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Obama wants to end African conflicts

July 10th, 2009 | No Comments

US president to emphasise democratic goals for African countries during speech to Ghanaian parliament

The US is planning a dramatically more assertive policy in Africa, sometimes backed by a threat of force, to end conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria that are seen as among the principal obstacles to the continent’s revival.

Barack Obama is to address Ghana’s parliament tomorrow on his first visit to Africa as president with a speech that is expected to emphasise that the key to prosperity is democratic, accountable government. But an important part of the new administration’s policy will focus on ending key conflicts through more forceful diplomatic initiatives after years of drift by the Bush administration.

The White House is shortly to appoint a special envoy to central Africa with a brief to tackle a web of conflicts that have afflicted eastern Congo for 15 years,and destabilised the region, in the belief that the success or failure of one of the continent’s largest countries will decide central Africa’s future.

A senior administration source said that the US believes the primary problem is the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which is led by men wanted for the 1994 genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsis who fled to Congo and controls swaths of territory close to Rwanda’s border.

The source said that the priority will be to break the FDLR leadership with a mix of diplomatic pressure, including the prospect of war crimes trials, backed by the establishment of “a more professional force” to replace the ill-trained troops serving in the UN largest peacekeeping mission who have failed to contain the conflict. However, the source said that there is a belief that the threat may be enough to force the FDLR to give up the fight. He said that the make-up of such a force is unresolved.

The initiative will also focus on confronting the Lords Resistance Army, a particularly brutal Ugandan rebel group also based in Congo. But the source said that broader pacification will require more interventionist diplomacy to press other countries such as Rwanda and Uganda that contribute to the destabilisation to recognise that their security is intertwined with Congo’s success.

The administration is also eyeing the continuing violent upheaval in the Niger Delta which is a major source of America’s oil imports amid deep scepticism over the capabilities of President Umaru Yar’Adua who is seen as weak and indecisive as his country fragments.

The conflict is deepening with several rebel groups and parts of the military now acting as warlords and some major oil companies warning that they are considering pulling out of the region altogether.

But the emphasis there is likely to remain firmly diplomatic as the US presses Yar’Adua to address seriously the issues of impoverishment, environmental devastation and endemic corruption that have alienated people in the delta and given rise to rebel groups and armed gangs that now control large parts of the region.

However there are fears that US intervention could result in the further militarisation of the continent. Confronting the FDLR is likely to draw in the US Africa Command (Africom) which is increasingly involved in conflicts on the continent, including overseeing a botched Ugandan attack on LRA rebels in Congo.

The US military is also now supplying weapons to the fragile government in Somalia as it tries to stave off Islamist insurgents. The Americans also allied themselves closely with Ethiopia’s repressive regime during its attack on Somalia.

Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Institute, one of three dozen organisations which wrote an open letter to Obama urging him to reverse the militarisation of US policy in Africa, said Africom’s growing role will further destabilise the continent.

“It encourages governments to rely on the use of force to deal with internal problems, to avoid democracy, to avoid addressing the internal issues these African countries face,” he said.

“The US is now engaged in a major new military project in Somalia, providing arms and ammunition to the Somali government there, encouraging countries like Burundi and Rwanda which have peacekeeping forces there to conduct military training so we don’t send to have our own troops there, all of which encourages that government to seek a military solution instead of developing a political solution to the kind of problems that exist.”

There remain deep divisions over other aspects of Africa policy, especially Darfur. Before his election, Obama promised strong action against the Sudanese regime but the state department is at odds with itself on the crisis. The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, believes the Khartoum leadership is not to be trusted and wants a hard line taken with Sudan but others argue that the conflict has been over simplified and that it is in any case largely over.

However, when Obama addresses Ghana’s parliament tomorrow, his focus will be on democratisation as the path to Africa’s revival.

“This isn’t some abstract notion that we’re trying to impose upon Africa,” he told allAfrica.com. “There is a very practical pragmatic consequence to political instability and corruption when it comes to whether people can feed their families, educate their children. And we think that the African continent is a place of extraordinary promise as well as challenges. We’re not going to be able to fulfil those promises unless we see better governance.”

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Montana and Idaho plan wolf hunt

July 9th, 2009 | No Comments

Rocky Mountain states’ plans for an open-season wolf hunt in September criticised by environmentalists

It is a clash of civilisations as old as the colonisation of the American west – wolves v humans – and it has entered into a new and more violent phase as two Rocky Mountain states moved to allow the first open hunt in years of an animal that was once driven to extinction.

The states of Montana and Idaho are going ahead with plans for an open-season hunt against wolves in September, in which licensed members of the public can take part.

The decisions follow a ruling earlier this year by the Obama administration, widely criticised by environmentalists, to remove wolves from the list of endangered species in the Rocky Mountain states. The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, was endorsing a decision by the Bush adminstration.

Montana wildlife commissioners voted yesterday to allow hunters to kill about 75 wolves, which is about 15% of the state’s population. Officials in Idaho will meet later this month to decide on their quota. But earlier plans called for hunting of up to 250 wolves.

Federal and state government biologists claim the wolf population in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho has grown so rapidly since the species was re-introduced to the region in the mid-1990s that it has become a choice between ranchers’ family pets and livestock, and wolves.

“The population has been growing 22% a year. We have more wolves in more places than we ever hoped for,” said Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery co-ordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. “The issue is what is the best way to manage wolves into the future now that the population is fully recovered.”

He said there are about 1,650 wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and their existing habitat cannot sustain a much larger population without bringing the animals further into conflict with ranching operations.

“If you live in an urban area where your only exposure to wolves is watching them on TV and seeing them running in a national park, it is very easy to be supportive of wolves,” he said. “The debate right now isn’t about the biology. People think it is morally wrong to kill wolves because it reminds them of pet dogs or people because wolves live in packs like families.”

But critics say the administration based its decision on science that is decades out of date, and does not take into account a growing body of evidence for the importance of protecting genetic diversity. If the wolf population dwindles too much – or if wolves survive only in isolated pockets – inbreeding would endanger their future.

“The recovery plan for wolves in the Rocky Mountains dates from the 1980s and has no reference to modern genetics,” said Michael Robinson, a conservationist for the Center for Biological Diversity.

The government recovery plan for wolves in the three Rocky Mountain states envisaged a much smaller population than the current population – perhaps 300 wolves overall, Robinson said. That translates into perhaps 10 breeding pairs in each state, he said. “That is completely inadequate to avoid inbreeding and fatal genetic defects.”

He argued that the government already had in place measures to protect humans from expanding wolf populations.

The administration already allows selective hunting of wolves – but only if ranchers claim their flocks are at risk. Government wildlife officials killed 265 wolves in the Rockies last year, including 21 entire wolf packs, Bangs said. In the midwest, where there are about 4,000 wolves spread across Minnesota and other states, government biologists conduct aerial culls of wolves.

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Obama climate change agenda hits snag

July 9th, 2009 | No Comments

• Barbara Boxer tries to balance regional interests
• EPA head likens environment issue to space race

Barack Obama hit a snag in his ambitious climate change agenda today when Senate Democrats pushed back their deadline to product a draft bill until September.

