Tag: Six In The Morning

US commando raids target Islamist leaders in Africa

6 October 2013 Last updated at 04:47 GMT

 BBC

US special forces have carried out two separate raids in Africa targeting senior Islamist militants, American officials say.

In Libya, US commandos captured an al-Qaeda leader accused of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Anas al-Libi was seized in the capital Tripoli.

And a leader of the al-Shabab group was targeted in southern Somalia, but that raid appears to have failed.

The al-Shabab leader – who has not been identified – is suspected of involvement in last month’s attack in the Westgate shopping centre in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, which left at least 67 people dead.

Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, returns from Barack Obama talk to jeers – and cheers – in Tehran

 JONATHAN OWEN   SUNDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2013

The Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, was greeted by angry scenes on his return to Tehran from New York yesterday, with his convoy pelted with eggs, shoes and stones amid chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

But supporters of his controversial decision to break a 34-year silence between the leaders of Iran and America, by speaking to President Barack Obama on Friday, cheered and hailed him as a “lord of peace”.

The 15-minute telephone call between the two men was the first conversation between the presidents of the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It came after last week’s United Nations meeting in New York, and assurances made by Mr Rouhani about Iran’s controversial nuclear programme. “We say explicitly that we will be transparent; we say explicitly that we will not build a bomb,” he said.

Lessons from Iraq, Libya loom large as diplomats ponder Syrian weapons probe

 By Joby Warrick, Sunday, September 15, 10:32 AM

When Moammar Gaddafi renounced chemical weapons in 2003, the Libyan dictator surprised skeptics by moving quickly to eliminate his country’s toxic arsenal. He signed international treaties, built a disposal facility and allowed inspectors to oversee the destruction of tons of mustard gas.

But Gaddafi’s public break with weapons of mass destruction was not all that it seemed. Only after his death in 2011 did investigators learn that he had retained a large stash of chemical weapons. In a hillside bunker deep in Libya’s southeastern desert, Gaddafi had tucked away hundreds of battle-ready warheads loaded with deadly sulfur mustard.

The story of Gaddafi’s deception now looms over nascent efforts to devise a plan for destroying the chemical arsenal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another strongman who, in a stunning reversal, agreed in principle last week to give up his stockpile under U.S. and Russian pressure.

US: More countries ready to back Syria action

US Secretary of State says number of countries ready to take military action against Assad regime runs in double digits.

 Last Modified: 08 Sep 2013 04:08

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has said that many countries were prepared to take part in US-led military strikes against the Syrian regime for an alleged chemical attack near a Damascus suburb last month.

“There are a number of countries, in the double digits, who are prepared to take military action,” Kerry said at a press conference on Saturday with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

“We have more countries prepared to take military action than we actually could use in the kind of military action being contemplated.”

Kerry also said he was encouraged by a European Union statement calling for a “strong” response to the alleged Syrian chemical attack.

Nelson Mandela discharged from South African hospital

1 September 2013 Last updated at 09:06 GMT

 The BBC

Nelson Mandela has left hospital and has gone to his Johannesburg home, where he is continuing to receive intensive care, the South African presidency says on its website.

The announcement came a day after officials denied reports that the 95-year-old had already been discharged.

The statement says Mr Mandela condition remains critical and at time unstable.

South Africa’s first democratically elected president has been in hospital since June with a lung infection.

Syria: Cameron and Obama threaten ‘serious response’

25 August 2013 Last updated at 08:01 GMT

The BBC

The UK and the US have threatened a “serious response” if it emerges Syria used chemical weapons last week.

Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama spoke on the telephone for 40 minutes on Saturday.

Both were “gravely concerned” by the “increasing signs that this was a significant chemical weapons attack carried out by the Syrian regime”, Mr Cameron’s office said in a statement.

The Syrian government has denied involvement and blamed rebel fighters.

State television reported on Saturday that soldiers had found chemical agents in tunnels used by the rebels to the east of Damascus.

