A U.S. envoy’s postponement of his Mideast trip appeared Tuesday to deepen one of the worst U.S.-Israeli feuds in memory — even as Israel’s foreign minister signaled his government had no intention of curtailing the contentious construction at the heart of the row.
Continue reading here:
US Envoy Nixes Trip Amid US-Israel Feud
Georgia’s opposition politicians on Monday denounced the government over a hoax television broadcast that said Russia had invaded and the president had been killed.
Continue reading here:
Hoax Russian Invasion Report Panics Georgia
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that Pakistan has an “important” role to play in peace talks with the Taliban, a possible attempt to squash speculation that his government was trying to sideline its neighbor.
TOKYO — Japan confirmed for the first time Tuesday the existence of once-secret Cold War-era pacts with the U.S. that tacitly allowed nuclear-armed warships to enter Japanese ports in violation of Tokyo's postwar principles. While declassified U.S. documents have already confirmed such 1960s agreements, Tuesday's revelation broke with decades of official denials. The investigation by a government-mandated panel is part of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's campaign to rein in the power of bureaucrats and make his government, which was elected to power last year, more open than that of the long-ruling conservatives, who repeatedly denied the existence of such pacts. “It's regrettable that such facts were not disclosed to the public for such a long time, even after the end of the Cold War era,” Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a news conference, adding that the investigation was meant to restore public trust in Japan's diplomacy. The panel examined documents surrounding four pacts, including Tokyo's tacit permission that U.S. nuclear-armed warships could make calls at Japanese ports — a violation of Japan's so-called three non-nuclear principles not to make, own or allow the entry of atomic weapons. There is strong aversion to nuclear weapons in Japan, the only country to suffer atomic bombings — in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Speculation about the existence of such secret agreements have been swirling in Japan for years so the panel's findings most likely will simply confirm public suspicions rather than shock or anger people. Some are also aware of U.S. documents about these matters. Analysts welcomed the move as a positive step toward more transparency in the Japanese government but said it probably won't revive the sagging popularity of Hatoyama's government or affect U.S.-Japan ties, which have grown strained recently because of a dispute about relocating a key Marine base on the southern island of Okinawa. “It's a good thing for Japanese democracy, given that the previous governments have been telling blunt lies to the public,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. “But I don't think it's going to have a short-term impact on the government's popularity,” he said. “A lot of people look at this as something that belongs to history.” Under a security alliance with the U.S., some 47,000 American troops are stationed in Japan, and the U.S. protects the country under its nuclear umbrella. Okada said it was possible that before 1991, when the U.S. stopped carrying battle-ready nuclear weapons, American warships might have had nuclear weapons as they entered Japanese waters or entered Japanese ports. Reacting to the six-member panel's findings, summarized in a 108-page report, Hatoyama said there would be no changes to Japan's non-nuclear policy. The panel, led by University of Tokyo professor Shinichi Kitaoka, said that while documents showed that Washington and Tokyo appeared to have differing interpretations about allowing nuclear-armed ships into Japanese waters, it was likely that Tokyo and Washington shared an unspoken understanding permitting them to make port calls in Japan without consent. The experts also acknowledged that Tokyo and Washington had secret agreements allowing the U.S. to use military bases in Japan without prior consent in case of emergency on the Korean Peninsula during the Korean War. The panel said it could not find specific evidence showing a secret pact allowing the U.S. to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa after the 1972 reversion of the island to Japan. But it acknowledged that there was a vague secret agreement over Japan's cost burdens for Okinawa's 1972 reversion to Japan. ___ Associated Press writer Malcolm Foster contributed to this report.
Continued here: Japan confirms Cold War-era pacts with U.S.