Barbara Boxer, the chair of the environment and public works committee who is spearheading the Obama environment agenda, said she had scaled back plans of writing a first draft of a climate change bill before Congress goes on its August recess.

“We will do it as soon as we get back,” she told reporters.

She insisted that the delay would not jeopardise chances of getting climate change legislation through Congress this year. But the move comes amid signs of rising opposition to the bill in the Senate from moderate Democrats as well as Republicans.

Boxer would not guarantee that Congress would be able to pass legislation before December, when Obama is due to attend an international summit on climate change at Copenhagen.

“I want to take this as far as we can take it,” she said. “The more we can do the better.”

The downshifting in the Democrats’ agenda comes a day after a meeting of Obama’s energy and climate change team at the White House, and marks an acknowledgement by the Administration of the daunting challenge of getting enough votes for the bill in the delicately balanced Senate. Boxer tried and failed a year ago to pass a climate change bill.

Only 48 hours ago, the Obama administration initially had appeared confident it could get a bill through the Senate, and at high speed. The Democratic leadership in the Senate envisaged all committees signing off on a draft by mid-September.

On Tuesday, Obama despatched a quartet of officials to the Senate to drum up support for the move to a clean energy economy.

Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, likened the decades ahead to the space race of the mid-20th century, saying America risked being left behind if it did not jump to develop clean energy technologies.

The high profile start was seen as an attempt to build on a narrow vote for a sprawing climate change bill in the house of representatives late last month.

But as Boxer moved to capitalise on that momentum and try to pass a version of the 1,400-page bill there were growing signs of dissent from fellow Democrats, further jeopardising the chances of getting enough votes to pass the bill.

Democrats from oil and coal producing states demanded that the bill cushion consumers against future rises in electricity costs; those from rural areas called for protections for farmers.

“I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn’t unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri,” tweeted Missouri’s senator Claire McCaskill.

Meanwhile, other Democrats in leadership positions in the Senate complained they were being put under pressure to rush through complicated legislation on two major topics: energy and healthcare.

Today’s delay could buy time for Boxer to try to balancing the powerful constituencies who control the fate of the bill: coastal urban areas vs rural heartland and industrial states, western states which have wind and solar resources vs coal-dependent south-east.

However, Republicans who are almost uniformly opposed to climate change legislation immediately claimed the delay as a sign that Obama’s agenda was foundering.

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Montana and Idaho plan wolf hunt

July 9th, 2009 | No Comments

Rocky Mountain states’ plans for an open-season wolf hunt in September criticised by environmentalists

It is a clash of civilisations as old as the colonisation of the American west – wolves v humans – and it has entered into a new and more violent phase as two Rocky Mountain states moved to allow the first open hunt in years of an animal that was once driven to extinction.

The states of Montana and Idaho are going ahead with plans for an open-season hunt against wolves in September, in which licensed members of the public can take part.

The decisions follow a ruling earlier this year by the Obama administration, widely criticised by environmentalists, to remove wolves from the list of endangered species in the Rocky Mountain states. The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, was endorsing a decision by the Bush adminstration.

Montana wildlife commissioners voted yesterday to allow hunters to kill about 75 wolves, which is about 15% of the state’s population. Officials in Idaho will meet later this month to decide on their quota. But earlier plans called for hunting of up to 250 wolves.

Federal and state government biologists claim the wolf population in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho has grown so rapidly since the species was re-introduced to the region in the mid-1990s that it has become a choice between ranchers’ family pets and livestock, and wolves.

“The population has been growing 22% a year. We have more wolves in more places than we ever hoped for,” said Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery co-ordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. “The issue is what is the best way to manage wolves into the future now that the population is fully recovered.”

He said there are about 1,650 wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and their existing habitat cannot sustain a much larger population without bringing the animals further into conflict with ranching operations.

“If you live in an urban area where your only exposure to wolves is watching them on TV and seeing them running in a national park, it is very easy to be supportive of wolves,” he said. “The debate right now isn’t about the biology. People think it is morally wrong to kill wolves because it reminds them of pet dogs or people because wolves live in packs like families.”

But critics say the administration based its decision on science that is decades out of date, and does not take into account a growing body of evidence for the importance of protecting genetic diversity. If the wolf population dwindles too much – or if wolves survive only in isolated pockets – inbreeding would endanger their future.

“The recovery plan for wolves in the Rocky Mountains dates from the 1980s and has no reference to modern genetics,” said Michael Robinson, a conservationist for the Center for Biological Diversity.

The government recovery plan for wolves in the three Rocky Mountain states envisaged a much smaller population than the current population – perhaps 300 wolves overall, Robinson said. That translates into perhaps 10 breeding pairs in each state, he said. “That is completely inadequate to avoid inbreeding and fatal genetic defects.”

He argued that the government already had in place measures to protect humans from expanding wolf populations.

The administration already allows selective hunting of wolves – but only if ranchers claim their flocks are at risk. Government wildlife officials killed 265 wolves in the Rockies last year, including 21 entire wolf packs, Bangs said. In the midwest, where there are about 4,000 wolves spread across Minnesota and other states, government biologists conduct aerial culls of wolves.

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Karzai poll victory ‘may trigger Iraq violence’

July 9th, 2009 | No Comments

David Haight, a top US colonel in Afghanistan, said he is concerned that apathy from ordinary Afghans may turn to anger

The expected victory of Hamid Karzai in next month’s presidential elections in Afghanistan will trigger a violent backlash from ordinary Afghans, a top US commander in the country has warned.

Although the Taliban have threatened to disrupt polling day itself, David Haight, the US colonel who is in charge of pacifying two strategically vital provinces on the southern doorstep of the capital, Kabul, says he is far more concerned about the aftermath of the election.

“I think the people down here are disgruntled with the government because there feeling is, look, ‘I’m just right to the south, I’m frigging 40 miles away and you couldn’t help me?’” said Haight.

“I think that apathy is going to turn into some anger because when the administration doesn’t change, and I don’t think anyone believes now that Karzai is going to lose … I think there is going to be frustration from people who realise there is not going to be a change. The bottom line is they are going to be thinking: ‘four more years of this crap?’” Haight said.

An opinion poll last month suggested support for Karzai had slumped in the four and a half years since he became Afghanistan’s first democratically elected leader, but most western diplomats still believe he will easily win, possibly in the first round.

According to a poll of 3,200 Afghans from across the country, carried out by the International Republican Institute, Karzai can expect to receive 33% of the vote, well below the half of all votes required to win the first round of the election, on 20 August. In the 2004 election Karzai won 54% of the vote. But support for his opponents is considerably lower, and the likelihood remains that he will win comfortably.

Widely blamed for much of the corruption in modern Afghanistan, Karzai has nonetheless succeeded in gaining the support of most of the country’s most important ethnic and tribal power-brokers, including a number of unsavoury characters accused of human rights violations.

The only doubt is whether Afghanistan’s tribal warlords can deliver the necessary votes to Karzai, or whether the widespread disillusion with the corrupt state of the regime will lead voters to defy tribal and clan lines and back one of the opposition candidates.

There are also concerns about the independence of the election commission, which opponents accuse Karzai of stacking with loyalists.

Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister once tipped as a replacement for Kofi Annan as UN secretary general, is one of two leading opposition candidates. He is about to hit the campaign trail, but has limited access to television, no official protection, and no helicopter. He echoed Haight’s view that the Karzai administration had failed to deliver on security: “In 2001 the Afghan people expected state-building and received bad governance and corruption. Now as a result of the failure of this government and international community, they are demonstrating again the desire for legitimate and accountable state institutions.”

Haight is the commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division in Logar and neighbouring Wardak. The two provinces are home to an estimated 862,000 people and are strategically vital because not only do they make up the southern doorstep of the capital, they also straddle two of the most important roads in Afghanistan. These were built at huge international expense to kick-start trade, but were swiftly taken over by Taliban insurgents and used as rapid access points for suicide bombers targeting the city.

Haight and his men were diverted from a slated tour in Iraq, allowing the number of US troops in the two provinces to soar from 300 to 3,000. The huge increase in numbers had an immediate impact, allowing the US to move beyond simply killing the odd Taliban, while leaving vast swathes of territory untouched, to a classic counter-insurgency campaign of clearing whole areas of insurgents, and then keeping them out by setting up company-strong combat outposts.

But the active insurgency on the doorstep of Kabul has created panic among many elite Afghans who fear that even with international support the government will not prove capable of stopping a movement that had publicly announced it’s ambition to “encircle” Kabul the year before.

“The Taliban were never really threatening Kabul, but if you create the perception that you can do that, then you are winning,” said Haight.

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Calls grow within G8 to expel Italy

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

While US tries to inject purpose into meeting, Italy is lambasted for poor planning and reneging on overseas aid commitments

Preparations for Wednesday’s G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L’Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.

In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised “sherpa calls” (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.

“For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It’s a nuclear option,” said one senior G8 member state official. “The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning.”

“The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them,” said a European official involved in the summit preparations.

The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy’s place.

The Italian foreign ministry did not reply yesterday to a request to comment on the criticisms.

“The Italian preparations for the summit have been chaotic from start to finish,” said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Centre for International Co-operation at New York University.

“The Italians were saying as long ago as January this year that they did not have a vision of the summit, and if the Obama administration had any ideas they would take instruction from the Americans.”

The US-led talks led to agreement on a food security initiative a few days before the L’Aquila meeting, the overall size of which is still being negotiated. Gordon Brown has said Britain would contribute £1.1bn to the scheme, designed to support farmers in developing countries.

However, officials who have seen the rest of the draft joint statement say there is very little new in it. Critics say Italy’s Berlusconi government has made up for the lack of substance by increasing the size of the guest list. Estimates of the numbers of heads of state coming to L’Aquila range from 39 to 44.

“This is a gigantic fudge,” Gowan said. “The Italians have no ideas and have decided that best thing to do is to spread the agenda extremely thinly to obscure the fact that didn’t really have an agenda.”

Silvio Berlusconi has come in for harsh criticism for delivering only 3% of development aid promises made four years ago, and for planning cuts of more than 50% in Italy’s overseas aid budget.

Meanwhile, media coverage in the run-up to the meeting has been dominated by Berlusconi’s parties with young women, and then the wisdom of holding a summit in a region experiencing seismic aftershocks three months after a devastating earthquake as a gesture of solidarity with the local population.

The heavy criticism of Italy comes at a time when the future of the G8 as a forum for addressing the world’s problems is very much in question. At the beginning of the year the G20 group, which included emerging economies, was seen as a possible replacement, but the G20 London summit in April convinced US officials it was too unwieldy a vehicle.

The most likely replacement for the G8 is likely to be between 13- and 16-strong, including rising powers such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, which currently attend meetings as the “outreach five” But any transition would be painful as countries jostle for a seat. Italy’s removal is seen in a possibility but Spanish membership in its place is unlikely. The US and the emerging economies believe the existing group is too Euro-centric already, and would prefer consolidated EU representation. That is seen as unlikely. No European state wants to give up their place at the table.

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Obama urges US-Russia ‘fresh start’

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Moscow speech calls for co-operation to stop nuclear proliferation and a move away from cold war policies

Barack Obama today urged Russia to move on from the cold war and stop interfering in the affairs of neighbouring states.

In a keynote speech during his first visit as president to Moscow, Obama delivered a carefully worded critique of Russian foreign policy.

“In 2009, the great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. The days when empires could treat other sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over,” he said.

But, speaking at Moscow’s New Economic School on the second day of his visit, he acknowledged that the US needed to play its role in making a “fresh start” in US-Russian relations. He admitted this would not be easy, and acknowledged previous tensions.

“America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia … on the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis for co-operation,” he told his audience.

The president said old assumptions that the US and Russia were antagonists vying for spheres of influence were wrong.

“Given our interdependence, any world order that tries to elevate one value or people over another will inevitably fail.

“That is why I have called for a ‘reset’ in relations between the United States and Russia. This must be more than a fresh start between the Kremlin and the White House, though that is important.

“It must be a sustained effort among the American and Russian people to identify mutual interests, and to expand dialogue and co-operation that can pave the way to progress.”

Obama made pointed remarks on democracy and press freedom. “Independent media have exposed corruption at all levels of business and government. Competitive elections allow us to change course and hold our leaders accountable,” he said.

“If our democracy did not advance those rights, I, as a person of African ancestry, wouldn’t be able to address you as an American citizen, much less a president.

“The arc of history shows us that governments which serve their own people survive and thrive; governments which serve only their own power do not. Governments that represent the will of their people are far less likely to descend into failed states, to terrorise their citizens, or to wage war on others.”

On nuclear proliferation, the US leader said: “The future does not belong to those who gather armies or plant missiles.”

He urged Russia to unite with the US to end North Korea’s nuclear efforts and to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

“If the threat from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme is eliminated, the driving force for missile defence in Europe will be eliminated,” Obama said.

“In the short period since the end of the cold war, we have already seen India, Pakistan and North Korea conduct nuclear tests. Without a fundamental change, do any of us truly believe that the next two decades will not bring about the further spread of nuclear weapons?

“That is why America is committed to stopping nuclear proliferation, and ultimately seeking a world without nuclear weapons … And while I know this goal won’t be met soon, pursuing it provides the legal and moral foundation to prevent the proliferation and eventual use of nuclear weapons.”

Obama’s Moscow address is being billed as the third part in a series of major speeches that began in April in Prague, where he discussed disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, and continued with last month’s speech in Cairo, in which he offered a fresh US approach to the Middle East and the Muslim communities.

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US and Russia offer to cut warheads

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

• Obama signs framework accord at Moscow summit
• Deal could lead to arsenals of both being cut by a third

The US and Russia today agreed a nuclear disarmament road map that would see them cut their arsenals by up to a third, in a preliminary agreement signed by Barack Obama during his Russia trip.

Pledging to reverse a “sense of drift” in Washington’s relations with Moscow, the US president said he hoped a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the Start-1 pact, which expires this December, would be ready by the end of the year. “We must lead by example and that is what we are doing here today,” he said in Moscow.

Under terms of the outline deal the sides have agreed to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to between 1,500-1,675 warheads each and that strategic delivery systems – ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and heavy bombers – be cut to between 500 and 1,100.

