NATO: Obama warns of "hard days" ahead in Afghanistan

(AP) CHICAGO - President Barack Obama warned of "hard days" ahead in Afghanistan as world leaders Sunday opened a NATO summit confronted by questions about the country's post-conflict future.

Meeting in Mr. Obama's home city of Chicago, the leaders discussed their next steps in Afghanistan: preparing for elections and finding money to support Afghan security forces at a time when member nations are dealing with tight budgets and waning public support for the war.

They insisted the fighting coalition will remain effective despite the plans of newly elected French President Francois Hollande to yank combat troops out early.

"There will be no rush for the exits," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged."

Rasmussen denied there were fresh cracks in the alliance. He suggested a deal will emerge for France to move into a noncombat role but continue to support the international mission.

NATO chief: "No rush for the exits" in Afghanistan

After meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama said that the end of the war is in sight. The military alliance is pledged to remain in Afghanistan into 2014, but will seal plans Sunday and Monday to shift foreign forces off the front lines a year faster than once planned.

"We still have a lot of work to do and there will be great challenges ahead," Mr. Obama said. "The loss of life continues in Afghanistan and there will be hard days ahead."

Afghan forces will take the lead throughout the nation next year, instead of in 2014, despite uneven performance under U.S. and other outside tutelage so far. The shift is in large part a response to plummeting public support for the war in Europe and the United States, contributors of most of the 130,000 foreign troops now fighting the Taliban-led insurgency. A majority of Americans now say the war is unwinnable or not worth continuing.

Karzai said his nation is looking forward to the end of war, "so that Afghanistan is no longer a burden on the shoulder of our friends in the international community, on the shoulders of the United States and our other allies."

Hollande, the new French president, has said he will withdraw all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end - a full two years before the timeline agreed to by nations in the U.S.-led NATO coalition.

Before the one-hour meeting with Karzai, a senior U.S. official said President Obama would focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban.

Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, opening the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.

Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the U.S. applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out, protesting what he said was an impossible level of corruption.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57437923/nato-obama-warns-of-hard-days-ahead-in-afghanistan/

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Police, protesters clash outside NATO summit

Chicago (CNN) -- Protesters and police clashed outside the NATO summit in Chicago, where world leaders met to discuss the way forward in Afghanistan.

Police hit protesters with batons as they pushed against a line of officers, video from CNN affiliate WLS showed. The clashes came toward the end of a day of peaceful protests.

At least 45 people were arrested Sunday and four officers were taken to the hospital with injuries, said Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. One officer had been stabbed in the leg, he said.

"They rallied. They charged the cops and they assaulted the officers," McCarthy said. "The finger should be pointed at the people who assaulted the cops."

Occupy Chicago, one of the groups that helped organize the demonstrations, similarly reported that some people were injured.

"The police have several demonstrators detained behind their lines, calling for medics. Bloodied protesters being dragged out of sight now," the group wrote on its Twitter page earlier in the day.

A city official, who was not authorized to talk to the media on police matters, told CNN that between 75-100 protesters had refused to leave the area after being told to disperse.

They threw bottles and other objects at police, the official said.

"Quite frankly, I think it's been an incredibly successful event in spite of some of these issues," said McCarthy, who offered high praise for his officers. "We're not here to get battered."

He accused some protesters of splashing red paint on themselves to make it look like they had been wounded.

The clashes took place just blocks from the NATO summit. Inside that meeting, U.S. President Barack Obama met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and hosted other world leaders. He stressed that more work must be done before NATO troops pull out of Afghanistan.

"There will be great challenges ahead. The loss of life continues in Afghanistan. There will be hard days," Obama said at the summit. "But we are confident we are on the right track and (what) this NATO summit reflects is that the world is behind the strategy we've laid out. Now it's our task to implement it effectively and I believe we can do so in part because of the tremendous strength and resilience of the Afghan people."

Obama and other world leaders were expected to draw up a road map out of the war in Afghanistan. The summit comes at a key time for NATO countries, who are trying to figure out how to meet a 2014 deadline to withdraw from an unpopular war in Afghanistan while shoring up that nation's security forces.

"There will be no rush for the exits. We will stay committed to our operations in Afghanistan and see it through to a successful end. Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remains unchanged," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Sunday.

"Once the Afghans have full responsibility by the end of 2014, our combat mission will come to an end. But we will not walk away," he added later in the day.

Also Sunday, NATO leaders inked a deal to acquire five unarmed drones as part of "smart defense," a term used to describe efforts to do more with less at a time when many nations' defense budgets are being slashed, Rasmussen said. More than a dozen countries will help to buy the drones.

