Tag: InternationalNews

{{For nearly 30 years, the Berlin Wall was the hated symbol of the division of Europe, a gray, concrete mass that snaked through neighborhoods, separating families and friends. }}

On Wednesday, it took hundreds of police to guarantee the safe removal of 15 feet (less than 5 meters) of what’s left of the wall.

Construction crews, protected by about 250 police, hauled down part of the three-quarter of a mile (1.3-kilometer) strip of the wall before dawn to provide access to a planned luxury apartment complex overlooking the Spree River.

Even though most of the strip remains intact, the move angered many Berliners, who believe that developers are sacrificing history for profit.
The site, known as the East Side Gallery, has become a major tourist attraction, painted by 120 artists with colorful scenes along the gray concrete tiles.

It is the longest remaining portion of the 96-mile (155-kilometer) wall that surrounded Western-occupied West Berlin from 1961 until the peaceful revolution against the communist East German government in 1989. At least 136 people were killed trying to escape over the wall.

The flap over the future of the East Side Gallery flared last month with the announcement that developers wanted to tear away part of the wall. The announcement triggered a series of protests, including one attended by American celebrity David Hasselhoff.

Hasselhoff is remembered here fondly for his song “Looking for Freedom” that became the unofficial anthem of the 1989 revolution.
“It’s like tearing down an Indian burial ground,” Hasselhoff said during the March 17 protest. “It’s a no-brainer.”

After the protests, demolition work was suspended while local politicians and the investors looked for alternative access to the apartment site, located in the heart of the German capital.

When no other access route could be found, the main investor, Maik Uwe Hinkel, decided to resume the project. Work began at 5 a.m. Wednesday when few people were out on the streets.

In an emailed statement, Hinkel said the removal of parts of the wall was a temporary move to enable trucks to access the building site. He said that after four weeks of fruitless deliberations with city officials and owners of adjacent property, he was no longer willing to wait.

As word of the demolition spread, small crowds of Berliners turned out to watch although no one sought to block the effort.

“I can’t believe they came here in the dark in such a sneaky manner,” said Kani Alavi, the head of the East Side Gallery’s artists’ group. “All they see is their money. They have no understanding for the historic relevance and art of this place.”

The irony of Berliners trying to preserve part of what was once a hated symbol of repression reflects a growing public belief that the German capital needs to preserve symbols of its past — both the good and the bad — for future generations.

{{Reclusive North Korea is to cut the last channel of communications with the South because war could break out at “any moment”, it said on Wednesday, days after warning the United States and South Korea of nuclear attack.}}

The move is the latest in a series of bellicose threats from North Korea in response to new U.N. sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test in February and to “hostile” military drills under way joining the United States and South Korea.

The North has already stopped responding to calls on the hotline to the U.S. military that supervises the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Red Cross line that has been used by the governments of both sides.

“Under the situation where a war may break out at any moment, there is no need to keep north-south military communications which were laid between the militaries of both sides,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted a military spokesman as saying.

“There do not exist any dialogue channel and communications means between the DPRK and the U.S. and between the north and the south.”

Despite the shrill rhetoric, few believe North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), will risk starting a full-out war.

North and South Korea are still technically at war anyway after their 1950-53 civil conflict ended with an armistice, not a treaty, which the North says it has since torn to pieces.

The “dialogue channel” is used on a daily basis to process South Koreans who work in the Kaesong industrial project where 123 South Korean firms employ more than 50,000 North Koreans to make household goods.

About 120 South Koreans are stationed at Kaesong at any one time on average.

It is the last remaining joint project in operation between the two Koreas after South Korea cut off most aid and trade in response to Pyongyang’s shooting of a South Korean tourist and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel blamed on the North.

{{President Barack Obama on Tuesday named veteran Secret Service agent Julia Pierson as the agency’s first female director, signaling his desire to change the culture at the male-dominated service, which has been marred by scandal.}}

Pierson, who most recently served as the agency’s chief of staff, will take over from Mark Sullivan, who announced his retirement last month.

The agency faced intense criticism during Sullivan’s tenure for a prostitution scandal during preparations for Obama’s trip to Cartagena, Colombia, last year.

The incident raised questions within the agency – as well as at the White House and on Capitol Hill – about the culture, particularly during foreign travel. In addition to protecting the president, the Secret Service also investigates financial crimes.

“Over her 30 years of experience with the Secret Service, Julia has consistently exemplified the spirit and dedication the men and women of the service demonstrate every day,” Obama said in a statement announcing Pierson’s appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also praised Obama’s “historic decision” to name Pierson as the service’s first female director.

Pierson, 53, has held high-ranking posts throughout the Secret Service, including deputy assistant director of the office of protective operations and assistant director of human resources and training.

She has served as chief of staff since 2008.

That same year, Pierson was awarded the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award for superior performance in management throughout her career.