But it was unclear today whether negotiations between the US and Russia would actually yield a new treaty – or whether both sides could bury their differences over the former’s missile defence plans. The Kremlin has made it clear that a deal is impossible if the US administration goes ahead with its missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Obama said today that a review of that shield would be completed as early as this summer. But he gave no indication whether he was willing to dump it – instead merely predicting that the diametrically opposed positions of the two nations on the shield “could be reconciled”.

Obama also insisted the purpose of the shield was to intercept missiles from Iran or North Korea or other states rather than from Russia. But he conceded that convincing Moscow of this would be hard work. “It’s going to take time to break down existing suspicions,” he noted.

Despite Obama’s pledge to reset “US-Russian relations”, there was little sense from today’s summit that the two sides had managed to overcome the hostility and suspicion that characterised relations between George Bush and Vladimir Putin. Nor was there much of the sparkle that has accompanied previous summits between US and Russian leaders.

Asked whether he trusted Dmitry Medvedev, Obama responded by calling Russia’s president “straightforward and professional”. But he also had problems pronouncing his Russian counterpart’s name – dubbing him on one occasion: “Mededev” – and appeared tired after the flight from Washington.

Analysts said the nuclear deal at the very least revived the notion of disarmament, which had been lost amid the hostilities of recent years, and was realistic.

“The negotiations are going to be tense,” said Paul Ingram, the executive director of the British American Security Information Council. “The Russians will be playing hardball but the Americans know Moscow has a strong interest in getting a treaty signed. Both sides have too much invested in reaching an agreement.”

Once the treaty is signed, the next question will be how much further the US and Russia have to go. Obama has dedicated himself to a world free of nuclear weapons, but that remains a theoretical target.

Hovering in the gilded rooms of the Kremlin like an unwelcome ghost was Putin, whom Obama meets tomorrow for a brief working breakfast. Asked whether he thought Putin or Medvedev ran Russia, Obama replied: “Medvedev is the president and Putin is the prime minister.”

Russia did offer one significant concession, agreeing to let the US fly troops and munitions across its airspace to provide an air corridor for its forces in Afghanistan. The two sides also agreed to resume military co-operation, suspended following Russia’s invasion of Georgia last year.

Obama reaffirmed US support for Georgia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”. There was no mention of Ukraine, whose admission to Nato Moscow ardently rejects along with that of Georgia’s.

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US and Russia offer to cut warheads

July 6th, 2009 | No Comments

Framework signed on US president’s Russia visit would leave each side with as few as 1,500 warheads capable of launch

The US and Russia have agreed to work towards cutting deployed nuclear warheads to as few as 1,500 each under an agreement signed by Barack Obama on his first trip to Russia as president.

Obama and the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a framework deal aimed at cutting warheads to a maximum of 1,675 within seven years of a nuclear arms reduction treaty coming into force.

Current treaties allow for a maximum of 2,200 warheads, though both sides are thought to have more than that deployed, or capable of launch. According to some expert estimates of current numbers, the new commitment would mean each side scrapping almost 1,000 warheads.

The pact signed today also calls for the number of strategic delivery systems to be reduced to between 500 and 1,100 on each side, from 1,600 under current treaties. Such systems include intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and heavy bombers.

Obama said he intended to host a summit on global nuclear security next year. Among a flurry of other bilateral announcements today, Russia said it was prepared to let the US fly troops and weapons across its airspace to Afghanistan.

“We must lead by example and that’s what we are doing here today,” Obama said of the preliminary nuclear accord. “We resolve to reset US-Russian relations so that we can co-operate more effectively in areas of common interest.”

Medvedev said today’s summit was a “first step, but a very important step” towards resetting relations.

Obama and Medvedev agreed during their last meeting in April to hold talks on a successor treaty to the 1991 Start-1 pact, which expires in December. But attempts to reach a deal have been aggravated by disagreements over the Pentagon’s planned missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Yesterday, Medvedev said any new arms reduction treaty was definitively “linked” to America’s missile defence ambitions in central Europe.

“We consider these issues are interconnected,” he said. “It is sufficient to show restraint and show an ability to compromise. And then we can agree on the basis of a new deal on Start.” Obama responded by saying that he would complete a review of the need for the missile defence shield in the next two months, and would then re-address the issue with the Russian government in search of a definitive agreement on the issue.

In an interview today with the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Obama stressed that the missile defence system was not aimed at Russia but rather intended to protect the US and its allies from an Iranian nuclear missile.

He acknowledged “Russian sensitivities” over the shield but said he hoped Moscow would “become a partner in the project”. He made clear he would not accept Moscow’s linkage between arms control and missile defence, a statement that suggests there is little prospect of a rapid breakthrough.

Tomorrow, Obama he will meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister and the man who most people believe still runs the country. Obama described Putin slightingly last week as having “one foot in the past”.

Russia’s state-controlled media have so far given Obama a less than overwhelming reception. The Kremlin-controlled Channel One TV last night failed to mention Obama’s visit in its headlines, leading instead with a report on Medvedev’s attempts to encourage energy conservation.

The US and Russia account for more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. They have agreed in principle to reduce their nuclear warheads to a maximum of 2,200 warheads under the Start treaty. But until now they had not been able to agree on a reduction in the systems used to launch them.

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Obama faces Russian arms impasse

July 6th, 2009 | No Comments

Medvedev seeks to tie arms reduction treaty to US missile defence ahead of Obama’s first presidential trip to Moscow

Barack Obama is due to arrive in Moscow today for his first trip to Russia as US president amid dwindling hopes of a breakthrough deal on nuclear weapons.

The summit’s centrepiece is supposed to be a groundbreaking pact on nuclear arms reduction, but Russia said there could be no agreement unless the US was prepared to heed its concerns on missile defence.

Obama and the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed at their last meeting, in April, to hold talks on a successor treaty to the 1991 Start-1 pact, which expires in December. But attempts to reach a deal appear to have come unstuck over the same problem that defeated the Bush administration: the Kremlin’s unbending hostility to the Pentagon’s planned missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

While Obama has agreed to review the plan, he is not prepared to abandon it. Yesterday Medvedev said any new arms reduction treaty was definitively “linked” to the US’s missile defence ambitions in central Europe.

“We consider these issues are interconnected,” he said. “It is sufficient to show restraint and show an ability to compromise. And then we can agree on the basis of a new deal on Start.”

Medevedev’s comments place Obama in an uncomfortable position on one of the biggest foreign policy trips of his presidency. If he makes concessions he risks a political backlash at home and the charge of capitulation. If he doesn’t, he may emerge from the US-Russia summit no more successful than George Bush.

Russian officials revealed that they had not been able to reach agreement on a “framework document” setting out a blueprint for nuclear talks – an ominous sign. Obama, however, made clear his determination to improve relations.

“I believe that Americans and Russians have many common interests, interests that our governments have not pursued as actively as we could have,” he told the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

On Tuesday he will meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister and the man most people believe still runs the country. Obama described Putin slightingly last week as having “one foot in the past”.

In his interview, Obama acknowledged “Russian sensitivities” over the shield, but said it was needed to protect the US and Europe from a nuclear-armed Iranian missile. He made clear he would not accept Moscow’s linkage between arms control and missile defence, a statement that suggests there is little prospect of a rapid breakthrough.

