Flash floods in one of the driest regions in the world - Chile's Atacama desert - have left two people dead and 24 missing, officials say.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Veteran Pleads not guilty to aiding IS
A US Air Force veteran pleaded not guilty in a Brooklyn court Wednesday to charges of planning to provide material support to the Islamic State group by joining its fight in Syria.
Prosecutors say that Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, 47, a former avionics instrument system specialist in the Air Force, tried to join the militant group in January by traveling from Egypt to Turkey and then trying to cross the border into Syria.
Nazi Hideout Found In Argentina
An Argentine archaeologist who discovered what he thinks was a hideout built for German Nazis to flee to after World War II said Monday more dark secrets may be buried there.
Daniel Schavelzon grabbed headlines and revived uncomfortable memories for Argentina, a notorious refuge for Nazi war criminals, when he went public at the weekend with his discovery of mysterious ruins deep in the jungle that he suspects were planned as a Nazi hideout.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
EU’s foreign policy chief to visit Cuba as ties with West warm
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, is to visit Cuba this month in the latest sign of warming relations between the Communist-ruled island and the West.
Mogherini, a former Italian foreign minister, will visit Havana on March 23 to 24 to discuss developments in the country and prospects for EU-Cuba cooperation, the EU said in a statement on Saturday.
She will be the most senior EU official to visit Cuba in recent years, and the trip comes as both the 28-nation EU and the United States have made diplomatic overtures to the island.
“Cuba is facing a very interesting period and the European Union is keen to see how we can take the relationship forward with strong momentum,” Mogherini said in a statement.
EU and Cuba push for closer ties as thaw develops
The European Union and Cuba will intensify negotiations aimed at normalising ties, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says.
Ms Mogherini hoped the two sides could sign an agreement by the end of 2015.
She was speaking after meeting President Raul Castro and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Tuesday in the Cuban capital, Havana.
Ms Mogherini is the highest-ranking EU official to visit communist Cuba for several years.
Her visit is seen as another sign that the island is strengthening its ties with the West, after decades of Cold War tensions.
In December, Cuba and the United States announced they would be improving their ties, which have been frozen since 1961.
Brazil’s Slumping Economy and Bribery Scandal Eat Away at Dilma Rousseff’s Popularity
RIO DE JANEIRO — President Dilma Rousseffran for office declaring that she would harness an oil bonanza in Brazil to supercharge the economy while avoiding the corruption and mismanagement that have plagued other oil-rich countries in the developing world.
But less than three months into her second term as president, Ms. Rousseff is fighting for her political survival as Petrobras, the national oil company she oversaw and has championed, reels from a colossal bribery scandal.
Compounding her problems is the prospect that the economy could shrink in 2015 for the second consecutive year, the first such contraction here since the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 and 1930.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
US Senate Delays Vote on Iran Bill
US Senate to delay committee's Iran bill vote
Latest update : 2015-03-20
US Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed on Thursday to delay until at least mid-April a vote on a closely watched bill that would require President Barack Obama to seek congressional approval of any nuclear agreement with Iran.
Venezuelan President Granted Decree Powers
Venezuela’s Maduro granted decree powers
Latest update : 2015-03-15
Venezuela’s parliament granted President Nicolas Maduro decree powers on Sunday for the rest of 2015 in a move he says is to defend the country from U.S. meddling but opponents decry as evidence of autocracy.
US and Afghanistan "revitalise" ties
US and Afghanistan hail ‘revitalised’ ties on Ghani visit
As President Ashraf Ghani began his visit to Washington on Monday American and Afghan officials laid the groundwork for new relations between the two countries, which the Pentagon described as “a revitalised partnership”.
Monday, March 23, 2015
US weighs options in 'reassessing' support for Israel
A day after the White House warned that it might have to “reassess” its approach to relations with Israel, the Obama administration is quietly weighing diplomatic options vis-à-vis its closest ally in the Middle East.
In a last-minute appeal to conservative voters ahead of Israeli elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to backtrack on his support for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. Asked by Israel’s NRG website on Monday whether it was safe to assume that a Palestinian state would never be established while he was prime minister, Netanyahu responded: “Indeed.”
Netanyahu’s statements sparked an immediate response from the White House. Press secretary Josh Earnest dismissed the comments as “cynical, divisive, election-day tactics”.
