Tag: InternationalNews

{{US Secretary of State John Kerry and other G8 foreign ministers are holding a second day of talks in London focused on Syria and North Korea.}}

Britain was expected to call for more help for the Syrian opposition but there were no signs of a major shift in policy, a day after rebels again appealed for weapons..

Western and Middle Eastern nations supporting the opposition will meet in Turkey on April 20, a US official said as foreign ministers of the Group of Eight nations met.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria “core group” in Istanbul, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

North Korean threats of war will also be high on the agenda of the G8 talks, which began in London over dinner on Wednesday and were due to end on Thursday.

Iran’s atomic ambitions, instability in north and west Africa, and climate change will also be up for discussion, according to Britain’s Foreign Office.

The G8 consists of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.

Aljazeera

The US is ready to defend itself against anything North Korea might launch, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said, as its ally South Korea confirmed its ability to intercept the North’s missiles.

At a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday, Hagel told reporters that the US “is fully prepared to deal with any contingency, any action that North Korea may take or any provocation that they may instigate,” Hagel added.

He said that the North was “skating close to a very dangerous line” with its bellicose rhetoric and was adding to a “combustible” situation.

“What the US would call crossing a ‘dangerous line’ would be launching a missile without any kind of pre-warning to shipping and to air traffic that it was about to do so,” said Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Seoul. “In the past, North Korea has, in advance of its rocket launches, given a warning and an idea of the trajectory that its missiles would take.

“This time all indications are that [North Korea is] preparing a missile launch on the east coast”.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that in the absence of statements to the contrary then the confrontational statements have to be taken at face value.

“They have conducted two nuclear tests, they have conducted several successful ballistic missile launches and in the absence of concrete evidence to the contrary, we have to assume the worse case,” said Dempsey.

On Thursday, a South Korean defence ministry official said that Seoul has deployed three naval destroyers, an early warning surveillance aircraft and a land-based radar system, as the South braced for what the country’s foreign minister said could be a test-fire of a medium-range missile.

{Aljazeera}

{{Yemen’s president removed his predecessor’s son and nephews from powerful security posts on Wednesday in the most dramatic step yet in sidelining old regime figures, according to the nation’s state-run media.}}

Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down in early 2012 after more than a year of protests against his rule, placed relatives and loyalists in top military and government posts over his 33-year rule.

They have been accused of obstructing the U.S.-backed government as it tries to reform and fight an active al-Qaida branch in the impoverished Arab nation.

Fireworks went off in the capital, Sanaa, and Yemen’s second largest city, Taiz, after the announcement. Restructuring the army was a top demand by Yemenis after Saleh’s ouster.

His vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, took over in a power transfer deal brokered by Yemen’s powerful Gulf neighbors and backed by the United States.

Hadi has since been trying to remove former regime loyalists over concerns that Saleh was using them to further destabilize the turmoil-wracked country.

Washington has expressed concern that some in the military have been taking advantage of their positions for personal gain to interfere in the country’s transition, since regime change threatens their personal interests.

The U.N. Security Council warned Saleh directly that he could face sanctions if attempts to undermine the new national unity government persist.

In his latest move, Hadi not only removed Saleh’s son and two nephews from their posts, but also effectively ordered them to leave the country by posting them abroad.

He removed Saleh’s son Ahmed as head of the Republican Guard and appointed him ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

The force is an elite army unit that was once the backbone of Saleh’s rule.

It was supposed to be reorganized and brought under the control of the Defense Ministry according to Hadi’s orders last year, but those changes had not materialized on the ground.

Agencies

{{Israeli police have detained five women while praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem for performing religious rituals that ultra-Orthodox Jews say are reserved for men.}}

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says about 120 woman arrived for their monthly prayer service Thursday and five were detained for wearing prayer shawls.

The arrests come a day after Israeli authorities proposed a compromise to diffuse tensions over their services by establishing a new section at the site where men and women can pray together.

The Western Wall, believed to be the only remaining part of the biblical Temple compound, is the holiest site where Jews can pray. It is currently divided into men’s and women’s sections.

Orthodox rabbis, who control Israel’s religious institutions, oppose mixed prayers.

The new proposal still needs government approval.

AP

{{The shocking photo of a homophobic attack victim in Paris that went viral on social media this week and caused the French interior minister to weigh in was used as an emblem in a pro-gay rally Wednesday evening.}}

The image of Wilfred de Bruijn’s cut and bruised face was brandished by gay groups during a demonstration of several thousand people as evidence of their claim that homophobic acts have tripled nationwide over opposition to a law legalizing gay marriage.

This week, the French senate will conclude its debate on a law legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption, which is expected to pass.

It’s been a rocky run since it was unveiled last November by President Francois Hollande’s Socialists and split the majority-Catholic country.

But whichever way the Senate votes, the image of De Bruijn’s battered face has made for a symbolic end to five months of bitterly divisive protests.

De Bruijn was beaten unconscious near his home early Sunday in central Paris, sustaining five fractures in his head and face, abrasions and a lost tooth.

His boyfriend, who was also beaten up, said he witnessed three to four men shouting “Hey, look they’re gays,” before they attacked.

The incident has shocked France, and garnered support far and wide as a gay “cause celebre.” On Tuesday night, Interior Minister Manuel Valls called De Bruijn personally to express his shock.

