Tag: InternationalNews

{{Susan Rice has asked President Barack Obama not to pick her as his next secretary of state, after becoming a lightning rod for Republicans over the raid on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.}}

Rice, currently US envoy to the United Nations, is a longtime member of Obama’s inner circle and had been a favorite to succeed Hillary Clinton as the top US diplomat.

But her role as a top administration defender over the attack which killed the US ambassador to Libya on September 11 drew her into a furious row with Republicans keen to dent Obama after his re-election victory.

“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly, to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice said in a letter to Obama on Thursday.

Rice told NBC, which first reported her decision, that she was determined not to detract from the crucial first months of Obama’s second term — even though she had not even been nominated as secretary of state.

“We’re talking about comprehensive immigration reform, balanced deficit reduction, job creation — that’s what matters,” Rice said.

“To the extent that my nomination could have delayed or distracted or deflected, or maybe even (made) some of these priorities impossible to achieve, I didn’t want that.”

Rice’s move came amid strengthening indications that Obama is making progress in naming his new national security team. Sources said Republican former senator Chuck Hagel could become secretary of defense.

The White House, rowing over taxes and spending with Republicans, had pragmatically concluded the political capital needed to confirm Rice in the Senate could be better spent elsewhere.

But some observers may sense weakness in Obama’s decision not to fight for Rice against opposition from Republicans — including the man he defeated for the White House in 2008, Senator John McCain.

Obama, who aides say is philosophically and personally close to Rice, issued a statement condemning the “unfair and misleading attacks” on her and said she would stay on as UN ambassador with a spot on his cabinet.

The president and his UN envoy will meet Friday at the White House.

Republicans pounced on Rice after she said on September 16 that the Benghazi attack was a “spontaneous” reaction to an anti-Muslim video, using CIA talking points she now admits were wrong.

Extremists linked to Al-Qaeda are now blamed for the attack and Republicans charge the White House did not want to own up to a terror attack weeks before the presidential election.

Rice reiterated in a Washington Post editorial Thursday that she had made no attempt to mislead Americans. But she was not under fire for Benghazi alone.

There were whispers over her apparently acerbic character, and there was criticism over her role in US diplomacy to Africa when she served in Bill Clinton’s administration.

Democratic Senator John Kerry is now the favorite for the post, though officials say no personnel announcements are imminent.

Kerry, the defeated 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, will not comment on his chances, but issued a warm statement empathizing with Rice.

“As someone who has weathered my share of political attacks and understands on a personal level just how difficult politics can be, I’ve felt for her throughout these last difficult weeks,” Kerry said.

McCain was one of Rice’s fiercest critics.

“Senator McCain thanks Ambassador Rice for her service to the country and wishes her well,” read a statement from his office.

“He will continue to seek all of the facts surrounding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi that killed four brave Americans.”

Rice’s move throws the race to succeed Clinton, who has said she will not serve in Obama’s second term, wide open.

Clinton praised Rice as “an indispensable partner over the past four years.”

And Rice told her followers on Twitter that she was a “fighter” who still had work to do for the American people, amid speculation that she could eventually be named as Obama’s national security advisor.

Obama is meanwhile considering Hagel for defense secretary to succeed Leon Panetta, sources said. The two men have been close since they served together in the Senate.

Hagel, a decorated combat veteran who branded then president George W. Bush’s Iraq troop surge strategy the worst foreign policy blunder since Vietnam, served two terms as a Nebraska senator.

A decision by Obama to pick a Republican to lead the Pentagon would be seen as an attempt to show bipartisanship, although Hagel is seen as a centrist on foreign policy who has broken with his party on several key issues.

The president must also find a new head for the CIA.

{Wirestory}

{{Syrian government forces have fired Scud missiles at insurgents in recent days, escalating the 2-year-old conflict against rebels seeking to overthrow the regime, U.S. officials said Wednesday.}}

Speaking on condition of anonymity, two officials said forces of President Bashar Assad have fired the missiles from the Damascus area into northern Syria.

These officials asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

News of the missiles came on the same day that more than 100 countries, including the United States, recognized a new Syrian opposition coalition.

That has further isolated Assad’s regime and opened a way for greater humanitarian assistance to the forces battling to oust him.

One official said there was no indication that chemical weapons were aboard the missiles.

Officials have said over the past week that they feared rebel advances were prompting Assad to consider using chemical weapons.

{{Japan has accused China of violating its airspace for the first time after a Chinese government plane flew near disputed East China Sea islands.}}

Fighter jets were scrambled after the plane was seen around 11:00 local time (02:00 GMT) near one of the islands, spokesman Osamu Fujimura said.

Japan lodged an immediate protest with Beijing, he said.

The islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, have been a long-standing source of tension.

Japan’s defence ministry said it was the first intrusion into Japan’s air space by a Chinese government aircraft since the military began keeping records, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Last year, Japan said two Chinese military planes flew near the area, but did not enter the country’s airspace.

{{The UN Security Council condemned North Korea’s rogue rocket launch on Wednesday and the United States started pressing China to agree punitive action against its ally.}}

North Korea took a defiant stance against international fury over its launch however and China signalled it was reluctant to take tough new measures.

The UN Security Council held emergency talks after the North, already under international sanctions for nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, ignored pleas from friends and foes and went ahead with a rocket launch that it said put a satellite into space.

“Members of the Security Council condemned this launch, which is a clear violation of Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874,” said a statement released after the meeting.

The council highlighted a warning made after a failed launch in April that it could take “action” if there was a new attempt.

“Members of the Security Council will continue consultations on an appropriate response,” said the statement.

The United States said there had to be “consequences” for the breach of UN resolutions. US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said talks would start straight away on international action.

China’s UN ambassador Li Baodong resisted harder hitting language in the statement, diplomats at the closed meeting said.

Li opposed mentioning in the statement that the North had used “ballistic missile technology” but eventually gave in after pressure from Rice, the diplomats said.

He also argued that there was no reason to condemn China, the envoys added.

In Beijing, the Chinese government responded relatively quickly by expressing “regret” and pressing the country to abide by UN resolutions.

But in a commentary, state news agency Xinhua also decried “bellicose rhetoric and gestures” and defended North Korea’s right to explore space.

It called on all sides to avoid “stoking the flames.”

The United States immediately pressed the need for action against the North when US undersecretary of defence Jim Miller met with Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the Chinese army in Washington.

Miller “urged China to work with the United States and the international community to insist that North Korea live up to its commitments,” said a US statement.

The launch shows that “North Korea is determined to pursue its ballistic missile program without regard for it international obligations,” Rice told reporters.

“Members of the council must now work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of UN Security Council resolutions have consequences,” she added.

North Korea fired the rocket just days before its young ruler, Kim Jong-Un, marks 12 months in power.

North Korea insisted the mission was not a banned inter-continental missile test but carried a scientific satellite into space.

The satellite went into orbit “as planned,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. “People’s hearts are racing with excitement,” the state agency added.

The rocket set alarm bells ringing in Japan and South Korea, which put their militaries on alert.

Virtually every country has condemned the North. The launch was a “clear violation” of a 2009 UN Security Council resolution which bans North Korea from using ballistic missile technology, according to UN leader Ban Ki-moon.

Russia labelled Pyongyang’s defiance of UN resolutions “unacceptable” and warned the launch would have a “negative effect” on regional stability, while the European Union threatened new sanctions.

Masao Okonogi, a professor of Korean politics at Keio University in Japan, said the launch would thrust North Korea close to the top of the national security agenda for President Barack Obama.

“Putting a satellite into orbit means that you have technology to get a warhead to a targeted area. Now, North Korea is becoming not only a threat to the neighbouring countries but also a real threat to the United States,” he said.

But the North said it would ignore international warnings. “We will continue to exercise our legitimate right to launch satellites,” said a foreign ministry spokesman.

The country’s leader Kim Jong-Un, who is in his late 20s, was believed to be keen that the launch fall close to the first anniversary of the death of his father and former leader Kim Jong-Il on December 17.

A previous launch of the same Unha-3 rocket in April ended in embarrassing failure, with the carrier exploding shortly after take-off.

{{“Zero Dark Thirty,” a film about the tracking and killing of Osama bin Laden, is one of the year’s most anticipated movies.}}

Directed by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), the film tells the untold story of what it took to find and kill the 9/11 mastermind.

The Washington Post reports that one of the main CIA operatives responsible for bin Laden’s capture has run into some career roadblocks in recent months.

As portrayed by Jessica Chastain, the character of Maya is ambitious, intelligent and relentless.

However, in real life Maya (not her real name) is apparently unpopular around the office.

The Post reports that the operative and several other agents were awarded the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal, one of the agency’s highest honors.

However, after an email was sent to staff members announcing the award, the agent hit the reply-all button and expressed her feelings that only she was worthy of the award.

A former CIA official quoted by the Post said her response could be summed up with: “You guys tried to obstruct me. You fought me. Only I deserve the award.”

Of course, when you’re hunting the world’s most-wanted man, one would think you’d be forgiven for having a lack of manners.

But the woman has apparently been denied a promotion that would have resulted in a significant raise (she was given a cash reward for her work, though).

The former CIA official said he and others were stunned by the denied promotion, according to the Washington Post.

