Iranian TV has shown the first video footage of an advanced US drone aircraft that Tehran says it downed 140 miles (225km) from the Afghan border.
Images show Iranian military officials inspecting the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft which appears to be undamaged.
US officials have acknowledged the loss of the unmanned plane, saying it had malfunctioned.
However, Iranian officials say its forces electronically hijacked the drone and steered it to the ground.
Iran’s Press TV said that the Iranian army’s “electronic warfare unit” brought down the drone on 4 December as it was flying over the city of Kashmar.
Brig General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace unit, told Iranian media that the drone “fell into the trap” of the unit “who then managed to land it with minimum damage”.
He said Iran was “well aware of what priceless technological information” could be gleaned from the aircraft.
Nato said at the weekend that an unarmed reconnaissance aircraft had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week when its operators lost control of it.
Pentagon officials have said they are concerned about Iran possibly acquiring information about the technology.
Iranian media said on Thursday that the foreign ministry had summoned the Swiss envoy to express its “strongest protest over the invasion of a US spy drone deep into its airspace”.
Washington has no diplomatic relations with Iran and US affairs in the country are dealt with via the Swiss embassy in Tehran.
(BBC)
December 9, 2011 at 5:42 am
Russians are voting in polls that will decide the shape of the lower house, or Duma, for the next five years. There have been allegations of violations of election law, with Russia’s only independent monitoring group, Golos, logging 5,300 complaints.
Its head was held at a Moscow airport after refusing to hand over her laptop.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who leads the ruling United Russia party, has accused foreign powers of meddling in election preparations.
The Golos monitors, who are not affiliated with any party, are funded largely by the US and EU.
Duma members have questioned why the foreign-funded organisation – whose name means “voice” or “vote” – is allowed to monitor Russian elections.
(BBC)
December 4, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Members of the Arab League are set to vote on an unprecedented array of economic sanctions against Syria. The proposals include the halting of dealings with the Syrian central bank, the suspension of commercial flights and a travel ban on senior officials.
Arab ministers drafted the sanctions at a meeting in Cairo, in the latest move to punish Syria for its continuing brutal crackdown on protesters.
Syria’s foreign minister has accused the League of meddling in its affairs.
In a letter to the 22-member organisation, Walid al-Muallem said it was seeking to “internationalise” the conflict.
(BBC)
November 27, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Egypt’s cabinet has offered to resign after three days of mass protests against the military rulers. Cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said the resignation had not yet been accepted by the military council.
Thousands of protesters remained in Tahrir Square overnight on Monday after a call for further mass demonstrations to take place on Tuesday.
More than 20 people have been killed and nearly 1,800 injured in three days of violence in the Egyptian capital.
On Monday evening, ambulances with sirens wailing were seen driving into the heart of the large city-centre square to ferry the injured to hospital.
(BBC)
The clashes began on Saturday between police and protesters who want the military to transfer power to a civilian government.
November 22, 2011 at 9:15 am
President Barack Obama said on Thursday that the U.S. military would expand its role in the Asia-Pacific region despite budget cuts, declaring America was “here to stay” as a Pacific power which would help shape the region’s future.
China, which has longstanding fears that its growing power could be hobbled by U.S. influence, voiced misgivings about Obama’s announcement of a de facto military base in Australia.
Obama acknowledged China’s unease at what it sees as attempts by Washington to encircle it, pledging to seek greater cooperation with Beijing.
The U.S. military, turning its focus away from Iraq and Afghanistan, would be more broadly distributed in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, more flexible and help build regional capacity, he told the Australian parliament.
“As we end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia Pacific a top priority,” Obama said in a major speech on Washington’s vision for the Asia-Pacific region.
“As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not -I repeat, will not – come at the expense of the Asia Pacific.”
He added: “We’ll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation.”
(Reuters)
November 17, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Syrian army defectors have attacked a major military base near Damascus, a Syrian opposition group says. Parts of the Air Force Intelligence building in Harasta were destroyed in the overnight attack, said the Syrian Revolution General Commission.
The Free Syrian Army used rockets and machine-guns, it said, in its highest-profile attack since protests began.
It comes as the Arab League prepares to discuss its response to the crackdown on anti-government unrest in Syria.
The Syrian government has severely restricted access for foreign journalists, and reports of violence are extremely difficult to verify.