TOKYO — Japan confirmed for the first time Tuesday the existence of once-secret Cold War-era pacts with the U.S. that tacitly allowed nuclear-armed warships to enter Japanese ports in violation of Tokyo’s postwar principles. While declassified U.S. documents have already confirmed such 1960s agreements, Tuesday’s revelation broke with decades of official denials. The investigation by a government-mandated panel is part of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s campaign to rein in the power of bureaucrats and make his government, which was elected to power last year, more open than that of the long-ruling conservatives, who repeatedly denied the existence of such pacts. “It’s regrettable that such facts were not disclosed to the public for such a long time, even after the end of the Cold War era,” Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a news conference, adding that the investigation was meant to restore public trust in Japan’s diplomacy. The panel examined documents surrounding four pacts, including Tokyo’s tacit permission that U.S. nuclear-armed warships could make calls at Japanese ports — a violation of Japan’s so-called three non-nuclear principles not to make, own or allow the entry of atomic weapons. There is strong aversion to nuclear weapons in Japan, the only country to suffer atomic bombings — in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Speculation about the existence of such secret agreements have been swirling in Japan for years so the panel’s findings most likely will simply confirm public suspicions rather than shock or anger people. Some are also aware of U.S. documents about these matters. Analysts welcomed the move as a positive step toward more transparency in the Japanese government but said it probably won’t revive the sagging popularity of Hatoyama’s government or affect U.S.-Japan ties, which have grown strained recently because of a dispute about relocating a key Marine base on the southern island of Okinawa. “It’s a good thing for Japanese democracy, given that the previous governments have been telling blunt lies to the public,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. “But I don’t think it’s going to have a short-term impact on the government’s popularity,” he said. “A lot of people look at this as something that belongs to history.” Under a security alliance with the U.S., some 47,000 American troops are stationed in Japan, and the U.S. protects the country under its nuclear umbrella. Okada said it was possible that before 1991, when the U.S. stopped carrying battle-ready nuclear weapons, American warships might have had nuclear weapons as they entered Japanese waters or entered Japanese ports. Reacting to the six-member panel’s findings, summarized in a 108-page report, Hatoyama said there would be no changes to Japan’s non-nuclear policy. The panel, led by University of Tokyo professor Shinichi Kitaoka, said that while documents showed that Washington and Tokyo appeared to have differing interpretations about allowing nuclear-armed ships into Japanese waters, it was likely that Tokyo and Washington shared an unspoken understanding permitting them to make port calls in Japan without consent. The experts also acknowledged that Tokyo and Washington had secret agreements allowing the U.S. to use military bases in Japan without prior consent in case of emergency on the Korean Peninsula during the Korean War. The panel said it could not find specific evidence showing a secret pact allowing the U.S. to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa after the 1972 reversion of the island to Japan. But it acknowledged that there was a vague secret agreement over Japan’s cost burdens for Okinawa’s 1972 reversion to Japan. ___ Associated Press writer Malcolm Foster contributed to this report.
Read this article:
Japan confirms it allowed nuke-armed U.S. ships
BAGHDAD — Millions of Iraqis voted in national elections on Sunday despite bomb and grenade attacks in a test of democracy and Iraq's ability to take over security from U.S. troops. Election observers said the most open and competitive election since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein went smoothly. People emerged smiling from polling stations with purple-stained fingers, the signature Iraqi method to prevent vote fraud, and said they hoped for a better future. “We have suffered from the security situation, the lack of jobs and poor basic services,” said Usra Abdullah, 48, in Baghdad. “If it means that I die while casting my vote then I die.” President Obama praised the Iraqis' stand against violence. “The Iraqi people have chosen to shape their future through the political process,” he said. Poll openings at 7 a.m. were met with numerous blasts. In an explosion near Sadr City, rescue workers said they could hear women and children under the debris screaming for help. The Interior Ministry said at least 35 people had died in the violence. Maj. Gen. Ahmed Assadi, an Iraqi army commander, said voters were undeterred. “Ninety-nine percent believe in the political process. We cannot and will not let the other 1 percent decide for us,” he said. Iraqis living in the U.S. also voted in six U.S. cities over the weekend. “Today is like Eid for me,” Haadi Al-Bagdadi, 48, of Dearborn, Mich., said after voting, referring to the Muslim holy day. His brother and three brothers-in-law were killed by the Hussein regime. The election comes nearly seven years after the U.S. invasion in 2003. A free and fair election plays into Obama's plan to withdraw 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq in August — more than half of the 96,000 troops there. U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill said the implication of the vote was “enormous.” “If this goes well … and if the government formation goes well, this could usher in a whole new beginning for this country and also U.S. relations with Iraq,” he said while in a U.S. base in Tikrit. Voters on Sunday were choosing from 6,200 candidates for 325 seats in parliament who will select the next prime minister. Four coalitions of candidates were running. None was likely to gain a majority, which means the two top vote-getters may have to form a joint government. Results were not expected for several days, the Independent High Election Commission said. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was elected in 2005 largely from the support of Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq. Sunnis, who were the backbone of the Hussein regime, largely boycotted that election but appeared to be voting Sunday, according to the European Commission.
