Obama says he remains committed to engagement based on ‘trust and candour’
The comments are the closest the US president has come to making a public statement on the release of US embassy cables by Wikileaks
Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 December 2010
President Obama came the closest he has yet to making public comments on the WikiLeaks release of US embassy cables, when he told a gathering of diplomats from around the world yesterday that he remained committed to engagement based on trust and candour.Obama has so far given no official response to WikiLeaks, leaving that to his secretary of state Hillary Clinton who has condemned the publication of thousands of classified state department documents as “an attack on the international community”.
‘Prepare for all-out cyber war’
Government sites braced for attack by pro-WikiLeaks ‘hacktivists’
By Cahal Milmo and Nigel Morris Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Whitehall is preparing for a crippling attack on government websites as evidence mounts that the backlash against the arrest of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is rapidly growing into a mass movement that aims to cause widespread disruption on the internet.Extra security measures have been added to a host of government web services, in particular those used to claim benefits or provide tax information, after Sir Peter Ricketts, the national security adviser, warned permanent secretaries across all departments that “hacktivists” who last week targeted the sites of companies such as MasterCard and PayPal could switch their focus to Britain.
USA
Years of Wrangling Lie Ahead for Health Law
LEGAL MEMO
By KEVIN SACK
Published: December 13, 2010
By contradicting two prior opinions, Monday’s court ruling in Virginia against the Obama health care law highlighted both the novelty of the constitutional issues and the difficulty of forging consensus among judges who bring differences in experience, philosophy and partisan background to the bench.
Judge Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond wrote with conviction that the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance goes “beyond the historical reach” of Supreme Court cases that limit federal regulation of commercial activity.
Georgia prisoners continue their protest strike
LARA MARLOWE in Washington
THOUSANDS OF prisoners i in at least four penitentiaries across the state of Georgia continued a non-violent strike for the fifth consecutive day yesterday in a showdown between the Department of Corrections and inmates over forced labour and poor living conditions.The strike is unprecedented in at least two ways: it was organised by mobile phones that were smuggled into the prisons, and it has united prisoners across ethnic and religious lines, in an environment where racially-based gangs often fight each other.
Europe
The ‘bubbly’ Luton radical who became a suicide bomber in Sweden
Police investigation will focus on how and where Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly became radicalised
Sam Jones, Ian Cobain, Richard Norton-Taylor and Shiv Malik The Guardian, Tuesday 14 December 2010When he decided to move from Sweden to Britain in 2001, Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly found himself living in a small community that has thrown up more than its fair share of violent jihadists.
Police and security service officers in Sweden and the UK are now attempting to discover how Abdaly came to be radicalised to such an extent that he would attempt to mount a mass-casualty attack in Sweden, the country that became his home when he was 10 years old. They will be particularly anxious to establish whether any individuals living in Luton played a part in the process.
Germany admits enslaving and abusing a generation of children
Government agrees up to €120m in compensation for three decades of post-war ‘Nazi-era’ brutality in foster homes
By Tony Paterson in Berlin Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Germany has owned up to one of the most disturbing examples of mass child and youth abuse in its post-war history, some 60 years after the first teenagers started being locked away and mistreated by supposedly “caring” foster homes.The country agreed yesterday to provide a €120m (£101m) compensation fund for the estimated 30,000 victims who were among the 800,000 children in German foster homes in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.
Middle East
EU shelves recognition of Palestine
Foreign ministers from European Union say they will recognise a Palestinian state “when appropriate”.
Last Modified: 14 Dec 2010
Foreign ministers from the European Union have said they would recognise a Palestinian state “when appropriate”.The ministers’ declaration on Monday followed a call from Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, for the EU to recognise Palestine based on the 1967 borders.
Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. It withdrew its troops from Gaza in 2005.
The EU foreign affairs council “reiterates its readiness, when appropriate, to recognise a Palestinian state”, the European foreign ministers’ said in a statement.
“Urgent progress is needed towards a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The ministers said.
Relatives of Spanish cameraman killed in Baghdad use WikiLeaks to press for justice
After years of delays, the family of a Spanish journalist killed in a 2003 US attack on a Baghdad hotel turns to WikiLeaks documents that suggest the US and Spain colluded to prevent legal action.