Analysts said there were profound, irreconcilable differences between both sides, not just over the shield but also on technical issues including counting, verification and delivery systems.

“It requires a miracle to resolve these differences,” said Sergey Rogov, director of the US and Canadian Institute in Moscow.

The US and Russia account for more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. They have agreed in principle to reduce their nuclear warheads below the 2,000 agreed in the Start treaty to 1,500-1,700 each. But they have not been able to agree on a reduction in delivery systems, which include intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines missiles and heavy bombers.

According to Rogov, Russia wants to reduce the number of launchers to 600. The US is insisting on around 1,000. Additionally, Moscow is against the US having what it calls a “return potential”, which would allow nuclear weapons scrapped by the US to be redeployed in the event of a nuclear crisis. “I’m not sure Obama understands it,” Rogov said.

Writing last week in Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow defence analyst Pavel Felgenhaur predicted the summit would be a failure. He said the Russian government, emboldened by the recent oil price rise, expected the US to make “one-sided” concessions while making none itself.

During his two-and-a-half day trip to Moscow, Obama is expected to seek Russia’s co-operation on Iran, and support for a stronger sanctions regime against North Korea. Yesterday, however, Medevev hailed Iran as a “major partner”.

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Nuclear arms reduction deal row

July 6th, 2009 | No Comments

• Nuclear arms cuts treaty hits familiar problem
• Medvedev expects US concessions before deal

Hopes of a new nuclear arms reduction deal between Moscow and Washington appeared to be in doubt today, after Russia said there could be no agreement unless the US was prepared to heed its concerns on missile defence.

Barack Obama flies into Moscow tomorrow for his first trip to Russia as US president. The summit’s centrepiece is supposed to be a groundbreaking agreement on nuclear arms reduction.

Obama and Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed during their last meeting in April to hold talks on a successor treaty to the 1991 Start-1 pact, which expires in December. But attempts to reach a deal appear to have come unstuck over the same problem that defeated the Bush administration: the Kremlin’s unbending hostility to the Pentagon’s planned missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. While Obama has agreed to review the plan, he is not prepared to abandon it. Today Medvedev said that any new arms reduction treaty was definitively “linked” to the US’s missile defence ambitions in central Europe.

Medvedev said: “We consider these issues are interconnected. It is sufficient to show restraint and show an ability to compromise. And then we can agree on the basis of a new deal on Start.”

Medevedev’s comments place Obama in an uncomfortable position on the eve of one of the biggest foreign policy trips of his presidency. If he makes concessions he risks a political backlash at home and the charge of capitulation. If he doesn’t, he may emerge from the US-Russia summit no more successful than George Bush.

Today Russian officials revealed that they had not been able to reach agreement on a “framework document” setting out a blueprint for nuclear talks ‑ an ominous sign. Obama, however, made clear his determination to improve relations.

“I believe that Americans and Russians have many common interests, interests that our governments have not pursued as actively as we could have,” he told the Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

On Tuesday he will meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister and the man who most people believe still runs the country. Obama described Putin slightingly last week as having “one foot in the past”.

In his interview, Obama acknowledged “Russian sensitivities” over the shield, but said it was needed to protect the US and Europe from a nuclear-armed Iranian missile. He made clear he would not accept Moscow’s linkage between arms control and missile defence, a statement that suggest there is little prospect of a rapid breakthrough.

Today analysts said there were profound, irreconcilable differences between both sides, not just over the shield, but technical issues including counting, verification, and delivery systems.

“It requires a miracle to resolve these differences,” Sergey Rogov, director of the US and Canadian Institute in Moscow, said.

The US and Russia account for more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. They have agreed in principle to reduce their nuclear warheads below the 2,000 agreed in the Start treaty to 1,500-1,700 each. But they have not been able to agree on a reduction in delivery systems, which include intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles or heavy bombers.

According to Rogov, Russia wants to reduce the number of launchers to 600. The US is insisting on around 1,000. Additionally, Moscow is against the US having what it calls a “return potential”, which would allow nuclear weapons scrapped by the US to be redeployed in the event of a nuclear crisis. “I’m not sure Obama understands it,” Rogov said.

Writing last week in Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow defence analyst Pavel Felgenhaur predicted the summit would be a failure. He said the Russian government, emboldened by the recent oil price rise, expected the US to make “one-sided” concessions while making none itself.

During his two-and-a-half day trip to Moscow, Obama is expected to seek Russia’s co-operation on Iran, and support for a stronger sanctions regime against North Korea. Today, however, Medevev hailed Iran as a “major partner”.

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Legal fight to stop US destroying torture images

July 5th, 2009 | No Comments

British resident says photographs are evidence of abuse at Guantánamo

Former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp, the Guardian has learned. The evidence is said to consist of a photograph of Mohamed, a British resident, taken after he was severely beaten by guards at the US navy base in Cuba.

The image, now held by the Pentagon, had been put on his cell door, he says.

Mohamed claims he was told later that this was done because he had been beaten so badly that it was difficult for the guards to identify him.

In a sworn statement seen by the Guardian, Mohamed has appealed to the federal district court in Washington not to destroy the photograph, which neither he nor his lawyers have a copy of, and which is classified under US law.

The US government considered the case closed once Mohamed was released and returned to Britain in February. The photograph will be destroyed within 30 days of his case being dismissed by the American courts – a decision on which is due to be taken by a judge imminently, Clive Stafford Smith, Mohamed’s British lawyer and director of Reprieve, the legal charity, said today .

Under US law, evidence relating to dismissed cases must be automatically destroyed. The only way to preserve the photograph is to have it accepted as a court document.

This is the aim of Mohamed’s appeal and he says he needs the image as a crucial piece of evidence to fight his case against US authorities for unlawful incarceration and abuse. “That is one piece of physical evidence that I know exists of my abuse,” he says in the statement, adding that it was taken in Guantánamo in 2006. After being kicked and punched, he says his guards “applied force to a pressure point on my arm, twisting the handcuffs up … They tried to open my closed fists up by bending my fingers back one at a time.” They took a picture of him when, he says, he was on the floor pinioned by the guards. He continues: “They then slammed me and my Qur’an into the fence.” After he objected, he says, they “slammed me into the fence again”.

He adds: “They then strapped me into a restraint chair and cut off half my beard. They then performed the humiliating ‘anal cavity search’, although it was painfully obvious that there was nothing to find.”

Mohamed also describes how at one point he screamed and that this “made them redouble their efforts and my situation got worse”.

He adds: “One [military guard] took the heel of my hand and pushed my nose up violently. One soldier pulled on my jaw. They slammed my forehead down on the concrete floor. One grabbed my testicles and punched me.”

Mohamed said: “The authorities have consistently denied that I have been abused, and this is physical evidence that I am telling the truth, and they are not.”

The Guardian is also writing to the court asking for the photographs to be disclosed in the interests of open justice and freedom of expression. Mohamed’s lawyers and media organisations are already embroiled in a dispute in the UK high court over a refusal by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and the US to disclose what their intelligence agencies knew about Mohamed’s torture.