The rest is here: Iraqis vote, await 'new beginning'
KABUL — Preparations have begun for a crucial campaign to assert Afghan government control over Kandahar, spiritual home of the Taliban, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said Monday. The NATO-led force is growing in districts surrounding the city of Kandahar that are under the Taliban thumb as part of a gradual increase in pressure ahead of an eventual military operation, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said. “There won't be a D-Day that is climactic,” he said. The general spoke after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Afghanistan to check on the progress of the war's expansion directed late last year by President Barack Obama. The 30,000 additional U.S. forces Obama ordered are now arriving and most will be in place by summer. Without being specific, McChrystal suggested that any heavy fighting in Kandahar will wait until more U.S. and NATO troops are ready. The fighting, when it comes, will not resemble the recent successful operation to retake the area around Marjah, also in southern Afghanistan. “Kandahar is much larger, much more complex,” McChrystal told reporters. The large city is the spiritual home of the Taliban insurgency and while the city is not now under the Taliban flag the insurgents are a constant, entrenched presence in and around Kandahar. While the military operation will be different than Marjah, the smaller operation is a template for the inclusion of local Afghan leaders and civilians, said Mark Sedwill, the new senior civilian representative serving alongside McChrystal. “Just as in Marjah, what we need to do is bring the local people into both having a sense of ownership of the government agenda, but also having some control and influence over it,” he said. Gates said the offensive launched last month is encouraging, but he stopped short of saying the success in Marjah suggests that the war is at a turning point. The Marjah campaign routed most Taliban fighters from a town they once controlled, without a high casualty toll for U.S. troops and the Afghan security forces fighting alongside them. Despite what he called positive signs, Gates cautioned against optimism. “People still need to understand there is some very hard fighting, very hard days ahead,” Gates told reporters traveling with him for the unannounced visit. During his visit, Gates is meeting with his top military commanders and senior Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai. McChrystal told reporters the campaign around Marjah could have gone quicker, but the cost in civilian casualties would have been unacceptable. The campaign, he said, could been over in one night. Instead active military operations to rout the Taliban took about three weeks. The military counts 19 Afghan civilian deaths from errant combat action during the Marjah campaign. McChrystal said that would been a lot higher without the deliberately slow pace, and without significant local backing for the operation. The Afghan war is now in its ninth year and unpopular with a majority of Americans. The challenge for the Obama administration is to demonstrate clear progress against the entrenched Taliban insurgency this year, when the number of U.S. forces in the country will reach roughly 100,000 — nearly triple the size of the force when Obama took office. Karzai has invited Taliban participation in a spring peace conference, but U.S. officials have suggested that it is too soon to hold such a session. The United States supports reconciliation efforts with the Taliban under certain conditions, but Gates and others have said that effort is only likely to succeed when the Taliban have been battered militarily and see that they are losing support from ordinary Afghans. Meanwhile, Iran is “playing a double game” in Afghanistan, trying to woo the Afghan government and undermining U.S. and NATO efforts by helping the Taliban, Gates said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also visiting Afghanistan this week. Gates had an unusually provocative warning for Tehran should it carry efforts to help the Taliban too far. “They also understand that our reaction, should they get too aggressive in this, is not one they would want to think about.” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell later said Gates was referring only to actions the United States might take inside Afghanistan and not to a wider confrontation with Iran. The Marjah offensive is the largest combined operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban regime. The offensive in the southern Afghan town of 80,000 is also a precursor to a larger operation planned for later this year in Kandahar.
