June 28

BBC - Russia and Nato have agreed to resume co-operation on security issues, after nearly a year of difficult relations. The deal came at a meeting in Greece of foreign ministers from the two sides.

Ties deteriorated sharply in 2008 after Russia's brief conflict with Georgia. Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said differences over the issue remained.But he said Nato and Russia would nonetheless resume co-operation on issues such as Afghanistan, drug trafficking and piracy.

"We have restarted our relations at a political level, we also agreed to restart the military-to-military contacts which had been frozen since last August," the Nato secretary-general told a news conference in Corfu.

Gareth Porter | June 22(UPDATED) | IPS

On Jun. 25, 1996, a massive truck bomb exploded at a building in the Khobar Towers complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which housed U.S. Air Force personnel, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding 372.

Immediately after the blast, more than 125 agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were ordered to the site to sift for clues and begin the investigation of who was responsible. But when two U.S. embassy officers arrived at the scene of the devastation early the next morning, they found a bulldozer beginning to dig up the entire crime scene.

PART 2: Saudi Account of Khobar Bore Telltale Signs of Fraud
PART 3: U.S. Officials Leaked a False Story Blaming Iran
PART 4: FBI Ignored Compelling Evidence of bin Laden Role
PART 5: Freeh Became "Defence Lawyer" for Saudis on Khobar

June 23

AFP - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday declined to apologize for a past CIA interventions and alleged coup attempts in Latin America, after talks with Chilean leader Michele Bachelet.

"I'm interested in going forward, not looking backward," said Obama, who has pledged to reinvigorate ties with Latin America, after what his advisors believe was neglect during the previous Bush administration.

"I think that the United States has been an enormous force for good in the world. I think there have been times where we've made mistakes," Obama said in the Oval Office.

"But I think that what is important is looking at what our policies are today, and what my administration intends to do in cooperating with the region."

Obama was asked by a Chilean journalist whether he would apologize for past CIA operations in the region, like an apparent US-backed coup attempt in Chile in 1973.

Fred Reed | Central America | June 22

Fred On Everything - Islamo-fascism, Judaeo-fascism, Bapto-fascism, and Why We Need More Bars

June 22, 2009

The wheels are squeaking on the tumbrel methinks. At a recent conclave held by AIPAC, unease arose, reasonably enough, over eroding American support for Israel. What apparently did not arise was any indication of understanding of why support is eroding.

In Haaretz I find the following account of a speech by Howard Kohr, the executive director of AIPAC: “‘These voices [not hostile to Islam] are laying the predicate for an abandonment [by the US of Israel]…The stakes in that battle are nothing less than the survival of Israel, linked inexorably to the relationship between Israel and the United States. In this battle we are the firewall, the last rampart.’”

June 23

CBC - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched another unmanned surveillance aircraft over the Canadian border on Monday, this time in the Great Lakes area, to try to stem the flow of drugs, migrants and terrorists into the country, U.S. officials told CBC News.

The U.S. has been using the Predator B drone aircraft to patrol its border with Mexico.

The Predator is the unarmed version of the drone plane that the U.S. uses to conduct air strikes in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. The aircraft is able to fly at an altitude of 6,000 metres and can remain in the air for 20 hours.

The plane is equipped with 3,000 sensors and cameras capable of detecting a moving person from 10 kilometres away.

The planes will gather information along the border and transmit it to operators who will in turn contact border agents. The drones will not carry weapons and the U.S. will need permission to send them into in Canadian airspace.

Jim Mannion | Washington | June 21

AFP - Democrats on Sunday defended President Barack Obama's hands-off approach to the crisis in Iran, urging him to keep US "fingerprints" off the unfolding events despite pressure from Republicans for bolder US action.

The showdown in Tehran was the top topic on weekend television talk shows here, with Republicans criticizing Obama for timidity in the face of the most serious upheaval in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said officials responsible for US clandestine operations had given assurances this week that they had not interfered in the Iranian elections or the ensuing protests.

"I don't think our intelligence candidly is that good," she said in an interview with CNN.

Stephanie Nebehay | Geneva | June 19

Reuters - The United States on Friday took up its seat for the first time on the U.N. Human Rights Council, vowing to be a strong advocate for people worldwide who suffer abuse and persecution.

In a policy shift, the Obama administration sought and last month won an elected seat at the 47-member Council, which the previous government had shunned over what it called its "rather pathetic record" and frequent scrutiny of U.S. ally Israel.