Nearly a million Brazilians march to demand president’s ouster
Close to a million demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Brazil Sunday to protest a sluggish economy, rising prices and corruption - and to call for the impeachment of leftist President Dilma Rousseff.
The marches across the continent-sized country come as Brazil struggles to overcome economic and political malaise and pick up the pieces of a boom that crumbled once Rousseff took office in 2012.
Now in the third month of her second four-year term, Rousseff is unlikely to resign or face the impeachment proceedings called for by many opponents angry about a fifth year of economic stagnation and a multibillion dollar corruption scandal at state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.
For a president that was narrowly re-elected just five months ago, the protests are a sign of a polarized country increasingly unhappy with its leadership. Rousseff has recently been jeered at public appearances and Brazilians in some cities banged pots during a televised speech she made earlier this month.
Brazil’s scandal-hit Rousseff unveils anti-corruption plan
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced a package of anti-corruption bills Wednesday as she sought to battle back from a devastating scandal at state oil giant Petrobras that has ensnared her party.
"We are a government that does not tolerate corruption and we have the duty and obligation to fight impunity and corruption," she said in the wake of massive protests against her administration.
The package includes bills to criminalize under-the-table campaign contributions, seize property from government officials who cannot document its origin and bar anyone without a clean criminal record from serving in public office.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Republican letter to Iran warns against deal with Obama
In a letter to Iran's leaders on Monday, congressional Republicans warned that any nuclear deal with the Obama administration would be “nothing more" than an agreement that could be altered by the next president “with the stroke of a pen”.
Signed by 47 Republican senators but no Democrats, the open letter marked a rare congressional intervention into diplomatic negotiations and appeared to be aimed at undercutting the administration’s credibility as it seeks to reach a nuclear deal with Tehran.
Iran’s leaders “may not fully understand” the division of powers under the US Constitution, the letter began, underscoring that while the president “negotiates international agreements” they must then be ratified by Congress.
The Constitution gives the president the power to negotiate treaties, which must then be approved by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. But the president can also issue an executive order to finalise an accord without Senate consent; such executive agreements constitute about 90 percent of all US international treaties, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Mexican Mayoral Candidate Found Dead
The body of a woman running for election as mayor of a small Mexican town has been discovered after she was kidnapped and reportedly decapitated in the same region where 43 student teachers disappeared last year.
Brazil Launches Oil Graft Investigation
Brazil's Supreme Court authorized the investigation of dozens of politicians Friday, including the presidents of the senate and of the chamber of deputies, over the multibillion-dollar graft case roiling state oil giant Petrobras.
Bodies of French sports stars recovered from Argentina crash site
Investigators on Tuesday recovered all 10 bodies from a remote site in Argentina where helicopters serving a reality TV show apparently collided, killing prominent French athletes and leaving their country in mourning.
The helicopters crashed Monday afternoon near Villa Castelli, about 1,170 kilometres northwest of Buenos Aires, said La Rioja regional Secretary of Security Cesar Angulo.
Everyone aboard – eight French nationals and two Argentine pilots – was killed.
Among the dead were Olympic champion swimmer Camille Muffat, Olympic boxer and bronze-medallist Alexis Vastine, and pioneering sailor Florence Arthaud. They had been among the contestants in the French version of the reality TV show “Dropped”.
US declares Venezuela a threat, sanctions top officials
The United States on Monday declared Venezuela a national security threat and ordered sanctions against seven officials in the worst diplomatic dispute with the oil-rich country since socialist President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013.
President Barack Obama issued and signed the executive order, which senior administration officials said did not target the energy sector or Venezuela’sbroader economy. The move raises tensions between Washington and the OPEC member just as US relations with Cuba, another longtime US foe in Latin America, are set to be normalized.
Declaring a country a national security threat is the first step in starting a sanctions regime. The same process has been followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, US officials said.
White House said the executive order targeted people whose actions undermined democratic processes or institutions, had committed acts of violence or abuse of human rights, were involved in prohibiting or penalizing freedom of expression, or were government officials involved in public corruption.
“Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of US financial systems,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.
“We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents. Venezuela’s problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent,” he added.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez told reporters that Caracas would respond to the US move soon.
The seven individuals named in the order, which included top domestic security and intelligence officials, would have their property and interests in the United States blocked or frozen and would be denied entry into the United States. US persons would also be prohibited from doing business with them.