Mohamed was seized and held in Pakistan in 2002 before being secretly renditioned to Morocco. He was subsequently flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantánamo. Mohamed says he knows of other photographs taken of him in Morocco and Afghanistan, but he has not seen them. “These pictures including photos of my genitals,” he said. “Although the US authorities still apparently deny it and refuse even to admit that I was rendered to Morocco, I was horribly tortured there and had a razor blade taken to my genitals”. He also says he suspects that witness B – an MI5 officer who interrogated him in Pakistan in 2002 and currently the subject of a British police investigation – is being used as a scapegoat. “The main responsibility lies with those who established the policy of abuse, not with the functionaries who carried out their orders,” he says in his statement.

Stafford Smith said: “It is difficult to understand the continuing policy of the Obama administration. Surely the public has the right to know the crimes committed by US personnel against a British resident like Binyam Mohamed.”

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Obama interview risks Russian ire

July 3rd, 2009 | No Comments

US president signals tough stance by speaking with prominent opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta ahead of state visit

Barack Obama is to give an interview to the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta before his trip to Moscow on Monday, in the clearest sign yet that his administration will take an unexpectedly tough approach in its dealings with the Kremlin. Obama will talk to the editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, and meet the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who co-owns the paper.

Novaya Gazeta is famous for its critical reporting of the Russian government. Its special correspondent Anna Politkovskaya is one of four reporters from the paper to have been murdered. A critic of the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, she was shot dead in Moscow in October 2006.

Formally, Obama is following in the footsteps of Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, who granted Novaya an interview in April. This week the paper published its own investigation into the origins of last summer’s war between Russia and Georgia. The Kremlin blamed Georgia’s pro-US leader, Mikheil Saakashvili. According to Novaya, however, the Kremlin planned its invasion of Georgia long in advance, sending columns of tanks.

There has been a wide-ranging debate inside Obama’s administration on how to engage with Russia, after the disastrous Bush years. By last autumn relations between Moscow and Washington had sunk to their lowest since the 1980s.

Foreign policy realists argue that in order to “reset” relations with Moscow, and secure Russia’s support for US priorities like Iran and Afghanistan, Obama should soft-pedal his support for human rights. Idealists want a vigorous, values-based engagement with the Kremlin.

Writing in the Moscow Times last week, Russian analyst Lilia Shevtsova noted: “The outcome of Obama’s visit will depend on the willingness of the US to see the differences between the national interest of Russia and the interests of Russia’s ruling elite.”

A Russian presidential spokesman, Sergei Prikhodko, said Obama and Medvedev would sign “framework agreements” on Monday, covering nuclear arms reduction, military co-operation and the transit of US supplies to Afghanistan. They have pledged to agree a replacement to the Start-1 nuclear treaty, which expires on December 5. But experts are sceptical. Prikhodko confirmed that a deal could only take place if the US acknowledged Russia’s “concerns” over the US missile defence shield in central Europe. The Kremlin wants Obama to dump it.

Human rights groups want Obama to raise the issue of murdered Russian journalists. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 17 journalists have been killed since 2000.

On Thursday Obama described Putin as a cold war figure with “one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot on the new”. Putin responded: “As regards our standing one foot in the past and the other ahead, we cannot stand, as they say, perhaps not in a very literary way, with out legs apart. We stand firmly on our feet and always look to the future.”

Putin said he was looking forward to Obama’s visit “with very warm feelings”.

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Obama chides Putin’s ‘cold war ways’

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

President chides Russia’s PM but says Dmitry Medvedev understands that cold war behaviour is outdated

On the eve of a trip to Moscow, Barack Obama chided Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, today for keeping “one foot in the old ways of doing business”. By contrast, he said Putin’s handpicked successor as president understands that cold war behaviour is outdated.

In a White House interview with The Associated Press, the president said he will meet with both Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, on his trip, in hopes they can “move in concert in cooperating with us on some critical issues.”

On an important domestic issue, Obama said the US supreme court was “moving the ball” on affirmative action in this week’s decision favouring white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, but he added that the court had not ruled out the use of racial preferences. “I don’t think that hiring on the basis of race … alone is constitutionally plausible,” said Obama, a former teacher of constitutional law.

He spoke sympathetically at one point of the white firefighters, who said they had been discriminated against: “I’ve always believed that affirmative action was less of an issue or should be less of an issue than it has been made out to be in news reports.”

Nearing the end of his first six months in office, the president said he had made some progress in stabilising the economy, but he conceded too many jobs are still being lost.

He also expressed concern about his own policy on dealing with the prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay, saying the idea of retaining at least some of the detainees indefinitely in different locations gives him pause. But he did not rule out issuing an executive order to that effect if Congress refuses to pass legislation.

Scheduled to depart next week on a trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana, Obama praised Moscow for its cooperation in attempting to persuade North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear development programs. The United Nations recently approved “the most robust sanction regime that we’ve ever seen with respect to North Korea,” he said.

The president said his agenda in Russia includes talks on a new treaty to curtail long-range nuclear missiles.

Asked why he intends to meet Putin, Obama said the former president “still has a lot of sway … and I think that it’s important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev that Putin understand that the old cold war approaches to US-Russian relations is outdated — that’s it’s time to move forward in a different direction”.

“I think Medvedev understands that. I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new, and to the extent that we can provide him and the Russian people a clear sense that the US is not seeking an antagonistic relationship but wants cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation, fighting terrorism, energy issues, that we’ll end up having a stronger partner overall in this process,” he said.

Obama expressed reservations about his recently announced policy that could lead to indefinite detention for some of the detainees currently at the Guantánamo Bay prison. “It gives me huge pause,” he said, to the point where he may not see it through.

“We’re going to proceed very carefully on this front, and it may turn out that after looking at all the dimensions of this that I don’t feel comfortable with (it),” Obama said. The president has pledged to close the prison in Cuba and hopes to send most of those currently held there to other countries.

With joblessness rising, the president said he was “deeply concerned” about unemployment and conceded that too many families are worried about “whether they will be next”. Still, he said that since he took office almost six months ago “we have successfully stabilised the financial markets,” and “started to see some stabilisation on housing”.

“But what we are still seeing is too many jobs lost,” said Obama, commenting after new government figures showed the unemployment rate had risen to 9.5% last month.

Since Obama signed the $780bn economic stimulus bill in February, the economy has shed more than 2 million jobs.

Asked if he was resigned to Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons, he said: “I’m not reconciled with that, and I don’t think the international community is reconciled with that.”

In his comments on the supreme court case, Obama said the 5-4 ruling was written narrowly, and “didn’t close the door to affirmative action” to help minorities.

Obama said of affirmative action: “It hasn’t been as potent a force for racial progress as advocates will claim and it hasn’t been as bad on white students seeking admissions or seeking a job as its critics say.”

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Afghan militants capture US soldier

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

US marines and Afghan troops move into Helmand with Pakistani troops on border to prevent militants from fleeing

Afghan insurgents have captured an American soldier, the US military said today, as American marines and Afghan troops poured into southern Afghanistan in the first major test of Barack Obama’s strategy to wrest the initiative from the Taliban.

US officials said the soldier had been missing since Tuesday and the military was using “all our resources to find him and provide for his safe return”.

The soldier, who went missing in eastern Afghanistan, was not taking part in the military operation launched in Helmand province.

A senior Taliban commander, Mullah Sangeen, told Reuters by telephone that the soldier was taken as a patrol walked out of its base in Paktika province. The American would be held until Taliban fighters held by US forces were released, he said.