Drone strike campaign in Yemen shows U.S. standards are elastic

The wave of attacks highlights Obama’s willingness to accelerate airstrikes even if intelligence on a terrorist plot is imprecise, analysts and ex-officials say.

By Ken Dilanian

A surge of U.S. drone missile strikes that has killed about 40 suspected militants in Yemen over the last three weeks may appear inconsistent with President Obama’s pledge in May to use drone aircraft to target and kill only individual terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to Americans.

White House officials say the targeting rules haven’t changed for the 10 recent drone strikes. But analysts and former U.S. officials say the current campaign, after the pace of attacks had slowed, shows that the standards are elastic.

They say the wave of attacks highlights Obama’s willingness to accelerate lethal operations in response to terrorist threats, even though intelligence on the latest plot was imprecise about the timing or location of apparent targets.

Birth of a Palestinian City Is Punctuated by Struggles

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: August 10, 2013

RAWABI, West Bank – Two students came up with Rawabi, the Arabic word for hills, in a competition to name this new Palestinian city, the first to have been planned from the ground up. The developers rejected suggestions – like Arafat City and Jihad City – that evoked a more chaotic past.

“The new generation is building this city,” said Bashar Masri, 52, the Palestinian businessman who has headed this ambitious project and says he will be moving into a duplex penthouse in the town center once it is completed.

“Every Palestinian has a duty to participate in nation building,” he told reporters on a tour of the site last week.

Western embassies shut amid security alert

US and many European countries close embassies mostly in Middle East after worldwide alert by US and Interpol.

Last Modified: 04 Aug 2013 05:30

The United States has temporarily closed 21 embassies and consulates in mostly Muslim countries, and several European states have shut embassies in Yemen over fears al-Qaeda was planning to launch attacks.

The US closed its faciilites on Sunday, after saying it had information that al-Qaeda and its allies may increase efforts to attack Western interests this month.

The closures came as Interpol issued a global security alert after hundreds of militants were set free in prison breaks linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, and suicide bombers killed nine near the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad.

‘Homosexual propaganda’ law signals latest Russian crackdown

By Albina Kovalyova, Producer, NBC News

 A new law banning “homosexual propaganda” in Russia is raising concerns about the state of human rights in a country already notorious for silencing dissent.

The legislation is vague but its intent is clear: It is now “illegal to spread information about non-traditional sexual behavior” to minors (under 18), and there are hefty fines for those who disobey. Foreigners are also subject to fines and can be deported.

Anti-homosexual crackdowns are nothing new in Russia: In 1933 the Soviet regime imposed a law banning sexual relations between men – punishable by a five-year prison term. Although it was lifted after the fall of the Soviet Union, homophobia still runs deep.

Japan election: Abe set to win key upper house vote

21 July 2013 Last updated at 06:47 GMT

The BBC

Voters in Japan are casting ballots in upper house elections expected to deliver a win for PM Shinzo Abe.

Half of the 242 seats in the chamber are being contested.

Polls show Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its allies could secure a majority, meaning a ruling party would control both houses of parliament for the first time in six years.

The deadlock in parliament has been seen as a key factor in Japan’s recent “revolving door” of prime ministers.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 (22:00 GMT Saturday) and will close at 20:00 (11:00 GMT).

Syrian business owners who fled to Egypt give up on going back

Many Syrian industrialists and factory owners have relocated their businesses to Egypt, part of the economic and brain drain Syria’s civil war is causing.

By Raja Abdulrahim

REHAB, Egypt – As fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo intensified last fall, Khalid Sabbagh decided it was time to move his business abroad.

He and his family had already fled months earlier to the safety of this palm-tree-lined Cairo suburb. But as Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, descended further into the warfare that has ravaged much of his nation, Sabbagh finally decided to move his upholstery factory to Egypt and start anew.

Since antigovernment activists began their struggle to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011, more than 1.6 million Syrians have fled the fighting, many to neighboring countries where they wait to return to their homes.