Blame Game
The White House also called on Venezuela to release all political prisoners, including “dozens of students,” and warned against blaming Washington for its problems.
“We’ve seen many times that the Venezuelan government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela,” Earnest said in the statement.
“These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan government to deal with the grave situation it faces.”
US officials told reporters in a conference call that the executive order did not target the Venezuelan people or economy and stressed that upcoming legislative elections should be held without intimidation of the government’s opponents.
The sanctions effectively confirm Venezuela as the United States’ primary adversary in Latin America, a label that was for decades applied to Communist-run Cuba until Washington and Havana announced a diplomatic breakthrough in December.
Washington said last week it would respond through diplomatic channels to Venezuela’s demand for a cut in the US Embassy’s staff in Caracas after the government called for a plan within 15 days to reduce staff to 17 from 100 at the American facility.
Commercial ties between Venezuela and the United States have, however, been largely unaffected by diplomatic flare-ups, which were common during the 14-year-rule of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
The United States is Venezuela’s top trading partner, and Venezuela in 2014 remained the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the United States at an average of 733,000 barrels per day - despite a decade-long effort by Caracas to diversify its oil shipments to China and India.
Opposition leader and twice-presidential candidate Henrique Capriles told Reuters the sanctions were a problem for a corrupt elite in the Maduro government, but not ordinary Venezuelans.
“It’s not a problem with Venezuela or with Venezuelans; it’s a problem for the corrupt ones. It doesn’t affect we Venezuelans.”
(REUTERS)
French stars of sailing, swimming and boxing felled in Argentine helicopter crash
Sailor Florence Arthaud, swimmer Camille Muffat and boxer Alexis Vastine, who died along with seven other people in Monday's helicopter crash in Argentina, were three of France's finest athletes.
Florence Arthaud, ‘the fiancée of the Atlantic’
Florence Arthaud, 57, was an accomplished sailor and one of the first women to carve out a place for herself in a sport long dominated by men. “I’ve lived my life in the fast lane,” she told AFP last year, shortly before the start of the Route du Rhum, the North Atlantic crossing she famously won in 1990. The victory in the prestigious solitary race earned her the nickname “the fiancée of the Atlantic”.
Forensics conclude that Nisman was murdered
Forensics show Argentine prosecutor was murdered, says ex-wifein
Forensic tests on the body of an Argentine state prosecutor who died days after accusing President Cristina Fernandez of plotting to cover up Iran’s alleged role in a 1994 bombing indicate that he was murdered, his ex-wife said on Thursday.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding Alberto Nisman’s death in January unleashed a storm ofconspiracy theories. His former wife, Sandra Arroyo Salgado, hired a private team to analyse the autopsy results and run additional tests.
Argentine authorities have not released full results of Nisman’s autopsy, more than six weeks after he was found sprawled in a pool of blood in his flat. The few details made public so far have suggested suicide, although the lead investigator into Nisman’s death said she could not categorically say if he shot himself in the head or was killed.
“Nisman didn’t have an accident. He didn’t commit suicide. They murdered him,” Arroyo Salgado told a news conference.
Nisman, 52, was the father of their two children.
Earlier on Thursday, Arroyo Salgado, who is a judge, deposited the forensic evidence behind her allegations at the state prosecutors’ office in Buenos Aires. She did not give details of the findings to journalists.
Fernandez has branded as “absurd” Nisman’s accusation that she sought to whitewash his investigation into the truck-bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center 21 years ago, and has said rogue state spies were behind his death.
Iran has consistently denied it was involved in the bomb attack, which killed 85 people.
A judge last week threw out the accusations against Fernandez. On Wednesday, however, the prosecutor who picked up Nisman’s case appealed that ruling, prolonging a scandal that has plunged Fernandez’s last year in office into turmoil.
Polls show two in three Argentines believe they will never know the truth about what happened to Nisman, who was found dead the day before he was to appear in Congress to discuss his criminal complaint.
Viviana Fein, the state prosecutor investigating Nisman’s death, said she would study the evidence put forward by Arroyo Salgado’s team.
“Up until now ... there has been nothing which allows me to say categorically whether this was a suicide or homicide. Nothing,” Fein told the state-run National Radio.