As the offensive began, the Ministry of Defence said two British soldiers were killed in Helmand and another six Nato troops were wounded in the attack involving an improvised explosive device (IED).

One of the dead soldiers had been serving with the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, the other was a member of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.

Daybreak brought the sporadic crackle of gunfire but no immediate heavy fighting as the offensive began shortly after 1am local time near the village of Nawa, about 20 miles south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, where the Taliban has put up stubborn resistance against British troops for years.

Waves of helicopters landed Marines in the early morning darkness throughout the valley, a crescent of opium poppy and wheat fields criss-crossed by canals and dotted with mud-brick homes. The marines disembarked and fanned out into the fields alongside the river as the sun rose. Hundreds more raced in convoys through a barren area known as the desert of death.

In a simultaneous operation, Pakistan deployed troops on its border to stop militants fleeing into its territory.

Medical helicopters circled overhead and landed, indicating possible early casualties among the marines. A roadside bomb early in the mission wounded one marine, but he was able to continue.

The troops took many insurgents by surprise, dropping behind Taliban lines, Capt Drew Schoenmaker claimed, although this seemed unlikely as the insurgents usually have an idea of impending attacks.

“We are kind of forging new ground here. We are going to a place nobody has been before,” said Schoenmaker, 31, from the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine regiment.

As US forces began their operation, Pakistani troops moved to block Taliban fighters crossing the 1,615-mile (2,600km) border. Pakistani officers said the Pakistani army was preparing for a possible movement of Taliban from Helmand, a major opium producing area. Pakistan has been conducting its own offensive against local Taliban in the north-west in recent months.

The US operation comes ahead of the Afghan presidential elections on 20 August, which will provide a big political test for the embattled government of president Hamid Karzai, who has been under fire for failing to rein in corruption within his government.

The offensive – called Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword – was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war’s new phase, involving nearly 4,000 marines and 650 Afghan forces.

As such it will provide an early test for Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The marines will be pushing into areas where Nato and Afghan troops have lacked the strength to establish a permanent presence.

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, of the Marine Corps said.

British forces led similar, but smaller, missions to clear insurgents from Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar province last week.

The Taliban has vowed that its thousands of fighters in the area would fight back, even though only minor skirmishes were reported in the early stages.

“Thousands of Taliban mujahideen are ready to fight against US troops in the operation in Helmand province,” Mullah Hayat Khan, a senior Afghan Taliban commander, told Reuters in Pakistan.

Southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold, is also an area in which the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections, and expects the total number of US forces there to reach 68,000 by the end of the year.

That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half as many as are now in Iraq.

Captain Bill Pelletier, a marines spokesman, said the troops involved in the operation had been sent in by a combination of aircraft and ground transport under the cover of darkness.

Once on the ground, troops will meet local leaders, hear their needs and act on them, Pelletier said.

“We do not want people of Helmand province to see us as an enemy – we want to protect them from the enemy,” he added.

The governor of Helmand province predicted a successful operation.

“The security forces will build bases to provide security for the local people so that they can carry out every activity with this favourable background, and take their lives forward in peace,” Governor Gulab Mangal said.

In March, Obama unveiled his plans for Afghanistan, seeking to defeat al-Qaida terrorists there and in Pakistan with a bigger force and a new commander. Obama sacked General David McKiernan, replacing him with General Stanley McChrystal, a former joint special operations command chief and a counter-insurgency expert.

McChrystal, whose forces were credited with tracking down and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, was brought in to provide “fresh eyes” and “fresh thinking”.

He has already moved to lay down tighter limits on the use of air strikes to try to reduce the civilian death toll, one of the reasons attributed to a swing in support for the Taliban.

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US begins major Afghan offensive

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

Military aims to clear insurgents from Helmand River valley before Afghan presidential elections on 20 August

Thousands of US marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-dominated villages in southern Afghanistan today in the first major operation under Barack Obama’s strategy to stabilise the country.

The offensive was launched shortly after 1am local time in Helmand province.

The Taliban stronghold, in the south of the country, is the world’s largest opium poppy producing area.

The goal is to clear insurgents from the Helmand River valley before the Afghan presidential elections take place on 20 August.

The offensive – called Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword – was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war’s new phase, involving nearly 4,000 marines and 650 Afghan forces.

British forces led similar, but smaller, missions to clear insurgents from Helmand and the neighboring Kandahar provinces last week.

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, of the Marine Corps said.

Southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold, is also an area in which the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections, and expects the total number of US forces there to reach 68,000 by the end of the year.

That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half as many as are now in Iraq.

Captain Bill Pelletier, a marines spokesman, said the troops involved in the Thursday operation had been sent in by a mixture of aircraft and ground transport under cover of darkness.

Once on the ground, troops will meet local leaders, hear their needs and act on them, Pelletier said.

“We do not want people of Helmand province to see us as an enemy – we want to protect them from the enemy,” he added.

Reversing the insurgency’s momentum has been one of the key components of the new US strategy, and thousands of additional troops allow commanders to push and stay into areas in which international and Afghan troops had no permanent presence before.

In March, Obama unveiled his plans for Afghanistan, seeking to defeat al-Qaida terrorists there and in Pakistan with a bigger force and a new commander.

There is no timetable for withdrawal, and the White House has not estimated how many billions of dollars its plan will cost.

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Al Franken finally wins Minnesota seat

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

• Democrats now set to hold 60 of 100 Senate seats
• Republican blocking tactics likely to fail in future

The comedian and Democrat Al Franken is set to take his seat in the US Senate next week after the Minnesota supreme court yesterday ruled in his favour in the long-running election dispute.

His opponent, the Republican Norm Coleman, conceded almost immediately after the ruling, bringing to an end eight months of recounts, political sniping and courtroom arguments.

When Franken takes his seat, the Democrats for the first time in three decades will potentially have 60 of the 100 seats in the Senate, a conceivably unassailable majority that means they can overcome Republican blocking tactics, such as filibustering.

The victory boosts Barack Obama’s chances of getting more of his ambitious legislative agenda, such as health reform and climate change measures, and ensuring the confirmation of his supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.

Franken, at a press conference three hours after the supreme court ruling, said “it has not yet fully sunk in” that he had won. He listed as his priorities healthcare, education and renewable energy.

What mattered to him, he said, was not that he was going to Washington as the 60th Democratic senator but as the senator for Minnesota. He added: “I won by 312 votes so I really have to earn the trust of people who didn’t vote for me and let them know that I’m going to be working for every Minnesotan.”

Earlier, Coleman, speaking outside his home in St Paul, Minnesota, uttered the words that Franken had long waited to hear. “The supreme court of Minnesota has spoken and I respect its decision and will abide by the result. It’s time for Minnesota to come together under the leaders it has chosen and move forward. I join all Minnesotans in congratulating our newest US senator, Al Franken.”

Coleman had the option of taking the issue to the US supreme court and many Republicans had favoured such action to deny the Democrats a 60-seat majority for a few months more. But it is unlikely the US supreme court would have even agreed to discuss it.

Coleman said he was not sure what he would do in the future but he might spend the next few days fishing. “I’m really at peace,” he said.