“I certainly feel there’s been an increase in homophobia,” De Bruijn told The Associated Press at his apartment in Paris’ working class 19th district, where the attack took place.

“What (the anti-gay marriage campaign) are saying is that they’re not homophobic: lesbians and gays are nice people, but don’t let them get close to children — that’s very dangerous.

It’s OK for them to live together, but not like other couples with the same protection because it’s not really the same thing,” De Bruijn said.

{agencies}

{{The White House has urged Moscow to do more to restrain saber-rattling North Korea, but despite historically strong ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor, Russia does not have special influence that could help defuse growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, experts said Tuesday.}}

“Russia doesn’t have any exclusive ways to influence North Korea,” Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, said by telephone on Tuesday.

Unlike China, by far North Korea’s most significant military and economic partner, Russia’s trade links with the insular state are negligible.

They include North Korean logging camps in Siberia, a Soviet-era holdover that Western journalists have compared to the gulag.

Without economic influence over North Korea, with whom it shares a 19-kilometer border in the Russian Far East, Moscow must leverage traditionally warm relations with Pyongyang, said Leonid Kalashnikov, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee.

Late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was widely believed to have been born in the Soviet Union, which supported and inspired Pyongyang’s Stalinist government, and Russia is one of the few countries he officially visited, including several months before he died of a stroke in December 2011.

Likewise, Vladimir Putin chose North Korea for his first official trip as president in 2000.

But warm relations did not stop Russia from joining international condemnation over North Korea’s third-known nuclear test in February, and it has long joined the United States, China and others in calling for Pyongyang to halt development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Lacking the United States’ military muscle and China’s economic sway over Pyongyang, Russia has opted for the role of cool-headed peacemaker, urging all sides to show restraint and return to the stalled six-party talks.

This applies to North Korea as well as South Korea and the United States, both of which it has threatened to attack.

{Visitors to the demilitarized zone gazing through binoculars into North Korea’s Kaesong industrial town Tuesday.}

{Moscow Times}

{{A South Korean Defense Ministry official says North Korea has completed preparations for a missile test that could come any day.}}

The warning Wednesday came as Pyongyang prepared to mark the April 15 birthday of its founder Kim Il Sung, historically a time when it seeks to draw the world’s attention with dramatic displays of military power.

In Pyongyang, however, the focus was more on beautifying the city ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday.

Soldiers hammered away on construction projects and gardeners got down on their knees to plant flowers and trees.

The official in Seoul said the North’s military is capable of conducting multiple missile launches involving Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles, as well as a missile transported to the east coast recently.

He spoke on condition of anonymity.

AP

{{Cuba on Tuesday said it will hand over to the United States a Florida couple who allegedly kidnapped their two young sons from the mother’s parents and fled by boat to Havana.}}

U.S. diplomats in Havana said in a statement early Wednesday that the two children had left Cuba and “are safely on their way home.” The statement did not mention whether the parents had left for the U.S.

“We would like to express our appreciation to the Cuban authorities for their extensive cooperation to resolve this dangerous situation quickly,” said the statement released by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Earlier Tuesday, Foreign Ministry official Johana Tablada told The Associated Press in a written statement that Cuba had informed U.S. authorities of the country’s decision to turn over Joshua Michael Hakken, his wife Sharyn, and their two young boys.

U.S. authorities say Joshua Michael Hakken kidnapped his sons, 4-year-old Cole and 2-year-old Chase, from his mother-in-law’s house north of Tampa.

The boys’ maternal grandparents had been granted permanent custody of the boys last week.

Tabladadid not say when the handover would occur, but reporters saw Sharyn Hakken leaving the dock of Havana’s Hemingway Marina in the back seat of a Cuban government vehicle and workers later said that all four Hakkens had been taken away.

An AP reporter spotted the family earlier Tuesday beside their boat at the marina. A man who resembled photographs of Joshua Michael Hakken yelled out “Stop! Stay back!” as the reporter approached, but there was no outward sign of tension or distress between the family members.

Tablada said the Foreign Ministry had informed U.S. diplomats on the island “of the Cuban government’s willingness to turn over … U.S. citizens Joshua Michael Hakken, his wife Sharyn Patricia and their two minor sons.”

She said Cuba tipped the State Department off to the Hakkens’ presence on Sunday and that from that moment “diplomatic contact has been exchanged and a professional and constant communication has been maintained.”

The U.S. and Cuba share no extradition agreement and the island nation is also not a signatory of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international treaty for governmental cooperation on such cases.

Cuba has harbored U.S. fugitives in the past, though most of those cases date back to the 1960s and ’70s, when the island became a refuge for members of the Black Panthers and other militant groups.

More recently, dozens of Cuban Medicare fraud fugitives in the U.S. have tried to escape prosecution by returning to the island.

But Cuba has also cooperated with U.S. authorities in returning several criminal fugitives in recent years, including Leonard B. Auerbach in 2008.

Auerbach was wanted in California on federal charges of sexually abusing a Costa Rican girl and possessing child pornography. He was deported.

In 2011, U.S. marshals flew to Cuba and took custody of two American suspects wanted in a New Jersey murder.

Hakken lost custody of his sons last year after a drug possession arrest in Louisiana and later tried to take the children from a foster home at gunpoint, authorities said.

A warrant has been issued for his arrest on two counts of kidnapping; interference with child custody; child neglect; false imprisonment and other charges.

AP