Tag: InternationalNews

{{Britain’s Supreme Court quashed sanctions against an Iranian bank penalized over its alleged links to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, saying Wednesday that Bank Mellat had been arbitrarily singled out.}}

The U.S. Treasury Department slammed the ruling as mistaken and warned that Bank Mellat remains under American sanctions.

Bank Mellat, a privately owned commercial bank, was seeking to overturn a 2009 order by the British Treasury barring it from operating in the country.

That order, made under counterterrorism laws, shut the bank out of the British financial sector because it allegedly helped finance Tehran’s nuclear program.

The bank had denied the allegation and argued that the order was unlawful, taking the case to the Supreme Court after failing to persuade Britain’s High Court and Court of Appeal to overturn the order.

Britain’s Supreme Court agreed, saying in a ruling Wednesday that the order was “arbitrary and irrational” and “disproportionate.”

Lawyer Sarosh Zaiwalla, who represented Bank Mellat, called the ruling a victory for his client and “for the rule of law.”

But the United States, which along with the EU has levied sanctions against Bank Mellat, said in a statement that it is “very disappointed” by the court’s decision, which it called “mistaken.”

“Bank Mellat was designated for sanctions by the U.S., the UK and the EU because it supports Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile proliferation activities,” the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement. “It has no place in the international financial system.”

The Treasury statement added that as the Bank Mellat remains under U.S. sanctions, under U.S. law any bank that transacts with the lender or provides it services can be cut off from the American financial system.

“We have exercised this authority in the past and will not hesitate to do so again in order to ensure that Bank Mellat is not able to operate,” the statement said.

The EU sanctions against Bank Mellat were overturned by the European General Court in January, but remain in effect since that ruling is being appealed.

Separately, the British Supreme Court justices said in a related judgment that it had been unnecessary for them to hear some evidence in the case in secret.

The decision for Britain’s highest court to convene for the first time ever behind closed doors had sparked fierce criticism from anti-secrecy activists.

The justices said Wednesday there had been no point in hearing evidence in secret because there was nothing said behind closed doors that would have impacted the court’s decision in the case.

{wirestory}

{{Preliminary Afghan peace talks in Qatar between U.S. and Taliban officials are unlikely to take place on Thursday as had been expected, a source familiar with the matter told media.}}

Asked if the meeting would happen on Thursday, the source replied: “There is nothing scheduled that I am aware of.” Asked if that meant they would not happen today, the source added: “Yes that’s correct.”

A senior U.S. official said on Wednesday that talks with the Taliban were likely to be held within the next few days in Qatar after delays caused by tensions over the naming of a new Taliban office in the capital, Doha.

Senior Afghan officials had accused Washington on Wednesday of breaking assurances to Kabul that the new office would not be used as a de facto mission.

Specifically, they objected to the ceremonial opening of the office – which included a prominent Taliban flag and a banner with the insurgent group’s state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – giving the impression that the Taliban had achieved some level of international political recognition.

A statement on Qatar’s foreign ministry website late on Wednesday clarified that the office which opened was called the “Political Bureau for Afghan Taliban in Doha” and not the “Political Bureau for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”.

The source in Doha told Reuters on Thursday there were no dates set for the talks and that there was no decision from the Afghan government on whether they would take part in the talks.

{reuters}

{{A North Korean envoy held talks with Chinese officials on Wednesday that experts said were unlikely to yield concessions from Pyongyang on its nuclear program but were more aimed at repairing ties with Beijing.}}

First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, who has represented Pyongyang at previous international talks to get North Korea to halt its nuclear program, was meeting Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui in Beijing.

His trip comes just days after North Korea offered talks with Washington to ease tensions that spiked earlier this year when it threatened to wage nuclear war on the United States and South Korea.

The White House said any talks must involve action by Pyongyang to show it is moving towards disarmament.

North Korea was looking for holes in the international consensus that it must denuclearize by seeking dialogue with various countries, said Wang Dong, an international relations professor at Peking University in Beijing.

“If China’s stance is still firm, North Korea will understand that there are no loopholes to exploit,” Wang said.

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too. I think China will make this clear to North Korea,” he said, referring to Pyongyang’s refusal to give up its nuclear weapons while at the same time trying to mend ties with key powers.

The talks are the highest-level contact between China and North Korea since U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California in early June and agreed Pyongyang had to denuclearize.

North Korea has repeatedly said it will never abandon its nuclear weapons, calling them its “treasured sword”, a term one of its official newspapers used again on Wednesday.

{North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister and envoy to the six-party talks Kim Kye-gwan (2nd L) enters a hotel after a meeting with U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Glyn Davies in Beijing.}.

{reuters}

{{Russia and the United States have a signed a bilateral agreement for protecting, controlling, and accounting for nuclear materials, continuing important aspects of a now-defunct program that was seen as a cornerstone of post-Soviet cooperation between the former foes.}}

President Barack Obama hailed the deal as an example of “the kind of constructive, cooperative relationship that moves us out of a Cold War mindset” after a private meeting with President Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland late Monday.

The new framework will replace what is known as the Nunn-Lugar Program, launched in 1992, under which the U.S. Defense Department helped pay for securing and dismantling weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

“It was a very successful project. One of very few successful projects of the last 20 years,” said Alexei Arbatov, an arms control expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center. The new agreement “means that this mentality of post-Cold War cooperation is still alive, although some indications may suggest that it isn’t,” he said.