"NATO in itself is smart defense because it is about helping each other instead of re-nationalizing defense," said the secretary general.

Security was tight at the summit following Saturday's arrest of three men, described by authorities as anarchists who plotted to attack Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters and lob Molotov cocktails at police during the summit.

Two other men, not believed to be part of the alleged plot, appeared in court Sunday to face charges from "related investigations," authorities said.

Police insist there were no imminent threats to the leaders of more than 50 nations gathering at the summit.

The leaders are expected to formally adopt a timetable to transition security from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to Afghan forces, senior administration officials told CNN.

Source : http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/20/us/us-nato-summit/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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Mladic trial focuses on Srebrenica massacre

The war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic has resumed, with the prosecution focusing on the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.
Gen Mladic is accused of orchestrating the killings of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men in the town.
The 70-year-old faces 11 charges, including genocide, in connection with the brutal 1992-95 Bosnian war.
He calls the claims "monstrous", and the court in The Hague has entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Prosecuting counsel Peter McCloskey said that the crimes at Srebrenica had never been in dispute so the prosecution's focus would be on individual criminal responsibility.
He said that the Bosnian Serb Army was not an "army out of control" and that Gen Mladic had been on the ground and in command.
The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.
Serb fighters overran the enclave in eastern Bosnia - supposedly under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers. Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were separated off, shot dead and bulldozed into mass graves - later to be dug up and reburied in more remote spots.
Gen Mladic is also charged in connection with the 44-month siege of Sarajevo during which more than 10,000 people died.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18099008

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China, U.S. searching for 'face-saving' solution to Chen saga

Beijing (CNN) -- "Very busy lately, huh?" Lao Liu greets me one morning on my way to work. "What's going on with this Chen Guangcheng guy?"

My friend, who works for a multinational company, had heard chatter about Chen and wanted to find out more.

I was in a rush so I told him quickly about Chen, the blind activist from a rural town in Shandong who has been mistreated for years by local officials, and how he had slipped into the U.S. embassy in Beijing creating a diplomatic spat with China.

Lao Liu is not alone. Many ordinary Chinese have been in the dark about Chen's dramatic escape.

China: Chen can apply to study in U.S.

On May 2, six days after Chen had slipped into the U.S. embassy, the state-run Xinhua news agency declared China was demanding an apology from the U.S. for giving refuge to a Chinese citizen "via abnormal means."

During a regular press briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said the Chinese side was "strongly dissatisfied with the move."

U.S. officials 'exploring all options'

He added: "What the U.S. side has done has interfered in the domestic affairs of China and the Chinese side will never accept it."

But many Chinese were baffled by Liu's protests because they knew very little about Chen and his story.

For days Chinese censors have blocked online posts that mention Chen's name, or words related to the lawyer like "blind." They have also ordered the Chinese media to stay away from Chen's story and have selectively blacked out international reports about Chen from networks such as CNN.

Lawyer, friend: Chen wants his rights

"Who is this person?" asked netizen Leo Liu Ying on Weibo, one of China's Twitter-like social networking sites. "We want the real story!"

Netizens demanded to know what Chen did, why he wanted to go to the U.S. embassy and how he got there.

Postings on Weibo are eventually scrubbed, but the few we read show a range of opinions.

Some supported the official line. "China's internal affairs should be solved by Chinese ourselves, no need to have Americans worry about these," said Yutou0001.

Others were more circumspect. "One should not engage in activities incompatible with one's job," wrote Fuguideshi. "But basic humanitarianism and universal human rights have no borders."

U.S. 'mission impossible' diplomacy

But a post from "GhostInTheHell" was scathingly sarcastic.

"May I ask the spokesman of the nation of rule of law: what is the legal basis of deleting posts of Mr. Chen?

"What is the legal basis of putting him on house arrest for years, for beating him up, for harassing his family, for preventing him to get medical treatment, for allowing his daughter to go to school?"

A few netizens were dismissive of Chen's move. "Chinese who have grievances towards the government may now go into the embassy and throw themselves into the arms of the Yankees," wrote Hacken.

But for many people, Chen had single-handedly hijacked the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (SED), a two-day meeting that ended Friday.

The SED brings together top officials from both countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Chinese counterpart, Dai Bingguo. They discuss a range of complex bilateral issues, including trade and investment, cross-border crime, military and strategic concerns, as well as global issues like North Korea, Syria, and Iran.

This year's SED is particularly important, just months away from a presidential election in the U.S. and a once-in-a-decade change of leadership in China, when "stability and smooth transition are the watchwords," according to Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a corporate strategist and author of "How China's Leaders Think".

