News Headlines
Tuesday 9/2/2010
*Regional and International Affairs:
Political Headlines:
1. Abbas mulls peace talks; expects U.S. answers soon(The Washington Post)
2. Iran to stop enrichment if given nuclear fuel(The Washington Post)
3. Analysis: Iranian plan will put nation a step closer to having material for bomb(The Washington Post)
4. Former US President Carter arrives in Sudan(The SudanTribune)
5. France agrees to sell Russia advanced warship(The Washington Post)
6. Europe loses seat at top table(The Guardian)
7. Clinton: Islamist terror is No. 1 threat(The Washington Times)
Important Attachments :
1. Egypt arrests 3 top Muslim Brotherhood leaders(The Washington Post)
2. Egypt steps up security on Gaza sea border(The Daily News Egypt)
*Regional and International Affairs:
Political Headlines:
1. Abbas mulls peace talks; expects U.S. answers soon(The Washington Post)
Palestinian leaders have not set specific terms on which they would accept a U.S. offer to mediate indirect peace talks with Israel, and expect clarification on such talks in a week, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday.
The United States has proposed circumventing a dispute preventing the resumption of talks, stalled for more than a year since a war in Gaza, by reconvening in the form of "proximity talks" on an indirect basis, under closer U.S. mediation.
Israel has agreed to the formula but Abbas has said he will announce a decision after hearing answers to some questions he has put to Washington.
"The Palestinian side has not set any conditions in particular," said Abbas, speaking to reporters in Japan through an interpreter, when he asked under what conditions he would accept the U.S. offer on the proximity talks.
Speaking at a seminar in Tokyo, Abbas added that his government was keeping the door open to the U.S. proposal, but stressed that he was still waiting to hear from Washington.
Abbas said that he expected U.S. Middle East special envoy George Mitchell to get back to him with further clarification about the talks a week from now. After that, his government could consult with other Arab leaders and make a decision, he added.
His comments came a day after Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, visiting Tokyo with Abbas, said the proximity talks should focus on border issues and their timeframe should be limited to a maximum of three to four months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020900163.html
2. Iran to stop enrichment if given nuclear fuel(The Washington Post)
The head of the Iran's atomic agency says it will not enrich uranium to a higher level if the West provides fuel for the Tehran research reactor.
Ali Akbar Salehi told the state TV late Monday, "whenever they provide the fuel, we will halt production of 20 percent."
Iran is set to start enriching uranium to 20 percent on Tuesday.
Uranium enriched to low levels is used for power plants, but when enriched up to 90 percent, becomes a weapon.
Iran maintains its program is only for peaceful purposes but the West fears its uranium enrichment activities could produce weapons.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Sunday that his country would enrich at least some of the country's stockpile of uranium to 20 percent up from 3.5.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020801005.html
3. Analysis: Iranian plan will put nation a step closer to having material for bomb(The Washington Post)
Iran's formal notification Monday to a United Nations nuclear watchdog that it will begin producing higher-grade enriched uranium marks a new and potentially dangerous turn in Tehran's confrontation with the West over its nuclear ambitions.
Iran couched its announcement in terms of a pressing need for fuel at a 41-year-old, U.S.-built research reactor that produces medical isotopes for an estimated 850,000 kidney, heart and cancer patients. But in reality it means that Iran will be a significant step closer to possessing the raw material needed to build a nuclear bomb.
Indeed, Iran does not have the expertise to build the specialized fuel rods needed for the research reactor -- only France and Argentina are expert at it -- so the main consequence of Iran's decision appears to be moving up the enrichment ladder. If Iran tried to fuel the reactor itself, absent international assistance, it would be risky to the reactor and for public safety, according to David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
Iranian officials have acknowledged the difficulty of using homemade fuel. In an interview in December, Mohammad Ghannadi, vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that while Iran could try to produce the fuel itself, "there would be technical problems. Also, we'd never make it on time to help our patients."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020801384.html
4. Former US President Carter arrives in Sudan(The Sudan ribune)
The former US president, Jimmy Carter, arrived in Khartoum on Monday on a four-day visit to Sudan, heading a delegation of the Carter Center, which is monitoring the elections process in the country.
In a statement before the visit, the Carter Center touted the tour as way for Carter to personally appeal for the eradication of Guinea Worm disease. The Center has helped reduce the incidence of this disease in Sudan from 118,578 cases in 1996 to a provisionally estimated 2,760 reported cases in 2009. The statement added that Carter would "urge peace and stability in the nation as it prepares for its first multi-party elections in 24 years in April."
The official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) indicated that the visit includes a meeting with President Omar Al Bashir, the federal Minister of Health, besides the National Elections Commission.