In October, Moscow said the Nunn-Lugar Program was outdated and refused to renew it. The Kremlin complained about the program’s “very aggressive and intrusive” approach to securing nuclear material in Russia, a spokesman for the National Security Council said, Reuters reported. It also said Russia no longer needed financial assistance.

The Nunn-Lugar Program expired Monday.

The signing was a ray of light for U.S.-Russian relations, which have been rocked over the past year by public spats over a wide range of issues, including bilateral adoptions and the Syrian civil war, as well as continuing friction over NATO’s U.S.-led missile defense plans.

“It’s a very important agreement. It shows that Washington and Moscow are trying to improve their relations,” said Vladimir Batyuk, a security expert at the Institute for U.S. and?Canadian Studies.

Details about the agreement were vague as of Tuesday evening. A brief fact sheet provided by the White House said it would build upon the success of the Nunn-Lugar Program and would be conducted under an existing OECD framework agreement and a related bilateral protocol.

At issue is the sharing of safety and accounting expertise, mostly with third countries, Arbatov said. The agreement might also include a final word about dismantling nuclear submarines, but otherwise it is not about dismantling weapons, he said, cautioning that he had not seen the actual text.

Former Senator Sam Nunn, who sponsored the original nonproliferation deal with former Senator Richard Lugar, applauded the new one, but noted that areas of cooperation on chemical and biological weapons would not continue.

“We must find ways beyond this agreement to work together on these critical issues,” he told Reuters. “I believe that we will.”

Russia and the United States no longer see chemical weapons as a priority because they are both close to liquidating their stockpiles under existing agreements, Batyuk said. “The majority of Russia’s stockpiles have been destroyed and will cease to exist in the foreseeable future. As far as I know, the situation in the United States is the same,” he said.

Batyuk argued that while the nuclear deal was important, it was less significant than a pledge made by Obama and Putin to cooperate on cybersecurity. “Nuclear weapons are a legacy of the 20th century. The challenge of the 21st century is cybersecurity,” he said by telephone on Tuesday.

{President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama waving for the cameras during the summit Tuesday.}

{The Moscow Times}

{{The Syrian civil war contributed to push the numbers of refugees and those displaced by conflict within their own nation to an 18-year high of 45.2 million worldwide by the end of 2012, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday.}}

Those are the highest numbers since 1994, when people fled genocide in Rwanda and bloodshed in former Yugoslavia.

By the end of last year, the world had 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers and 28.8 million people who had been forced to flee within the borders of their own countries, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report.

Of those, 17 percent were new to their situations in 2012: 1.1 million new refugees and 6.5 million new internally displaced people.

That translates into someone becoming a new refugee or internally displaced person somewhere in the world every 4.1 seconds during the last year, said Antonio Guterres, head of the Geneva-based agency, also known as UNHCR.

“Which means each time you blink, another person is forced to flee,” he told reporters in Geneva.

Children below the age of 18 accounted for 46 percent of refugees worldwide. Most of the refugees in the world have fled from five war-affected countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan.

The overall numbers rose by 6 percent increase from the 42.5 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world at the end of 2011.

{{Nato has handed over security for the whole of Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.}}

At a ceremony in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai said that from Wednesday “our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities”.

Observers say the best soldiers in the Afghan army are up to the task but there are lingering doubts about some.

International troops will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, providing military back-up when needed.

The ceremony came shortly after a suicide bomb attack in western Kabul killed three employees of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and wounded more than 20.

President Hamid Karzai: “For the people of Afghanistan this is a great day”
The attacker was believed to be targeting the convoy of prominent politician and Hazara leader Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, who escaped with light injuries.

{The Afghan army has been growing in size and capability}
{wirestory}

{{More than 100,000 people were in the streets Monday for largely peaceful protests in at least eight big cities. }}

They were in large part motivated by widespread images of Sao Paulo police last week beating demonstrators and firing rubber bullets into groups during a march that drew 5,000.

There was some violence, with police and protesters clashing in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte.

The newspaper O Globo, citing Rio state security officials, said at least 20 officers and 10 protesters were injured there.

Monday’s protests come after the opening matches of soccer’s Confederations Cup over the weekend, just one month before a papal visit, a year before the World Cup and three years ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The unrest is raising some security concerns, especially after the earlier protests produced injury-causing clashes with police.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s economic hub, at least 65,000 protesters gathered Monday at a small, treeless plaza then broke into three directions in a Carnival atmosphere, with drummers beating out samba rhythms as people chanted anti-corruption jingles.

They also railed against the matter that sparked the first protests last week — a 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares.

Thousands of protesters in the capital, Brasilia, peacefully marched on Congress. Dozens scrambled up a ramp to a low-lying roof, clasping hands and raising their arms, the light from below sending their elongated shadows onto the structure’s large, hallmark upward-turned bowl designed by famed architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Some congressional windows were broken, but police did not use force to contain the damage.

“This is a communal cry saying: ‘We’re not satisfied,’” Maria Claudia Cardoso said on a Sao Paulo avenue, taking turns waving a sign reading “#revolution” with her 16-year-old son, Fernando, as protesters streamed by.

{agencies}