"Although the SED dealt with the most sensitive military and security matters, it was largely ignored by the world's media because of the solitary acts of a blind human rights activist," Kuhn said.

The Chen story has shone a bright light on China's repressive practices. Yet Beijing is asking for an apology from Washington.

"They are likely asking for an apology because it diverts attention from their obvious embarrassment and shows strength in the face of severe American criticism over human rights," said Kuhn.

"Yet the fact that Chen is now contradicting U.S. officials -- such that, red-faced, they are having to justify their actions in releasing him -- works to reduce China's embarrassment."

This strange turn of events has raised all sorts of unpleasant questions about the way U.S. officials have handled the affair.

The Obama administration risks accusations that it is kowtowing to a repressive Chinese government at a time when democratic reform and regime change has taken place across much of the world in the last year.

Washington is also vulnerable to criticism that it is furthering strategic and economic interests in China to the detriment of America's broader goal of supporting democracy and freedom overseas.

China watchers expect a brief diplomatic standoff.

U.S. officials, they say, will continue to criticize "Chinese human rights" as judged by American values, and their Chinese counterparts will continue to condemn "American interference in China's internal affairs," as judged by China's sense of sovereignty.

"Yet both sides will continue to reach beyond the rhetoric and deal with international stability and economic growth," said Kuhn.

Beijing and Washington, after all, have resolved serious diplomatic crises in the past two decades. These include the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the spy plane collision in 2001.

During these crises, American and Chinese diplomats worked out carefully worded agreements that would allow leeway for each side to "explain" the resolution in terms that would be acceptable to their own people.

Clinton's forceful statements about protecting human rights and China's unequivocal assertions about protecting Chinese sovereignty illustrate this point.

Observers regard such tough talk as a prerequisite toward a compromise solution, which could see Chen seeking further medical treatment in the U.S. -- a "face-saving" way to allow the blind activist and family to leave China, as he now says he wishes.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/china-chen-florcruz/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

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Amid violence, Syria to hold elections

(CNN) -- Syrians are expected to go to the polls Monday to vote in parliamentary elections that are being held amid ongoing violence and increasing international pressure on the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad.

More than 7,000 candidates will vie for a place in the 250-seat parliament, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. Voting is scheduled to start at 7 a.m. (12 a.m. ET), it said.

The election comes after the nation adopted a new constitution that allows political parties to compete with the ruling Baath Party. That referendum, hailed by government supporters as a step toward reform, was widely ridiculed by analysts and protesters as window dressing.

Syria's anti-government protests started peacefully in March of last year, but a crackdown spawned violence that has left thousands dead and prompted some military defectors to take up arms against government forces. The government has consistently blamed the violence on "armed terrorists."

Woes mount in Syria as UN mission grows

 

At least four people died Sunday, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria.

Also Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited a refugee camp along the Turkey-Syria border where he promised to support people fleeing the violence there and said that the Syrian president is "losing blood."

"Oppressors who massacre innocent people, children and women have always, sooner or later, served their sentences in history," Erdogan said.

"Bashar is losing blood with every passing day," he added, referring to his former ally.

The prime minister vowed to host the more than 23,000 Syrian refugees living in Turkish camps until they voluntarily choose to go back to their country.

On Saturday, an explosion near Syria's largest city of Aleppo killed at least five people, opposition activists said. The blast occurred as security forces drove by in a bus, but it was unclear whether the fatalities were soldiers or civilians, according to the Britain-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It also reported separate blasts in the capital of Damascus.

Opposition activists said they asked United Nations observers to visit a university after Syrian forces stormed dormitories during anti-government protests last week, killing seven people and forcing its closure.

Head of U.N. mission arrives in Syria

Dozens of unarmed military observers are in Syria with a total of 300 expected by the end of the month to monitor a cease-fire and the peace plan.

Aleppo, a bastion of support for President al-Assad, has been largely spared in Syria's 14 months of bloody uprising. Recent protests there could signal a significant shift.

"The regime is very worried," said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert who is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Their actions in the last few days demonstrate that."

CNN cannot independently verify reports of violence and deaths within Syria because the government has restricted access by most of the international media.

Also on Sunday, a group calling itself the al-Nusra Front claimed responsibility in postings to jihadist websites for a suicide bombing on government forces said to be involved in a massacre of protesters in al-Latamneh.

The group said the April 20 car-bomb attack targeted a headquarters of 350 soldiers, but did not include further details about the attack. The group has claimed responsibility for other attacks, including a March 27 bombing that killed at least 27 people at a military intelligence office, according to the jihadist monitoring service SITE.