Washington said it would use its new voting power at the three-year-old body "to be a tireless defender of courageous individuals across the globe who work, often at great personal risk, on behalf of the rights of others."

Saeed Shah | Islamabad | June 18

McClatchy - As Pakistan pursues delicate negotiations before launching a major military operation in South Waziristan, the United States launched a drone strike Thursday that could offend a warlord the government here is trying to win over, analysts said.

The bombing exposed the divergent priorities of Washington and Islamabad. The United States strongly backs the Pakistani offensive announced Sunday against warlord Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Washington also wants to destroy the leadership of the Afghan Taliban and its Pakistani allies, however, some of whom are potential allies for the Pakistani government.

One such potential ally, who just came under attack, is warlord Maulvi Nazir, whom Pakistan is courting in hopes he'll stay out of the fight, according to a senior Pakistani security official who declined to be identified as he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue.

Mehsud is also seeking a pact with Nazir, however, in what officials and militants described as a fierce competition with the government.

Gareth Porter | Washington | June 16

Asia Times - The United States Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned Predator drones in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region, combined with recent revelations that CIA operatives have been paying Pakistanis to identify the targets, suggests that managers of the drone attack programs have been using the total secrecy surrounding the program to hide abuses and high civilian casualties.

Intelligence analysts have been unable to obtain either the list of military targets of the drone strikes or the actual results in terms of al-Qaeda or civilians killed, according to a Washington source familiar with internal discussion of the drone strike program. The source insisted on not being identified because of the extreme sensitivity of the issue.

"They can't find out anything about the program," the source told Inter Press Service (IPS). That has made it impossible for other government agencies to judge its real consequences, according to the source.

Also see: Pentagon wavers on release of report on Afghan attack

Washington | June 16

AFP -

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak on Monday started a visit to the United States to plan action on North Korea, which staged a giant rally in a defiant show of support for its nuclear drive.

The US Congress approved a resolution supporting Lee against the North hours after he arrived. Lee was due to meet late Monday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before a summit on Tuesday with President Barack Obama.

Lee was expected to ask Obama for explicit security guarantees after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb, stormed out of a six-nation disarmament accord and scrapped six decades of accords with the South.

The North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Monday that Lee's request was "intolerable" and said that such commitment would be "virtually formalising a provocation for nuclear war."

Dennis Blair, the US intelligence chief, said on Monday that a scientific analysis concluded that North Korea "probably" carried out its second-ever nuclear test in May with a yield of "a few kilotons."

Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Alan Elsner | Washington | June 14

Reuters - CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects.

"I think he smells some blood in the water on the national security issue," Panetta said in an interview published in The New Yorker magazine's June 22 issue.

"It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."

Kim Sengupta | June 13

The Independent - Decision to send Guantanamo inmates to British colony sours 'special relationship', The secret deal allowing detainees from Guantanamo,to settle in tropical Bermuda was made without the knowledge of David Miliband

Senior aides to President Barack Obama accompanied four Uighur prisoners as they were flown from Guantanamo Bay to the British colony of Bermuda, without the UK being informed, it was revealed yesterday.

In an escalating diplomatic row over the transfer of the former terrorist suspects, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the transfer with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in what was said to be an uneasy conversation. Privately Whitehall officials accused America of treating Britain, with whom it is supposed to have a "special relationship", with barely disguised contempt.

One senior official said: "The Americans were fully aware of the foreign-policy understanding we have with Bermuda and they deliberately chose to ignore it. This is not the kind of behaviour one expects from an ally."

Gareth Porter | Washington | June 12

IPS - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned predator drones in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region, combined with recent revelations that CIA operatives have been paying Pakistanis to identify the targets, suggests that managers of the drone attacks programmes have been using the total secrecy surrounding the programme to hide abuses and high civilian casualties.

Intelligence analysts have been unable to obtain either the list of military targets of the drone strikes or the actual results in terms of al Qaeda or civilians killed, according to a Washington source familiar with internal discussion of the drone strike programme. The source insisted on not being identified because of the extreme sensitivity of the issue.

"They can’t find out anything about the programme," the source told IPS. That has made it impossible for other government agencies to judge its real consequences, according to the source.

Since early 2009, Barack Obama administration officials have been claiming that the predator attacks in Pakistan have killed nine of 20 top al Qaeda officials, but they have refused to disclose how many civilians have been killed in the strikes.