The UN says more than 3,500 people have died since protests started in March. The Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed gangs and militants.
An attack on the Harasta base would be significant because Syria’s Air Force Intelligence is one of the most feared state agencies and has been involved in the suppression of protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
The Arab League will formally suspend Syria’s membership at its meeting in Morocco on Wednesday, and will discuss other ways of increasing pressure on Mr Assad’s regime.
Syria, which will not attend the meeting, has condemned the suspension as “shameful and malicious”, accusing other Arab countries of conspiring with the West to undermine the regime.
(BBC)
November 16, 2011 at 1:40 pm
New York police have dismantled the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park and arrested more than 70 people following a late-night raid. Protesters were ordered to leave at about 01:00 (06:00 GMT), before police began removing tents and property.
The New York camp was set up in September to protest against economic inequality – it inspired dozens of similar camps around the world.
A camp in Oakland, California was cleared overnight on Monday.
Police in New York gave an announcement as their operation began, telling protesters: “The city has determined that the continued occupation of Zuccotti Park poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office released a message on Twitter saying protesters should “temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps” but could return once the park was clear.
(BBC)
November 15, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Technocrat leaders in Italy and Greece rushing to form governments will face a critical test of their ability to limit the damage from the euro zone debt crisis when financial markets open in Europe on Monday.
Italy’s president asked former European Commissioner Mario Monti on Sunday to form a government to restore market confidence in an economy whose debt burden is too big for the euro bloc to bail out.
Investors will pass initial judgment on his leadership when Italy’s Treasury asks investors on Monday to bid for up to 3 billion euros ($4.1 billion) in five-year government bonds. At an auction last week, the government’s borrowing costs surged above 6 percent and kept rising to levels well beyond what the country could afford to pay over the longer term.
In Asia, stocks and the euro rose on hopes that Monti and Greece’s new prime minister, Lucas Papademos, would take decisive action.
“Symbolically perhaps it’s (Berlusoni’s exit) a positive — it sends the message that it’s putting a certain chapter behind them but the fact remains is that this is difficult medicine to administer and it doesn’t really matter who gives the order, it’s going to be a difficult pill to swallow,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Trust in Chicago, which oversees $50 billion.
(Reuters)
November 14, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Italy looks set for lengthy political uncertainty after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s pledge to resign, with his center-right party calling for elections and the main opposition for a national unity government.
After failing to secure the majority in a vote in the lower house, Berlusconi said he would quit as soon as parliament passed budget reforms urged by European partners to help Italy stave off a debt crisis that is threatening the euro zone.
“We no longer have the majority we believed we had so we need to recognize this and concern ourselves with what is happening on markets…we need to show markets we are serious,” Berlusconi told Italian television by telephone.
Votes to pass the reforms in both houses of parliament are likely this month, and opposition leaders may try to bring this forward in order to end as soon as possible the flamboyant billionaire media tycoon’s 17-year dominance of Italy.
Worries about the Berlusconi government’s ability to implement reforms to boost Italy’s sluggish growth and cut its huge debt have helped fuel a rise in Italy’s borrowing costs to unsustainable levels, weighing on the euro and stock markets.
Global equity markets and the euro rose after Berlusconi’s decision on hopes that a new leader will act more aggressively to tackle the crisis in the euro zone’s third largest economy that is jeopardizing Europe’s single currency project.
The 75-year-old prime minister and his party say an election is the only realistic next step but opposition leaders have called for the formation of a national unity.
(Reuters)
November 9, 2011 at 9:58 am
A big asteroid made its closest fly-by of Earth in 200 years on Tuesday, but there was never a chance of a crash landing as it zipped past our planet, NASA said.
Astronomers around the world aimed their telescopes to catch a glimpse of asteroid 2005 YU55, which is about as big as an aircraft carrier but was not visible to the naked eye when it passed by at its closest point at 2328 GMT (10.28 Wednesday AEDT).
“Frankly, for anybody this is going to be really hard to see. This is 100 times more dim than what the human eye can see. You need a good telescope,” NASA spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said before the fly-by.
The near-spherical, 400-metre diameter asteroid often travels in the vicinity of Earth, Mars and Venus, but “the 2011 encounter with Earth is the closest this space rock has come for at least the last 200 years,” the US space agency said.