The State Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Al-Samanni Al-Wassila, received Carter at the airport. He said that Carter and the accompanying delegation will pay inspection visit to the projects being implemented by the center in Sudan, according to SUNA.
The Carter Center delegation will also meet with officials in Juba.
"President Carter and Carter Center believe that with continued hard work and dedication, Guinea worm disease will soon become the second disease eradicated from Earth—after smallpox—and the first to be eradicated without using a vaccine or medicine. Insecurity in Sudan is the biggest threat to achieving this historic goal. Since its inception, the international Guinea worm eradication campaign has faced and overcome many challenges. Sudan has made a lot of progress, but efforts need to be intensified and peace maintained," said the Center.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34067
5. France agrees to sell Russia advanced warship(The Washington Post)
France has agreed to sell Russia an advanced amphibious warship and is considering a Russian request for three more, French defense officials said Monday. It would be the first major arms deal between Russia and a NATO member.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy approved the sale of one of the Mistral-class force projection and command vessels after months of discussions. Since then, Russian naval officials requested three more, said Jacques de Lajugie, head of international development at the French arms agency DGA.
"We are in the process of examining" the request for more ships, de Lajugie told a news conference, predicting a decision in the coming weeks. He said the new request came not at the "political level" but from the Russian navy.
Mistral-class ships can anchor in coastal waters and deploy troops on land - a capacity the Russian navy now lacks. Russia's navy chief said last year that such a ship would have allowed the Russian navy to mount a much more efficient action in the Black Sea during the Georgia-Russia war. He said the French ship would take just 40 minutes to do the job that the Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels did in 26 hours.
The deal would be richly symbolic for Russia, which is seeking to modernize an aging navy reliant on Soviet-era technology and to project its power abroad more effectively - and more impressively. The sale has alarmed some of Russia's former Soviet bloc neighbors, including those now in NATO, especially after the Russia-Georgia war in 2008.
Possessing a Mistral-class ship, which can carry 16 attack helicopters and dozens of armored vehicles, would significantly increase the Russian military's ability to launch offensives. France sent the Mistral, which weighs 23,700 tons (21,500 metric tons) and is 980 feet (299 meters) long, to visit St. Petersburg last year in a clear sign of interest in a potential sale.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020800983.html
6. Europe loses seat at top table(The Guardian)
Sitting in parkland in the shadow of the European parliament, the Bibliothèque Solvay is that rare thing in Brussels's dismal European quarter – a pretty building.
But when heads of government or state from 27 countries meet here on Thursday under their new president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, they will have little time for the art nouveau fittings or for the old books lining the wood-panelled walls of the 1902 library.
The first EU summit under Van Rompuy's stewardship sees Europe slumped in a mood of unusually persistent gloom. Van Rompuy, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and the rest are in charge of a Europe engulfed by a sense of defeatism and decline and exhausted by nine long years of trying to construct a new European regime. The reasons for the ennui are clear. According to senior officials, analysts, and diplomats in Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin, Europe suddenly seems to matter a lot less in the world. Additionally, its leaders appear unsure of how to tackle their single currency's biggest ever crisis, and are engaged in petty power struggles and point-scoring over how to use the EU's new rulebook – the Lisbon treaty.
"There are a lot of blame games," said a senior European diplomat. "A lot of handwringing and bitching. No one is coming through to lead. It's not a pretty picture at all and it looks pathetic to the rest of the world."
Since EU leaders last met in Brussels before Christmas, the mood has soured. For the Europeans who claimed for two years to be leading the world on climate change, the global warming summit in Copenhagen was the gamechanger, a moment when the global balance of power tilted and relegated the EU to the second division.
"What we saw in Copenhagen is that Europe does not count," Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, told a conference of Brussels thinktanks.
"For good or for ill," a senior European official told the Guardian, "the message that Copenhagen sent is that Europe is not at the table. The fact of the matter is that Europe's leaders were taking a coffee and [Barack] Obama visited them at the coffee break. But he negotiated with others."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/08/european-parliament-crisis
7. Clinton: Islamist terror is No. 1 threat(The Washington Times)
Obama administration figures took to Sunday's political talk shows to rebut charges of White House weakness on Islamist terrorism, with the nation's top diplomat saying such networks pose the greatest threat to national security.
While one of the White House's top national security advisers criticized lawmakers for politicizing national security threats, including the Christmas Day attack over Detroit, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said even a nuclear-armed North Korea or Iran isn't as great a threat to the U.S. as al Qaeda and allied jihad groups.
"The biggest nightmare that any of us have is that one of these terrorist member organizations within this syndicate of terror will get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction," she said in a Sunday appearance on CNN. "So that's really the most threatening prospect we see."
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told Congress earlier this month he was "certain" there will be an attempted terrorist attack on the United States within the next six months.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/08/clinton-sees-islamist-terror-as-no-1-threat/