In April, The News, a newspaper in Lahore, Pakistan, published figures provided by Pakistani officials indicating that 687 civilians have been killed along with 14 al Qaeda leaders in some 60 drone strikes since January 2008 – just over 50 civilians killed for every al Qaeda leader.

A paper published this week by the influential pro-military Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) criticising the Obama administration’s use of drone attacks in Pakistan says U.S. officials "vehemently dispute" the Pakistani figures but offers no further data on the programme.

Lieberman and Graham wage their own private cover-up war

Larisa Alexandrovna | Raw Story

Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have threatened all-out Congressional thermonuclear war over any additional release of detainee abuse photos. In a joint statement to the press, the duo is claiming that concern for national security is the impetus for such an aggressive move:

The most obvious solution to address both the concerns of Lieberman and Graham and the concerns of the public is to release these photos during criminal proceedings. The photos themselves can be sealed as evidence and can be viewed by a jury, while the public can be provided with the descriptions of the photos.

But Lieberman and Graham do not want to hold anyone to account and therefore, are not only covering up these crimes and obstructing justice, they are claiming national security as a reason to not make public the very evidence they know will put all those involved – possibly even themselves – on trial.

Is it not obvious that pictures released and sealed, as part of a criminal proceeding, would make us infinitely safer than covering up these crimes? Would those who want to harm Americans feel more inclined to do so if they thought America did not hold their own criminals accountable? I would wager yes.

So I find entirely disingenuous the claim that these men are simply doing their civic duty rather than covering up crimes. I also find their methods to be more of a threat to our national security than the evidence they are seeking to censor. Moreover, I find these tactics, the crimes committed and covered up, and the lack of accountability the most dangerous thing of all not only to our national security, but to our democracy and way of life.

Read the full article!

Gil Hoffman & Hilary Leila Krieger | June 9

The Jerusalem Post - In a sign of growing concern in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government over US President Barack Obama's Middle East policies, Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled proposed Israeli sanctions on the US in a letter to cabinet ministers on Sunday.

In the 11-page letter, obtained by The Jerusalem Post from a minister on Monday, Peled recommends steps Israel can take to compensate for the shift in American policy, which he believes has become hostile to Israel.

"Obama's ascendance represents a turning point in America's approach to the region, especially to Israel," he wrote in the letter. "The new administration believes that in order to fight terror, guarantee stability and withdraw from Iraq, a new diplomatic slant is needed involving drastic steps to pacify the Muslim world and the adoption of a more balanced approach to Israel, including intensive pressure to stop building in settlements, remove outposts and advance the formation of a Palestinian state."

Peled added that faced with an American government with an activist agenda that does not mesh with Israel's, traditional reactions are no longer relevant. He said he expected that Obama would eventually realize that appeasement and dialogue with countries that support terror would not have positive results.

But in the interim, the minister suggests reconsidering military and civilian purchases from the US, selling sensitive equipment that the Washington opposes distributing internationally, and allowing other countries that compete with the US to get involved with the peace process and be given a foothold for their military forces and intelligence agencies.

Washington | June 9

AFP - Indonesia on Monday offered a boost to President Barack Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world, pledging to ratify a treaty banning nuclear tests if the US Senate does so.

Obama said in April said he would ask the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), part of his ambitious goal of eliminating nuclear weapons unveiled in a speech in Prague.

Indonesia is one of nine countries including the United States that need to ratify the treaty, which would ban all nuclear explosions everywhere for any purpose, to come into force.

"We share his vision of a world in which nuclear weapons have been eradicated," Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said on a visit to Washington.

"We trust that he will succeed in getting the CTBT ratified - and we promise that when that happens, Indonesia will immediately follow suit," he said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Stephen Foley | New York | June 8

The Independent - He is said to have been the subject of some cartoonish plots over the years, from poisoned ice cream, mines disguised as sea shells and, of course, exploding cigars, but even Fidel Castro says that the story of an elderly American couple accused of spying for Cuba for three decades reads like "an espionage comic strip".

The retired Communist leader declined over the weekend to say whether Walter Kendall Myers, 72, a US intelligence official, and his 71-year-old wife Gwendolyn really had passed secrets to his regime, but he said they deserved praise if they did.

"I can't help but admire their disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba," he wrote in a web column published three days after the couple's sensational arrest.