Read the original here: Gates meeting with leaders in Afghanistan
MARJAH, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai heard a litany of complaints Sunday from residents of Marjah, the town in the south that thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan troops just seized from the Taliban. “Today, I’m here to listen to you and hear your problems,” Karzai told about 300 elders in a mosque in the central part of the town. The elders didn’t hold back. They complained — sometimes shouting — about corruption among former Afghan government officials. They lamented how schools in Marjah were turned into military posts by international forces. They said shops were looted during the military offensive, and alleged that innocent civilians were detained by international forces. Karzai’s high-profile visit with NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal was part of NATO’s new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, which aims to rout insurgents from population centers, set up a credible and effective civilian government and rush in aid. The government’s task in Marjah is to convince residents of the Helmand province town that the civilian government can provide them with a better life than the Taliban, who were routed during a three-week offensive. Marjah is the first major test of the NATO counterinsurgency strategy since President Obama ordered 30,000 additional American troops to try to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. In a message to The Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Yasouf Ahmadi said insurgents fired mortars into Marjah’s main intersection, but reporters traveling with Karzai and McChrystal did not witness any attack. Karzai flew to Marjah and met the elders near the town’s main bazaar. McChrystal joined him on the floor of the mosque, but did not speak during the nearly two-hour meeting. The elders expressed outrage over house searches conducted by the military and civilian casualties that occurred during the offensive. They told Karzai they want Afghan troops — not international forces or local policemen — searching houses. The elders — some gesturing to express their frustration — also said they wanted clinics and schools, and were losing patience with the central government’s inability to provide services. The president, who has been dubbed “the mayor of Kabul” by critics who claim his authority doesn’t extend beyond the capital, said the central government intends to be more responsive to the people’s needs. “Are you against me or with me?” Karzai asked the elders. “Are you going to support me?” The elders all raised their hands and shouted: “We are with you. We are supporting you.” Karzai promised to provide them security, open schools, and to start building roads and clinics. Marjah residents have heard promises from the central government before. International and Afghan forces have taken over Marjah at least three times before. In the past, local governments that were set up failed to deliver on commitments to build clinics and schools. Marjah residents told AP last month that the former police force sent in 2009 was so corrupt that locals rose up and drove them out — even before the Taliban returned. Karzai told reporters he was not surprised that the people in Marjah were angry. Marjah has been “abandoned,” he said. Karzai said he was glad to have the chance to talk with residents who have suffered at the hands of the Afghan government and foreign forces. They “told me of their problems with sincerity and clarity,” Karzai said. “Inshaallah [God willing], we will try to solve your problems. The promises that we have made of security and reconstruction, we will fulfill them.” It was unclear whether Karzai or McChrystal discussed a controversy surrounding the newly appointed civilian administrator of Marjah, Abdul Zahir. Government authorities are investigating reports that Zahir, tasked with representing a new, credible government in the former Taliban stronghold, served part of a more than four-year prison sentence in Germany for stabbing his son in 1998. While Karzai and McChrystal were in the south, fighting raged for a second day in northeastern Afghanistan. Gunbattles between the Taliban and another Islamist faction left at least 50 fighters dead in Baghlan province as militants apparently fought over control of several villages where the government has almost no presence, officials said Sunday. Fierce clashes were continuing Sunday, with militants using heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the provincial governor said. Local police official Zalmai Mangal said the battles appeared to be a power struggle between local Taliban forces and the Hezb-e-Islami militia loyal to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Violent clashes between anti-government Islamist factions are rare, although various militias have their own agendas and power struggles are relatively common. Mangal, the province’s deputy police chief, said reports from the area indicate that at least 50 militant fighters were dead, 35 from Hezb-e-Islami and 15 from the Taliban. It was unclear how many total militants were involved, he said by telephone. Police had not yet entered the area of the clashes as of midday Sunday, but were standing by with mobile hospitals to help any wounded, he said. It was unclear what touched off the fighting, Mangal said. However, he said that Taliban fighters reportedly had moved into villages that traditionally were controlled by Hezb-e-Islami. Provincial governor Mohammad Akbar Barakzai said the fighting centered around five to six villages west of Baghlan-e-Jadid district in the central part of the province. “We don’t know yet about casualties among civilians or damage to civilian houses,” he said. It was not immediately clear whether the clashes were a localized dispute or represented signs of a rift between Islamist insurgent groups that fight Karzai’s government and international forces in the country. ——— Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.