Other asteroids of this size pass by Earth frequently, though the last such event happened in 1976 and the next will not happen again until 2028, when an asteroid called 2001 WN5 will skim about halfway between the Moon and Earth.
NASA said at the point of closest approach on Tuesday, the 2005 YU55 asteroid “was no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometres), as measured from the centre of Earth” – roughly 0.85 times the distance of the Moon to the Earth.
The asteroid “is one of the potentially hazardous asteroids that make close approaches from time to time because their orbits either approach or intersect the orbit of the Earth,” said Robert McMillan, an associate research scientist at the University of Arizona.
McMillan discovered the asteroid in 2005 as part of the university’s Spacewatch Project, a solar system scanning group of scientists near Tucson, Arizona.
However, astronomers knew from analysing the trajectory of the asteroid that it would not hit Earth this time.
The asteroid’s next closest pass is set to take place in 2094, at a distance of 268,700km, according to forecasts.
“The observations will give us a piece of the puzzle, one we don’t get many chances to see,” said Don Yeomans of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“At one time, we thought these were the asteroids that delivered carbon and other elements to the early Earth, so they are pretty important.”
NASA said the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico was tracking the asteroid as it closed in.
Astronomers at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts also trained their 25-inch (64cm) telescope to track the asteroid and capture images of it.
NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California grabbed radar images of the asteroid looking like a large gray egg, which were posted on the NASA website.
While the asteroid’s visit has scientists excited for the chance to get a closer look, most Earthlings probably would not notice a thing.
“The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on Earth, including tides and tectonic plates,” NASA said.
(AFP)
November 9, 2011 at 7:21 am
Michael Jackson’s personal doctor has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the singer’s death following a six-week trial that captivated Jackson fans around the world.
Dr. Conrad Murray, 58, was led away in handcuffs after the Los Angeles jury reached a unanimous verdict. The doctor, who could face up to four years in prison, will be sentenced on November 29.
Dozens of fans outside the courtroom erupted in cheers and some burst into tears.
Murray had pleaded not guilty to giving the “Thriller” singer a fatal dose of the powerful anesthetic propofol — normally used in surgery — that was ruled the main cause of the pop star’s June 25, 2009 death.
But prosecutors argued Murray was grossly negligent in administering the propofol to help Jackson sleep. Defense attorneys claimed Jackson delivered the fatal dose to himself.
The judge ordered Murray, who has been free on bail for two years, held in custody until his sentencing at the end of the month.
Murray did not testify at the Los Angeles trial and looked impassive as the guilty verdict was pronounced to a small cry from his side of the packed courtroom.
Jackson’s mother Katherine and the singer’s sister Rebbie cried silently as the guilty verdict was read. His siblings La Toya, Jermaine and Randy, and his father Joe, were also on hand.
Jackson was found lifeless at his Los Angeles mansion on June 25, 2009, age 50, about three weeks before he was scheduled to begin a series of concerts in London aimed at returning the pop star to the limelight after the humiliation of his 2005 trial and acquittal on child molestation.
(Reuters)
November 8, 2011 at 6:25 am
Greek leaders are due to agree the name of a new prime minister to lead a unity government until fresh polls are held. The deal came after Prime Minister George Papandreou agreed to stand down.
It followed days of upheaval caused by his decision – now revoked – to hold a referendum on the EU bailout plan to tackle Greece’s debt crisis.
The names of Lukas Papademos, a former deputy president of the European Central Bank, and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos have been floated.
The coalition is due to lead the country until elections, which could be held on 19 February, the finance ministry said.
Once the new leader is named, President Karolos Papoulias will invite parties to join the new government, according to a statement from the president’s office issued on Sunday evening.
(BBC)
November 7, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Three bomb blasts rocked a busy market in Iraq’s capital on Sunday, killing at least eight people and wounding 26 others, police and hospital sources said. The blasts occurred in Shurja, an important commercial district in central Baghdad, on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.
“I can see fire and black smoke mounting and a large number of fire engines, ambulances and police patrols rushing to the market,” a Reuters witness close to Shurja market said.
A source at al-Kindi hospital in Baghdad said the facility had received eight dead and 26 wounded from the attack.
Iraqi forces are preparing to take full responsibility for security by year-end when all U.S. troops pull out of the country, nearly nine years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Military leaders have expressed concerns that militants might ramp up attacks as the 33,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq pack up to leave.