Syrian opposition groups have previously expressed doubts about the group, saying they believe the al-Assad regime may be behind the claims.

Attacks and clashes violate a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan, escalating doubts on whether the uprising can be resolved.

A cease-fire went into effect April 12 as part of a six-point peace plan negotiated by Annan.

The plan includes the government allowing humanitarian groups access to the population, releasing detainees, starting a political dialogue and withdrawing troops from city centers.

The United Nations estimates that at least 9,000 people have died in the conflict but that estimate is old and believed low by opposition groups.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/06/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

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Yemeni al-Qaeda leader killed in 'drone air strike'

                       Fahd al Quso was described as 'a senior terrorist operative' and had a price of $5 million on his head

An al-Qaeda leader in Yemen wanted in connection with the 2000 bombing of the American warship USS Cole has been killed in an air raid.

A tribal leader in the east of the country says Fahd al-Quso was killed by two missiles fired from a drone.

His death was confirmed by al-Qaeda and Yemen's embassy in the US. At least one other man died in the strike.

The US had offered a $5m (£3.1m, 3.8m-euro) reward for information leading to his capture.

A US official welcomed the death of the "senior terrorist operative". He told AFP news agency that al-Quso had been planning further attacks against the US and Yemen.

The USS Cole was attacked in October 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden. Militants in a boat packed with explosives blew a hole in the destroyer's side, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40.

The US has never formally acknowledged the use of drones against Yemeni al-Qaeda suspects, but is thought to have carried out eight other attacks of this kind so far this year.

In April, The Washington Post newspaper said that the CIA was asking for authorisation to carry out more drone strikes in Yemen.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17979424

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A Tel Aviv University report says Saudi Arabia is Israel’s last hope

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - A recent report by Tel Aviv University says Saudi Arabia is the last hope and defense line for Israel and has described the Saudis as Tel Aviv’s last chance to protect its political interests in the Arab world.

The report said that most of Israel’s allies in the region have collapsed and cannot play a significant role in the Arab world.

It added that Saudi Arabia is the only country that stands against the Islamic Republic of Iran and thus it is Tel Aviv’s last line of defense against Tehran.

The report noted that the Al Saud family is very important to Israel because Saudi Arabia is very actively working in countries such as Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon to reduce Iran's influence in those countries.

Last March, a senior Egyptian cleric accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of meddling in the internal affairs of other Muslim nations, calling the two states “Israel’s servants.”

Sheikh Mohammad Alaedin Madhi said the two countries were implementing an Israeli-US plan in Syria.

He also criticized the Saudi-owned television network Al-Arabiya and the Qatar-owned broadcaster Al-Jazeera for "serving Israeli interests."

Moreover, in emails leaked by WikiLeaks and obtained by the Beirut-based newspaper Al-Akhbar, it was revealed that Saudi Arabia had reached out to the Mossad, which assisted the kingdom with, as Al-Akhbar reports, "intelligence collection and advice on Iran."

According to a source quoted in the emails, "Several enterprising Mossad officers, both past and present, are making a bundle selling the Saudis everything from security equipment (to) intelligence and consultation." 

Source: http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=313289

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Obama goes hard after GOP in official start of re-election campaign

President Obama began his official re-election campaign Saturday by asking for more time to fix America's problems and saying that voting for Mitt Romney would be a return to failed GOP policies.

"Republicans have found a nominee who will rubber-stamp their agenda," he said inside a backed Ohio State University basketball arena. "We've been through too much to turn back now."

Though the campaign officially begins today with stops in the swing states of Ohio and Virginia, the president has been in campaign mode for months, traversing the country talking about election-issue topics.

Obama visited Virginia Commonwealth University later Saturday afternoon.

In Ohio, he hit most of the major issues that have so far come to define the general election, including the economy, women's health, a college education and the U.S. military involvement overseas.

Reworking a 2008 campaign promise, Obama said he wants more citizens in the United States than anywhere else in the world to have a college degree by the end of the decade.

"A college education shouldn't be a luxury, it's an imperative," he said, recalling a recent GOP battle. "That's why I'm running for president."

Rick Santorum, when he was still a GOP candidate, called Obama a "snob" for holding such elitist views and said the president should instead be concerned about finding ways to create jobs for the unemployed.

Obama again mentioned the death of terrorist Usama bin Laden, under his administration, saying he is "no longer a threat," and suggested that a Republican if elected might limit women's access to reproductive health care.

"I want women to make their own choices," he said to applause.