"Those who in one form or another have helped to protect the Cuban people from the terrorist plans and assassination plots organised by various US administrations have done so at the initiative of their own conscience and are deserving, in my judgment, of all the honours in the world."

As the US State Department works to assess the security damage that may have resulted from the couple's alleged subversive activities, details are emerging about the anger the pair felt at US foreign and domestic policies during the Seventies, when they are said to have begun working for Cuba.

Choe Sang-Hun | Seoul | June 7

NYT - North Korea on Monday sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor in a case widely seen as a test of how far the isolated Communist state was willing to take its confrontational stance toward the United States.

The Central Court, the highest court of North Korea, held the trial of the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from Thursday to Monday and convicted them of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry,” the North’s official news agency, KCNA, said in a report monitored in Seoul.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee have been held since they were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called the charges “baseless.”

The United States government had demanded that the North forgo the legal proceedings and release the two women.

Like our demands mean anything to NK. I wonder if this sealed the ladies fate: U.S. Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments. Is there some reason why they couldn't have made this announcement after NK sentenced them?

If you didn't watch Obama's speech in Cairo yet--and if, like me, you sort of feel like you "should," but omg it's so long and it'll probably be dry and can't I just catch someone's 200-word summary somewhere, please?--well, no. You really want to see this speech. Not just read it, either.

Seriously, it's that good.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)

Anthony Shadid | Washington Post |June 3 | Haditha

Legacy of Haditha, Abu Ghraib Looms

The dirt overturned to bury some of the 24 people killed by U.S. Marines here in 2005 has turned to dust. The graves where women were interred with their children along the Euphrates River are bereft of tombstones. Weeds mark the passage of time, though not the pain of memories.

"No one cares whether an Iraqi dies," said Yassin Salem, whose brother and uncle were killed here in their homes on a single day, Nov. 19. Bitterly, he looked down at the plastic bottles and newspaper that now litter the cemetery. "What does it matter?"

When President Obama delivers his address to the Middle East on Thursday from Cairo, he will face the legacy of names like Haditha, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, places that have become more symbol than geography over nearly a decade of perhaps the most traumatic chapter in America's relationship with the Muslim world.

Compare: Obama's speech

Tokyo | June 4

AFP - The defence panel of Japan's ruling party on Wednesday said that despite its pacifist constitution, it should be able to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea to stop any imminent attack.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s defence policy committee also argued Japan should develop new spy satellites to provide advance warning of a missile launch without having to rely on US or other allies' intelligence.

The defence debate - sensitive in Japan and East Asia because of Japan's past wartime aggression - follows communist North Korea's latest nuclear and missile tests, which have sharply heightened tensions in the region.

Japan faces elections by October, and Prime Minister Taro Aso's conservative LDP has indicated it plans to make security a key campaign issue.

"North Korea may obtain nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles," former defence chief Gen Nakatani said after the meeting.

"Naturally, we need to be able to strike enemy bases within the realm of the self-defence of our country."

Pakistan | May 31, 2009

The Insider Brief -

From Pakistani Bloggers

Assessing the Success in Swat

May 31st, 2009 · Shaan Akbar · 1 Comment

Luisa Yanez | Miami | May 30

Miami Herald - In what may be the largest civil judgment ever against the Cuban government, a Miami-Dade judge on Friday awarded more than $1 billion to a Homestead man who blamed Fidel Castro and Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara for driving his father to suicide in 1959.

''What the defendants did was torture this family and tear it apart,'' said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien in ruling for Gustavo Villoldo, 73, who ironically became a CIA operative and helped track down Guevara in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967.

It makes me wonder how much the judge would award the families of those we tortured and killed..

Tehran | May 29

Reuters -

An Iranian official accused the United States on Friday of involvement in a mosque bombing that killed more than 20 people in volatile southeastern Iran, two weeks before a presidential election.

Washington denied the allegation.

Jalal Sayyah, of the governor's office in Sistan-Baluchestan province, said three people had been arrested in connection with blast on Thursday in a crowded Shi'ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, in a region where many of Iran's minority Sunnis live.

"The terrorists, who were equipped by America in one of our neighbouring countries, carried out this criminal act in their efforts to create religious conflict and fear and to influence the presidential election," Sayyah told state radio.

The U.S. State Department denied involvement in the bombing.

** 'Gunmen attack' south Iran election office
** Iran blames Sunni extremists, U.S. for deadly mosque bombing/map