By Andrés Cala, Correspondent / December 13, 2010
In what could be the first legal case to use filtered WikiLeaks documents as evidence, the family of a Spanish cameraman killed in 2003 by a US tank shell during the battle for Baghdad filed a complaint Monday. They seek to open an investigation into whether high-ranking officials here colluded with the US Embassy to stop charges being filed against three American soldiers, including a colonel.
José Couso of Telecinco, the Spanish cameraman, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukranian cameraman working for Reuters, died April 8, 2003, when a shell fired by an M1 Abraham tank hit the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, which scores of foreign journalist were using as a base and Pentagon-approved safe haven. Two other media locations were hit that day, also killing Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayyoub. Four others were injured, leading to broad condemnation and demands to protect reporters.
Asia
Japan faces up to threats from China, North Korea
Martin Fackler December 14, 2010
TOKYO: Japan is to sweep aside its Cold War-era defence strategy aimed at containing Russia to focus on threats to the south and west of the country.The national defence guidelines will reduce its heavily armoured and artillery forces pointing north towards Russia in favour of creating more mobile units that could respond to China’s growing presence near its southernmost islands, Japanese newspapers reported.
Aasia Bibi blasphemy case a symbol of Pakistan’s religious intolerance
The Pakistani government’s handling of the case of Aasia Bibi, a Christian facing the death penalty for insulting the Quran, indicates a willingness to let extremists have their way.
By Issam Ahmed, Correspondent / December 13, 2010
Islamabad, Pakistan
The Pakistani government’s refusal to repeal or amend the country’s blasphemy laws have renewed concerns about its resolve to tackle extremism at home.
The key symbol in the matter is Aasia Bibi, a 45-year-old Christian woman currently facing the death penalty on the charge of insulting the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. Government officials originally promised to pardon but she continues to languish in jail. Some analysts say that the government’s apparent willingness to bow to Islamist extremists in the matter could undermine the country’s gains in the ongoing battle against the Taliban.
Africa
Malian cotton struggles against subsidy regime
The Irish Times – Tuesday, December 14, 2010
RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC in Kolondieba, Mali
COTTON HAS been in Broulaye Traoré’s family long enough for him to remember the days when they used to call it “white gold”.In the decades after Malian independence in 1960, surging global demand pushed yields higher and great swathes of land here in the Sikasso region, in the southwest of Mali, turned white as smallholders switched to the fluffy cash crop. When Traoré took over as head of his extended family in the early 1990s, he remembers business running smoothly.
“In 1994, there weren’t many problems with cotton,” he says, sitting in the shade of a tree in the village of Kolondieba, in the heart of Mali’s southern cotton belt. “It was straightforward: the government bought it from us and there was little trouble. The problems began a few years later, starting with problems getting paid.”
Polisario chief extends hand to Morocco
ALGIERS, ALGERIA Dec 14 2010 07:35
Mohamed Abdelaziz, leader of the Polisario Front, says he hopes Morocco will remove all obstacles to progress in negotiations at the informal U.N.-sponsored meeting Dec. 16-18 in Manhasset, in New York.Abdelaziz spoke to reporters Monday outside a conference in Algiers.
Polisario refugee camps are located in southern Algeria.
Morocco wants autonomy for the Western Sahara which it annexed in 1975. But the Polisario chief reiterated his hope for a referendum on independence for Western Sahara.
A third round of negotiations was held in November.
Latin America
In Haiti, good intentions have unexpected and unfortunate results
Some of the international community’s aid efforts have caused problems, including an increase in housing prices, political turmoil and perhaps even the cholera epidemic.
By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti –
The wood-frame Carousel grammar school survived the earthquake that destroyed much of this city in January. Beatrice Moise had taught there for five years and hoped she would continue when schools reopened in spring.But in February she found out that the director had rented the building out to the international relief group Oxfam. Buildings in the upscale suburb of Petionville, where foreigners like to live and work, were in high demand, and Oxfam paid $10,000 a month.
Recent Comments