She joined the Secret Service in 1983 as a special agent and previously worked as a police officer in Orlando, Fla.

“Julia is eminently qualified to lead the agency that not only safeguards Americans at major events and secures our financial system, but also protects our leaders and our first families, including my own,” Obama said.

“Julia has had an exemplary career, and I know these experiences will guide her as she takes on this new challenge to lead the impressive men and women of this important agency.”

Thirteen Secret Service employees were caught up in last year’s prostitution scandal.

After a night of heavy partying in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, the employees brought women, including prostitutes, to the hotel where they were staying.

The incident became public after one agent refused to pay a prostitute and the pair argued about payment in a hotel hallway.

Eight of the employees were forced out of the agency, three were cleared of serious misconduct and at least two have been fighting to get their jobs back.

The incident took place before Obama arrived in Colombia and the service said the president’s safety was never compromised. But news of the scandal broke during his trip, overshadowing the summit and embarrassing the U.S. delegation.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the Secret Service has “lost the trust of many Americans” following the Colombia scandal.

Pierson, he said Tuesday, “has a lot of work ahead of her to create a culture that respects the important job the agency is tasked with.”

Sullivan issued a new code of conduct that bans employees from drinking within 10 hours of starting a shift or bringing foreign nationals back to their hotel rooms.

Sullivan apologized for the incident last year during testimony before a Senate panel.

AP

{{The Arab League has kicked off a two-day summit in Doha where opponents of President Bashar al-Assad are representing Syria for the first time.}}

Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, opened the conference on Tuesday by inviting Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the Syrian National Coalition, to take Syria’s seat.

He told the audience of kings, emirs and presidents that he still supports a “political solution” to the crisis in Syria, but one that does not “rewind the clock.”

Al Thani also called for the setting up a $1bn fund to protect the “Arabness of Jerusalem,” though he acknowledged that past promises to aid the Palestinians have gone unfulfilled.

“We are all obligated to work to defend Jerusalem…. the Arab states must swiftly and seriously act,” he said, adding that Qatar will contribute $250m to the fund.

Arab foreign ministers met in Doha on Sunday to prepare for the meeting. Fighting in Syria and Afghan government peace talks with the Taliban will be high on the agenda at the summit.

{{Russian and U.S. defense chiefs signaled on Monday their intention to reconvene long-stalled missile defense talks, the Pentagon said, following a change in U.S. missile defense plans for Europe that has been met cautiously by Moscow.}}

There have been no meetings at the deputy minister-level since 2011, when six were held, a U.S. defense official told Reuters.

Talks set for 2012 were canceled because of scheduling conflicts, he said.

The Pentagon said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed a desire to reconvene the talks, and that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel assured him they would continue and would be carried forward by the Pentagon’s policy chief, Jim Miller.

“We are very interested in further developments on the European missile defense and our minister offered to restart regular consultations on that between deputy ministers,” Anatoly Antonov, a deputy of Shoigu, was quoted as saying by Russian news agency RIA.

The news came after a March 16 announcement that the United States would station 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska in response to North Korean provocations, but at the same time forgo a new type of interceptor that would have been deployed in Europe.

Cold War-era foes Moscow and Washington have long been at loggerheads over the shield in Europe.

President Barack Obama’s move in 2009 to scale down earlier, Bush-administration plans only offered a short-lived respite.

Russia’s main concern is that the European shield would weaken its nuclear deterrent.

Russia’s point man for U.S. relations, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said on March 21 that the Obama administration’s planned changes brought a new element to the issue.

{reuters}

{{North Korea said on Tuesday its strategic rocket and long-range artillery units have been ordered to be combat ready, targeting U.S. military bases on Guam, Hawaii and mainland America after U.S. bombers flew sorties threatening the North.}}

The order, issued in a statement from the North’s military “supreme command”, marks the latest fiery rhetoric from Pyongyang since the start of joint military drills by U.S. and South Korean forces early this month.

South Korea’s defense ministry said it saw no sign of imminent military action by North Korea.

“From this moment, the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army will be putting into combat duty posture No. 1 all field artillery units, including long-range artillery units and strategic rocket units, that will target all enemy objects in U.S. invasionary bases on its mainland, Hawaii and Guam,” the North’s KCNA news agency said.

The North previously threatened nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea, although it is not believed to have the capability to hit the continental United States with an atomic weapon.

But the U.S. military’s bases in the Pacific area are in range of its medium-range missiles.

South Korea’s defense ministry said it had detected no signs of unusual activity by the North’s military but will monitor the situation.

The South and the U.S. military are conducting drills until the end of April, which they have stressed are strictly defensive in nature.

The North has previously threatened to strike back at the U.S. military accusing Washington of war preparations by using B-52 bombers which have flown over the Korean peninsula as part of the drills.

North Korea has said it has abrogated an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and threatened a nuclear attack on the United States.

reuters