Obama also argued the recession and prolonged recovery that have largely defined his first term began under the Bush administration while he was still campaigning four years ago.

The Republican National Committee responded after the Ohio speech, by saying Americans think one Obama term for was enough.

"Four years ago President Obama set the goal posts with the question of 'will this country be better off four years from now?' Four years later, a crowd of his supporters gave him the answer so many Americans agree with -- a resounding no," said committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

Obama won Ohio and Virginia in his 2008 election, and this will be at least his fourth visit this year to each of the states.

The president was joined on the campaign trial by first lady Michelle Obama, who spoke first in Ohio before the estimated crowd of 14,000.

"More than ever before Barack needs your help," she said. "He needs every single one of you to give just a little part of your life to this campaign."

No Republican has won the general election without winning Ohio, which has 18 electoral votes.

Romney  -- who started his campaign last summer and is now the likely GOP presidential nominee -- has campaigned in Ohio three times in the past several weeks and is scheduled to return with a town hall-style meeting Monday in Cleveland.

The president has already attended 124 fundraisers to get money for his cause, though Saturday officially kicks off the campaign.

Though Ohio and Virginia have jobless rates below the national average, the trips come amid polls that continue to show a close race and a downbeat Labor Department report Friday that showed the jobless rate at 8.1 percent in April, but only 115,000 jobs being added that month.

The most recent poll by Quinnipiac University showed Romney ahead in Ohio , 44 percent to 42 percent, within the poll's margin of error but a significant change since the school's March poll that had Obama leading by 6 percentage points.

Quinnipiac pollsters note two significant factors on how Romney cut into the president's lead.

"Now the de facto nominee, Romney is no longer being attacked by his fellow Republicans, who are closing ranks behind him. Second, voter optimism about the economy has leveled off," they said.

The president will visit Virginia Commonwealth University for the other part of the Saturday trip, marking the second time in two days he has been in the state. Obama spoke with students Friday at a northern Virginia high school.

A Washington Post poll released this week showed Obama leading Romney in Virginia 51 percent to 44 percent, among  registered voters, essentially the same numbers as a Post poll taken in April-May 2011.

Fox News Channel political analyst Dick Morris said Saturday the recent polls result are misleading because those surveyed should be un-registered voters, not likely voters.

"Obama will not get the undecided vote," he said.
 

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/05/obama-officially-begins-re-election-campaign-in-ohio-virginia/#ixzz1u28iGwt1

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Peru drug rehabilitation clinic fire kills 14

Fourteen people have died after being trapped in a Peruvian drug rehabilitation centre during a fire, firefighters say, in the second such tragedy this year.

The blaze broke out at the Sacred Heart of Jesus centre, a two-storey building in the Chosica district, 30km (19 miles) east of the capital, Lima.

There was only one survivor. The cause of the fire has not yet been confirmed.

A fire swept through another drug clinic in January, killing 27 people.

Fire chief Fernando Campos said 14 bodies had been counted - 13 on the second floor and one on the first floor.

He said firefighters had to use tools to break into the building, as the the main door was padlocked.

"The doors were locked and the windows on the second floor had bars on them. It wasn't possible for people to get out," he told AFP news agency.

According to Peruvian media reports, the blaze began at around 04:00 local time (09:00 GMT) after a patient set fire to a mattress on the second floor.

It reportedly took two hours for firefighters to bring the blaze under control.

In January's accident, which took place at the unlicensed Christ Is Love centre in Lima, the doors were also locked, forcing some to leap from windows in an effort to escape the flames.

The accident prompted calls for better regulation of such rehabilitation clinics in Peru, where only one in five is believed to be functioning with a licence.

According to the drug abuse and prevention group Cedro, some 60,000 to 100,000 people are addicted to drugs in Peru, which is one of the world's leading cocaine producers.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17967855

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other '9/11 plotters' in court

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks have appeared before a US military tribunal at Guantanamo to be charged.

The hearing had an uncertain start, with suspects refusing to answer questions. Breaking their silence, one demanded to speak now saying Americans might kill him during the trial.

An earlier attempt to try the five in a civilian court was halted in 2009.

Newly-introduced rules include a ban on evidence obtained under torture.

But defence lawyers still say the Guantanamo trial system lacks legitimacy because of restricted access to their clients.

The defendants are accused of planning and executing the attacks of 11 September 2001, which saw hijacked planes strike New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania and left a total of 2,976 people dead.

They face charges including terrorism, hijacking, conspiracy, and murder.

A small number of victims' relatives are attending Saturday's hearing at the military complex.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17966362

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