sharply increase pressure on the isolated regime ahead of controversial national elections due later this year. In a draft report to the UN Human Rights Council [pdf] in Geneva, Tomás Ojea Quintana, special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, described “a pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights” which he said has been in place for many years and still continued. Read article
Times Online – The Soviet Union is gradually being rebuilt as Vladimir Putin eyes a return to the Kremlin. The man who declared the collapse of the Communist state to be the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” appears determined to forge a new empire. The latest evidence emerged in a suggestion by Igor Shuvalov, First Deputy Prime Minister in Mr Putin’s Government, that Russia may abolish the rouble and create a common currency with Kazakhstan and Belarus. Read article
Times Online – If you lived on a street where a neighbour frequently and flagrantly broke the law, you would want something done about it, especially if that neighbour took part of your garden, replaced the fence with a 30ft wall, cut down your trees and redirected your water supply. Suppose the authorities to whom you complained merely denounced the illegalities and took no action? You might think that this situation is inconceivable. But that is precisely what has been happening to the Palestinians for the best part of 60 years. Read article
BBC – US President Barack Obama has warned of a second disaster in Haiti, saying people should be under no illusion that the crisis there is over. Mr Obama said the situation in Haiti remained “dire” almost two months after the earthquake struck. He was speaking after talks with Haitian President Rene Preval in Washington. Read article
Reuters – Vice President Joe Biden publicly scolded Israel on Wednesday over a Jewish settlement plan, saying it was undermining peace efforts after Palestinians agreed to U.S.-mediated talks. “It is incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not to complicate them,” Biden said in a media statement alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “Yesterday the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin … profitable negotiations,” Biden said. Read article
BBC – Up to half the food aid in Somalia is diverted to corrupt contractors, local UN workers and Islamist militants, a leaked UN report says. The report, by the UN monitoring group in Somalia, is particularly critical of the UN’s own World Food Programme and recommends an independent inquiry. It says WFP contracts are awarded to a few powerful individuals who operate cartels that sell the food illegally. The report has not been made public yet, but its contents have been leaked. Read article
BBC – Japan has confirmed the existence of a secret Cold War deal allowing the transit of nuclear-armed US vessels through its ports. The move by a government-appointed panel ends decades of official denial – although the existence of the pact was an open secret. The government said that the move was aimed at increasing transparency. But it comes at an unsettled time for the US-Japan relationship, amid a row over US military bases in Okinawa. Read article
Financial Times – The world’s largest oil traders have quietly stopped supplying petrol to Iran in a clear sign that the threat of sanctions and Washington’s behind-the-scenes efforts to convince companies not to sell to Tehran are paying off. However, the decision by Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura is unlikely to cut Tehran off completely from the global petrol market as traders said Iran’s long-standing suppliers were being replaced by small Dubai-based and Chinese companies. Although Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, its refineries are dilapidated and it suffers from runaway petrol demand because of generous subsidies. Read article
Telegraph – India took a big step on Tuesday towards approving legislation that would reserve one-third of seats in the country’s parliament for women. Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, described the 186-1 vote in the upper house of parliament as a “historic step forward toward emancipation of Indian womanhood”. The bill now goes to the lower house, where it is likely to pass. The vote came after socialist lawmakers blocked the parliamentary debate on Monday and forced the upper house to adjourn twice on Tuesday. The protesters later boycotted the voting. Read article
Press TV – Israel, which is widely deemed as the sole wielder of nuclear arsenals in the Middle East, says it plans to build its third nuclear power plant. Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau plans to announce Israel’s interest in developing nuclear power at an international nuclear energy conference in Paris, the ministry’s spokesman Chen Lulu said on Monday. He said Landau would tell the Paris meeting that he sees such a plant as a joint project between Israel and Jordan, with France supervising and providing technology. Read article
Telegraph – A far-Right candidate for Austria’s presidential election has brought the country’s dark past to the surface again, by denouncing a law banning Nazi groups and Holocaust denial. Barbara Rosenkranz, 51, a regional leader of the Freedom Party (FPOe), looks likely to be the only candidate to run against the incumbent, President Heinz Fischer, on April 25. But her comments supporting the scrapping of the tough prohibition law have renewed the debate about a heritage with which the country, which was under Nazi rule from 1938 to 1945, has never fully come to terms. Austrian leaders and the press already fear for the country’s image abroad. Under the 1947 Verbotsgesetz law, anyone who seeks to set up a Nazi organisation, propagates Nazi ideology or denies Nazi crimes can be jailed for up to 20 years. Read article
Ed – is it democratic to suppress or ban political ideologies, no matter how repulsive they might be to the majority? Surely a healthy democracy will ensure good debate and the election of those fit to represent their constituents.
Washington Post – President Obama’s top national security advisers will within days present him with an agonizing choice on how to guide U.S. nuclear weapons policy for the rest of his term. Does he substantially advance his bold pledge to seek a world free of nuclear weapons by declaring that the “sole purpose” of the U.S. arsenal is to deter other nations from using them? Or does he embrace a more modest option, supported by some senior military officials, that deterrence is the “primary purpose”? The difference may seem semantic, but such words, which will be contained in a document known as the Nuclear Posture Review, have deep meaning and could dramatically shift nuclear policy in the United States and around the world. Read article
Times Online – Burma’s military dictatorship has set out laws governing a general election promised later this year, reinforcing the predictions of its opponents that it will be a hollow exercise intended to consolidate military power under a democratic façade. The country’s state-run newspapers today published the election commission law, the first of five pieces of legislation which were formally passed on Monday. Under its terms, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the military Government calls itself, will appoint the five-person commission responsible for supervising the election. Read article
Reuters – Turnout in Iraq’s parliamentary election was 62 percent, higher than in last year’s provincial ballot, despite attempts by Sunni Islamist insurgents to disrupt the vote with attacks that killed 39, officials said on Monday. Preliminary results were not expected for another day or two in a poll that Iraqis sickened by violence hope will help bring better governance and stability after years of sectarian slaughter, and as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw. Read article