(REUTERS)
Venezuela Declared a Threat, Sanctions levied.
US declares Venezuela a threat, sanctions top officials
Latest update : 2015-03-10
The United States on Monday declared Venezuela a national security threat and ordered sanctions against seven officials in the worst diplomatic dispute with the oil-rich country since socialist President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013.
President Barack Obama issued and signed the executive order, which senior administration officials said did not target the energy sector or Venezuela’s broader economy. The move raises tensions between Washington and the OPEC member just as US relations with Cuba, another longtime US foe in Latin America, are set to be normalized.
Declaring a country a national security threat is the first step in starting a sanctions regime. The same process has been followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, US officials said.
'OBAMA WILL BRED FOR HIS AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA'
The White House said the executive order targeted people whose actions undermined democratic processes or institutions, had committed acts of violence or abuse of human rights, were involved in prohibiting or penalizing freedom of expression, or were government officials involved in public corruption.
“Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of US financial systems,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.
“We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents. Venezuela’s problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent,” he added.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez told reporters that Caracas would respond to the US move soon.
The seven individuals named in the order, which included top domestic security and intelligence officials, would have their property and interests in the United States blocked or frozen and would be denied entry into the United States. US persons would also be prohibited from doing business with them.
Blame Game
The White House also called on Venezuela to release all political prisoners, including “dozens of students,” and warned against blaming Washington for its problems.
“We’ve seen many times that the Venezuelan government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela,” Earnest said in the statement.
“These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan government to deal with the grave situation it faces.”
US officials told reporters in a conference call that the executive order did not target the Venezuelan people or economy and stressed that upcoming legislative elections should be held without intimidation of the government’s opponents.
The sanctions effectively confirm Venezuela as the United States’ primary adversary in Latin America, a label that was for decades applied to Communist-run Cuba until Washington and Havana announced a diplomatic breakthrough in December.
Washington said last week it would respond through diplomatic channels to Venezuela’s demand for a cut in the US Embassy’s staff in Caracas after the government called for a plan within 15 days to reduce staff to 17 from 100 at the American facility.
Commercial ties between Venezuela and the United States have, however, been largely unaffected by diplomatic flare-ups, which were common during the 14-year-rule of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
The United States is Venezuela’s top trading partner, and Venezuela in 2014 remained the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the United States at an average of 733,000 barrels per day - despite a decade-long effort by Caracas to diversify its oil shipments to China and India.
Opposition leader and twice-presidential candidate Henrique Capriles told Reuters the sanctions were a problem for a corrupt elite in the Maduro government, but not ordinary Venezuelans.
“It’s not a problem with Venezuela or with Venezuelans; it’s a problem for the corrupt ones. It doesn’t affect we Venezuelans.”
(REUTERS)
Colombia to halt bombings of FARC rebel bases for a month
Colombia’s armed forces will halt bombing raids against Marxist FARC rebels for one month, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday, in recognition of a unilateral ceasefire declared by the guerrillas as peace talks with the government advance.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels declared a ceasefire on Dec. 18, but the government had until now refused to reciprocate or halt attacks against the guerrillas.
Ceasing aerial raids, which have been the military’s most lethal means of attacking the FARC, could possibly be extended if the rebels continue to hold to their ceasefire, Santos said in a televised address.
“In regards to the indefinite, unilateral ceasefire declared by the FARC on Dec. 18, we must recognize that they have fulfilled it,” Santos said.
“For this reason, and to hasten the de-escalation of the conflict, I have decided to order the defense ministry and the leaders of the armed forces to cease bombardments over FARC camps for one month.”
US and Cuba 're-establish direct phone link'
The United States and Cuba have re-established a direct telephone link, the Cuban state telecommunications company said Wednesday, in the latest step toward normalizing ties between the one-time Cold War foes.
“A direct interconnection has been established between the United States and Cuba, initially for international voice calls,” the company, Etecsa, said in a statement carried by the Cuban media.
The telephone link between the two countries have been interrupted and restored numerous times since the 1960s, but this is the first time the connection has been resumed since 1999.
Previously phone calls between the US and Cuba had to pass through a third country, making them extremely expensive. Etecsa did not immediately announce new rates.
It is the first agreement signed between Cuban and American companies since the announcement last December that they would renew diplomatic ties after more than 50 years of hostility.
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