More here: McChrystal, Karzai visit reclaimed Marjah
BAGHDAD — Insurgents bombed a polling station and lobbed grenades at voters Sunday, killing 26 people in attacks aimed at intimidating Iraqis participating in an election that will determine whether the country can overcome jagged sectarian divisions that have plagued it since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraqis hope the election will put them on a path toward national reconciliation as the U.S. prepares to withdraw combat forces by late summer and all American troops by the end of next year. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fighting for his political future with challenges from a coalition of mainly Shiite religious groups on one side and a secular alliance combining Shiites and Sunnis on the other. Despite mortars raining down nearby, voters in the capital still came to the polls. In the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah in northern Baghdad, Walid Abid, a 40-year-old father of two, was speaking as mortars landed several hundreds yards away. Police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the neighborhood shortly after daybreak and mortars were also launched toward the Green Zone — home to the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister’s office. “I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home,” Abid said. “Until when? We need to change things. If I stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse.” Many view the election as a crossroads where Iraq will decide whether to adhere to politics along the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish lines or move away from the ethnic and sectarian tensions that have emerged since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s iron-fisted, Sunni minority rule. Al-Maliki, who has built his reputation as the man who restored order to the country, is facing a tough battle from his former Shiite allies, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and a party headed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He also faces a challenge from a secular alliance led by Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister and secular Shiite, who has teamed up with a number of Sunnis in a bid to claim the government. “These acts will not undermine the will of the Iraqi people,” al-Maliki said Sunday morning, speaking to reporters after casting his ballot. Exiting the polls, Iraqis waved purple-inked fingers — the now-iconic image synonymous with voting in this oil-rich country home to roughly 28 million people. But observers have warned that the election is only the first step in the political process, and with the fractured nature of Iraqi politics, it could take months of negotiations after results are released in the coming days for a government to be formed. Extraordinary security measures did not foil insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. occupation. They launched a spate of mortar, grenade and bomb attacks throughout the morning. In a posting early Sunday on an Islamic Web site, the al-Qaida front group Islamic State in Iraq warned that anyone taking part in the voting would be exposing themselves to “God’s wrath and to the mujahideen’s weapons,” saying the process bolsters Iraq’s Shiite majority. In Baghdad’s northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to vote as “arrows to the enemies’ chest,” three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade at a crowd heading to the polls, according to police and hospital officials. In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein said. At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after explosions leveled two buildings about a mile apart, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said. At one of the blasts in northeastern Baghdad, near the northern tip of the Sadr City slum, rescue workers said they could still hear the sound of women and children caught alive under the debris screaming for help. The blast created a mound of debris, scattered with blankets, pillows and torn bits of clothing. Rescue workers examined the ruins and used cranes and tractors to lift debris. Bodies were being recovered from under the rubble several hours after the explosion. An explosion in the mixed neighborhood of Kirayaat, in northern Baghdad, killed one person, said police and hospital officials. There were a number of other explosions elsewhere in the country but no other reports of fatalities. U.S. troops had received reports of 44 significant attacks in Baghdad but most were small, Maj. William Voorhies said. “These are intimidation tactics, and we are hearing that the focus is on mostly Sunni areas to keep Sunnis from voting and to exacerbate the Sunni-Shiite divide,” Voorhies said. About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new parliament, Iraq’s second, full-term legislature since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion seven years ago. To try to secure the elections, Iraq sealed its borders, closed the airport, and deployed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi military and police in the streets. Extra checkpoints were set up across Baghdad and in some parts of central Baghdad, people could not go 50 yards without hitting a checkpoint. In keeping with the U.S. military’s assertion that Iraqis are running the elections, the only visible American military presence was in the air or escorting election observers to and from the polls; four U.S. helicopter gunships could be seen at one point in the sky over northern Baghdad. The U.S., which has lost more than 4,300 troops in the nearly seven-year conflict, has fewer than 100,000 troops in the country — a number that is expected to drop to about 50,000 by the end of August. Despite persistent violence and frustration over years of government failure to provide even basic services such as water and electricity to the public, many Iraqis were still excited to vote. In the city of Nasiriyah, in the Shiite south, crowds of people filled the streets — men in what appeared to be their best clothes were accompanied by women in long black cloaks and often children. “I voted in 2005. There were a lot less people then,” said Ahmed Saad Chadian. “Today, participation is much higher.” In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, dozens of voters also lined up to cast their ballot. “We came to participate in this national day, and we don’t care about the explosions,” said Sahib Jabr, a 34-year-old old taxi driver. ——— Associated Press writers Katarina Kratovac, Hamid Ahmed, Saad Abdul-Kadir, Bushra Juhi, Ben Hubbard and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad; Matt Ford in Nasiriyah; and Lara Jakes in Qahtaniya contributed to this report.
See the original post here: 26 killed in attacks on day of Iraq elections