Franken first rose to prominence as a comic on the Saturday Night Live television show. He fought the election campaign as a serious politician, only occasionally showing flashes of his old humour during debates and in a clever advertising campaign.

Coleman is, in Republican terms, relatively liberal. He is best known in Britain for his confrontation at a Senate hearing with the MP George Galloway over Iraq.

The White House welcomed Franken’s win, saying the president looked forward to working with him on “lowering healthcare costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st-century”.

Coleman initially emerged the winner of the November election, but with such a narrow margin that an automatic recount was triggered. Franken was declared the winner in January after a recount showed him with a majority of 225, out of 2.9m votes cast. A further recount increased his majority marginally to 312.

The two men spent just over $50m (£30m) fighting the election campaign but the recount gobbled up a further $11m.

The five-member Minnesota supreme court ruled unanimously against Coleman, who had argued that thousands of absentee ballots that had been rejected should have been included in the final count.

Franken will bring the total number of Democrats to 58. There are also two independents who normally vote with them.

But on some issues Obama cannot be sure of the support of all 58 Democrats or the two independents. About 20 Democrats, though socially liberal, are conservative on fiscal matters.

Another reason why the 60-seat majority is not as solid as it looks on paper is the ill health of two Democrats, Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd, both of whom are often absent from the chamber.

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Pressure on Honduran government

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

• Roberto Micheletti sworn in as new president
• Zelaya meets leftist allies in Nicaragua
• Obama administration condemns Zelaya’s overthrow

Honduras was increasingly isolated tonight as the international community lined up to denounce a coup which ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Latin America, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union piled diplomatic pressure on the new government to quit just a day after the Honduran army seized the president in his pyjamas and bustled him into exile.

The capital, Tegucigalpa, remained tense with soldiers and armoured vehicles ringing the presidential palace but making no effort to clear nearby barricades manned by about 200 pro-Zelaya protestors.

The leftwing leader was ousted early on Sunday in a joint move by the army, judiciary, congress and disaffected members of his own party.

The architects of central America’s first military overthrow in 16 years said it was a necessary and legitimate action to remove a power-hungry president who had broken the constitution.

Congress swore in its speaker, Roberto Micheletti, as the new interim president. He urged the international community to respect Honduran sovereignty and said he would step down after presidential elections in November: “We respect everybody and we only ask that they respect us and leave us in peace because the country is headed toward free and transparent general elections. I’m sure that 80% to 90% of the Honduran population is happy with what happened today.” He said outsiders had no right to interfere. “Nobody scares us.”

Zelaya met leftist allies at an emergency summit in neighbouring Nicaragua. The summit depicted his downfall as a plot by rightwing elites to row back socialism in the region.

“If the oligarchies break the rules of the game as they have done, the people have the right to resistance and combat, and we are with them,” said Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president.

The presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua were expected to join Venezuela’s leader in the Nicaraguan capital Managua.

The Obama administration, conscious of the US’s long history of supporting coups against Latin American leftists, condemned the overthrow. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Washington’s top priority was to restore full democratic and constitutional order in Honduras. Zelaya’s removal had “evolved into a coup”, she said.

The United Nations invited Zelaya to New York to report directly to members of the General Assembly. The head of the 35-member Organisation of American States said it would accept no Honduran president other than Zelaya. The European Union offered to mediate.

Zelaya, 56, a rich and flamboyant landowner, was elected in 2006 as a conservative but then embraced Chávez’s form of “21st century socialism”. He was popular among many of Honduras’s poor but his overall approval ratings hovered at 30%.

He angered the country’s institutions by trying to hold a non-binding referendum about changing the constitution to allow presidential terms beyond a single, four-year term. Opponents accused the president, who was due to leave office in January 2010, of plotting to perpetuate his power.

Just before the coup Zelaya fired the armed forces chief, who refused to cooperate in the referendum, and defied a supreme court ruling to abandon the vote.

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Jackson doctor hires ‘bad ass’ lawyer

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

The doctor who was with Michael Jackson when he died has hired a notoriously aggressive lawyer and is insisting he has done nothing wrong as the singer’s death appeared to open rifts between his family and other players in his complicated life.

The lawyer, Matt Alford, described on his own website as an “intimidating bad ass” who goes about his work “with a scorched-earth mentality”, went on television with an impassioned defence of his client, Conrad Murray, underlining that he was just a witness and not a suspect.

LA police issued a brief statement after talking to Murray on Saturday, saying he had been cooperative and provided “information which will aid the investigation”.

Murray was with Jackson when he suffered a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles on Thursday. His lawyer said the doctor found Jackson in his bed with a faint pulse, but not breathing, so he immediately began administering CPR. An official postmortem failed to determine the cause of death, pending toxicology tests that could take four to six weeks.

The Jackson family hired a private pathologist to conduct a second postmortem examination over the weekend and hinted that they might use the results to press for criminal charges – something the official police investigation has ruled out for the moment.

The family questioned whether the doctor had carried out resuscitation attempts properly, pointing out that on the tape of the emergency call requesting an ambulance he was described as “pumping” Jackson on a bed, not on the floor or another hard surface.

However, the Los Angeles Times quoted a source close to the investigation as saying the police had completed an “extensive interview” on Saturday night with the doctor and that detectives found “no red flag” during discussions about the death. “There was no smoking gun,” the source told the paper.

As tributes to the star flooded in, White House adviser David Axelrod said Barack Obama had written a letter to Jackson’s family expressing his condolences.

He told NBC: “The president obviously believes that Michael Jackson was an important and magnificent performer and obviously he led a sad life in many ways as well, but his impact is undeniable.”

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Police question Jackson’s doctor

June 28th, 2009 | 2 Comments

The doctor who was with Michael Jackson when he died has hired a notoriously aggressive lawyer and is insisting he has done nothing wrong as the singer’s death appeared to open rifts between his family and other players in his complicated life.

The lawyer, Matt Alford, described on his own website as an “intimidating bad ass” who goes about his work “with a scorched-earth mentality”, went on television with an impassioned defence of his client, Conrad Murray, underlining that he was just a witness and not a suspect.

The LA police issued a brief statement after talking to Murray on Saturday, saying he had been cooperative and provided “information which will aid the investigation”.

Murray was with Jackson when he suffered a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles on Thursday. An official postmortem failed to the determine the cause of death, pending toxicology tests that could take four to six weeks.

The Jackson family hired a private pathologist to conduct a second postmortem examination over the weekend and hinted that they might use the results to press for criminal charges – something the official police investigation has ruled for out for the moment.

The family questioned whether the doctor had carried out resuscitation attempts properly, pointing out that on the tape of the emergency call requesting an ambulance he was described as “pumping” Jackson on a bed, not on the floor or another hard surface.

However, the Los Angeles Times quoted a source close to the investigation as saying the police had completed an “extensive interview” on Saturday night with the doctor and that detectives found “no red flag” during discussions about the death. “There was no smoking gun,” the source told the paper.

As tributes to the star continued to flood in from across the world, the White House adviser David Axelrod said President Barack Obama had written a personal letter to Jackson’s family expressing his condolences.

He told NBC: “The president obviously believes that Michael Jackson was an important and magnificent performer and obviously he led a sad life in many ways as well, but his impact is undeniable.”

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