“Do you know how many CIA officers are jerks?” he said. “If that was a disqualifier, the whole National Clandestine Service would be gone.”

The film, while a lock for Oscar nominations, is also drawing fire for the way in which it portrays the CIA as using torture as a means for obtaining information.

This week, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee plans to vote on whether to approve the release of thousands of pages of documents detailing the interrogation procedures used to hunt bin Laden.

{{The fourth conference for the “Friends of the Syrian People” was set to open Wednesday after the U.S. said the new Syrian opposition coalition is the “sole legitimate representative” of the Syrian people.}}

The U.S. move, announced by President Barack Obama late Tuesday, follows that of France and the U.K. and what that will mean for the Syrian opposition should be indicated by the results of the conference, which includes more than a hundred delegates from Europe and the Gulf countries in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

The Syrian National Coalition, formed in November during a conference in Doha, Qatar, has been calling for increased international support, including military material for opposition forces battling the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria for nearly two years.

The U.S. is not, however, expected to approve military aid, in part over fears of al-Qaida linked rebel units operating in the country.

Obama’s announcement follows his administration’s blacklisting of a militant Syrian rebel group with links to al-Qaida.

That step is aimed at blunting the influence of extremists amid fears that the regime may use or lose control of its stockpile of chemical weapons.

The U.S. had been leading international efforts to prod the fractured Syrian opposition into coalescing around a leadership that would represent all of the country’s factions and religions.

Yet it had held back from granting recognition to the group until it demonstrated that it could organize itself in credible fashion.

In particular, Washington had wanted to see the group set up smaller committees that could deal with specific immediate and short-term issues, such as governing parts of Syria under their control and putting in place institutions to address the needs of people once Assad is ousted.

Some of those committees could form the basis of a transitional government.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to attend the conference, but cancelled following an illness and will be represented by Deputy Secretary of State for the Middle East, William Burns.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday the recognition contradicted earlier international agreements that foresee the “commencement of an all-Syria dialogue” that would include all sides of the conflict, in which more than 40,000 people have died so far.

{{After several failures, including one this spring, North Korea successfully launched a satellite into space Wednesday, an achievement met with cheers in Pyongyang and trepidation almost everywhere else.}}

North Korea says it wanted a satellite to help track the weather and send back data. But the United States, South Korea and their allies see the Unha-3 rocket that launched it as a potential weapon, theoretically capable of delivering high-impact munitions as far as California.

Even traditional backers Russia and China expressed worry about the launch.

Moscow had urged Pyongyang to cancel the space bid and Beijing conspicuously withheld its approval.

Here are some key points about the launch:

{{GETTING INTO ORBIT}}

The Unha-3 is a three-stage “carrier rocket” with a range that experts estimate is about 10,000 kilometers (6,300 miles).

That was enough to get the Kwangmyongsong satellite into orbit — a historic victory for North Korean scientists who had four failures since 1998, including April’s first-stage flameout 90 seconds after launch.

Getting a satellite into orbit is an extremely tricky undertaking, requiring all of a rocket’s complex systems to operate at peak efficiency.

Over the weekend North Korea had extended its window for liftoff by a week, until Dec. 29, citing an unidentified technical problem with the first stage of the rocket.

Winter is also a complicating factor. Weather hazards such as lightning, strong winds and freezing temperatures could have stalled a liftoff because they can interfere with the rocket’s trajectory and its sensitive electronic components. But North Korea overcame all those potential pitfalls.

{{ROCKET OR MISSILE?}}

North Korea calls it a satellite launch, but others see it as a covert test of missile technology.

The same launching mechanism used to send a satellite into space could be employed to send a long-range missile tipped with a nuclear warhead to targets as far away as Los Angeles.

North Korea has tested two nuclear devices since 2006, and is likely trying to find a way to mount an atomic warhead on a long-range missile.

That requires miniaturization technology that experts say it has yet to master.

The United States, South Korea and Japan deployed naval destroyers equipped with missile defense systems around the Korean Peninsula. Japan and South Korea also prepared, but did not use, Patriot missiles to intercept any debris that may have fallen on their territories.

{{CONSEQUENCES}}

The United States, South Korea and Japan are expected to seek tougher U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea for its launch.

The Security Council will hold closed-door consultations on the launch Wednesday, according to the U.N. Mission for Morocco, which holds the rotating council presidency.

Existing sanctions ban North Korea from buying or selling materials used for nuclear and missile development.

They also include a freeze on the assets of individuals and organizations involved in such development.

Japan has banned North Koreans from entering the country and stopped trade between the sides as part of its own sanctions against.

Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.

A February deal for the United States to provide food aid in exchange for a freeze in nuclear and missile activities collapsed after the North’s April launch.