(Reuters)
November 6, 2011 at 6:26 pm
The case against the physician charged with the death of the pop star Michael Jackson has gone to the jury, following closing statements. Prosecutors concluded their case by saying Dr Conrad Murray’s care of Jackson had been “bizarre” and left the pop star’s children fatherless.
The defence countered that the singer had caused his own death in June 2009 with an overdose of a sedative.
The seven-man, five-woman jury will begin deliberations on Friday morning.
If convicted, Dr Murray could face up to four years in prison and lose his licence to practise medicine.
During Thursday’s closing statements after the nearly six-week trial, the prosecution projected images of Jackson’s grief-stricken children on a giant screen.
The pop star’s mother and siblings watched from the court gallery as Deputy District Attorney David Walgren told the jury: “For Michael Jackson’s children this case goes on forever because they do not have a father.
“They do not have a father because of the actions of Conrad Murray.”
He cited Dr Murray’s delay in calling 911 and phone records that indicated the physician had been on the phone during Jackson’s final hours, when he should have been attending to his patient.
“What was so pressing that he just couldn’t care for Michael Jackson?” Mr Walgren asked the court.
(BBC)
November 4, 2011 at 6:46 am
WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange lost a court battle to stay in the United Kingdom Wednesday and will be extradited to Sweden to face questioning over sex charges, a court ruled. Appeals court judges Lord Justice John Thomas and Justice Duncan Ouseley rejected all four of the arguments Assange’s defense team used to fight the extradition.
They will hold another hearing later this month to determine whether he can appeal.
Assange, who has been under house arrest for nearly a year while waiting to find out the results, said Wednesday he will now consider his next steps.
“I have not been charged with any crime in any country,” he said on the steps of the High Court in London. “Despite this, the European arrest warrant is so restrictive that it prevents UK courts from considering the facts of a case, as judges have made clear here today.”
Assange is accused of sexually assaulting two women in Sweden in August 2010. Although he has not been charged with a crime, Swedish prosecutors want to question him in connection with the allegations.
(CNN)
November 2, 2011 at 4:41 pm
European markets have fallen following Monday’s announcement of a Greek referendum on the latest aid package to solve its debt crisis. Eurozone leaders agreed a 50% debt write-off for Greece last week as well as strengthening Europe’s bailout fund.
But the announcement of a referendum has cast doubt on whether the deal will be able to go ahead.
The FTSE 100 in London was down 3.2% while the Dax in Frankfurt fell 5.4% and the Cac 40 in Paris dropped 4.5%.
Shares in banks saw the biggest falls, with Credit Agricole down 11.5%, Societe Generale falling 14.4%, BNP Paribas down 10.5% and Barclays 9.3% lower.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to discuss the Greek announcement with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the telephone.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said it was “an unexpected decision that generates uncertainties”.
(BBC)
November 1, 2011 at 6:08 pm
The United Nations’ cultural agency decided Monday to give the Palestinians full membership of the body, a vote that will boost their bid for recognition as a state at the United Nations. UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have joined as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23.
The United States, Canada, Germany and Holland voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favor. Britain and Italy abstained.
Washington is likely to cut funding to UNESCO over the vote.
“The action today will complicate our ability to support UNESCO,” David T. Killion, U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, told journalists after the vote.
“The U.S. has been clear for the need of a two-state resolution, but the only path is through direct negotiations and there are no shortcuts, and initiatives like today are counterproductive.”
The vote highlighted divisions over foreign policy within the European Union, some of whose 27 members voted for and some against Palestinian membership.
Austrian UNESCO ambassador Ursula Plassnik, whose country voted in favor, said she regretted the European Union could not arrive at a common position on the Palestinian issue.
The Palestinians obtained backing from two thirds of UNESCO’s members to become the 195th member of UNESCO, with status as “an observer entity.” Of 173 countries that voted from a possible 185, 107 voted in favor, 14 voted against, 52 abstained and 12 were absent.
Forty representatives of the 58-member board has voted in favor of putting the matter to a vote earlier this month, with four — the United States, Germany, Romania and Latvia — voting against and 14 abstaining.
Admission will be seen by the Palestinians as a moral victory in their bid for full U.N. membership but could be costly for UNESCO.
(Reuters)
October 31, 2011 at 7:32 pm
