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China, Russia Vow to Tighten UN Partnership
June 06, 2012
BEJING - China and Russia pledged Tuesday to increase their cooperation in the United Nations, as the giant neighbours try to resist mounting pressure for international action to stop the bloodshed in Syria.China's President Hu Jintao said closer cooperation would allow the two countries, whose stance has angered Western powers, to ...
IAEA Urges Iran to Sign Nuclear Deal
June 05, 2012
VIENNA - The head of the UN nuclear agency urged Iran on Monday to sign a deal allowing greater clarity on its disputed nuclear drive and announced that new talks with Tehran would be held this week.
At the start of a week-long meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors in Vienna, Yukiya Amano ...
Turkish PM Accuses Assad of ‘Autocratic’ Behavior
June 04, 2012
ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday accused his one-time ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of autocratic behavior, saying that such an approach would not serve peace.
"So far, I haven't seen him approach reforms with a democratic understanding. He is still approaching ...
IAEA Sees New “Activities” at Iran Site: Diplomats
May 31, 2012
VIENNA - The U.N. nuclear watchdog showed new satellite imagery on Wednesday indicating that Iran may be cleaning a site where inspectors suspect it has carried out tests relevant to developing atomic bombs, participants at a closed-door briefing said. One person who attended ...
Peace Plan Depends on ‘End of Terrorism’: Assad to Annan
May 30, 2012
DAMASCUS - The success of Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan depends on "the end of terrorism," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the UN-Arab League envoy on Tuesday, state television reported.
"The success of the Annan plan depends on the end of terrorist ...
Hague Warns of ‘All-Out Civil War’ in Syria
May 29, 2012
LONDON - Britain warned on Monday that failure by the two sides in Syria to implement UN envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan could lead to "all-out civil war and collapse" in the violence-torn country.
"It is not as if the alternatives in Syria are the Annan plan or ...
Merkel’s Lead over German Opposition Slumps: Poll
May 28, 2012
BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives saw their lead over the main centre-left opposition party crumble in the sharpest one-week shift in German voter sentiment in seven years, an opinion poll showed on Sunday. An eight percentage point lead by Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) over the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) fell to just two points during a week that saw the chancellor face pressure over the ...
Enriched Uranium Traces A ‘Technical Issue’: Iran
May 27, 2012
TEHRAN, Iran — A top Iranian nuclear negotiator said traces of enriched uranium discovered at an underground bunker came from a "routine technical issue," the country's official IRNA news ...
Working to Get U.N. Missions Bank Accounts: U.S.
May 26, 2012
UNITED NATIONS - Responding to a complaint by Syria's U.N. envoy, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said on Friday it was working to ensure that foreign diplomatic missions whose accounts have been closed by U.S. banks are able to get new ...
Egyptians Vote in First Free Presidential Election
May 24, 2012
CAIRO — More than 15 months after autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak's ouster, Egyptians streamed to polling stations Wednesday to freely choose a president for the first time in generations. Waiting hours in line, some debated to the last minute over their vote in a historic election pitting old regime figures against ascending ...
IMF Calls on UK to Do More to Boost Economy
May 23, 2012
LONDON — The International Monetary Fund has issued a tough assessment of U.K. economic policy, urging the coalition government and Bank of England to do more to boost demand in the economy.The IMF's report of its latest consultation with British authorities released Tuesday called for more stimulus, either through further rounds of ...
IAEA Chief in Iran to Press for Nuclear Cooperation
May 22, 2012
TEHRAN - The head of the UN nuclear surveillance agency pressed Iran over inspections during a visit to Tehran on Monday that was being closely watched ahead of wider nuclear talks between Iran and world powers later this week. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano kicked off his ...
Turkish PM Visits Pakistan for Three-Day Visit
May 20, 2012
ISLAMABAD - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will arrive on Sunday for a three-day visit to Pakistan on the invitation of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani for wide-ranging talks. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be leading a high-powered delegation, will also hold talks with the top leadership of Pakistan on the entire gamut of ...
Monitors Alone Cannot End Syria Bloodshed: UN
May 19, 2012
DAMASCUS, Syria -- The head of a U.N. observer team in Syria cautioned Friday that the mission cannot achieve a permanent end to the violence without genuine talks between the two sides that have been locked in a violent conflict for more than a year.Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of the 200-strong observer team, spoke as ...
Syrians Support His Reform Efforts: Assad
May 17, 2012
BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad has told a Russian state news channel that his country supports his reform agenda. He says recent parliamentary elections in the country show that Syrians "up to this time support the course ...
Hollande Names Ayrault New French Prime Minister
May 16, 2012
PARIS— Francois Hollande was sworn in Tuesday as France's new president — the first Socialist to lead the country since 1995 — and within hours named lawmaker Jean-Marc Ayrault as his new prime ...
German Opposition Wins Major State Election
May 15, 2012
BERLIN — Voters in Germany's most populous state inflicted an embarrassingly heavy defeat on Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives Sunday and strengthened a regional government that the German leader's party had portrayed as irresponsibly spendthrift. The outcome boosted Germany's center-left opposition, and was a bitter pill to swallow for ...
Iran Warns West Ahead of IAEA, Baghdad Talks
May 14, 2012
TEHRAN - Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said on Sunday that Tehran will not yield to pressure ahead of talks with the UN atomic watchdog and the world powers over its controversial nuclear drive.
"The time for pressure strategy has come to an end," Jalili ...
India Agrees $560m US Artillery Deal
May 13, 2012
NEW DEHLI- India agreed a $560 million deal to buy 145 howitzer guns from BAE Systems of the US as it upgrades its antiquated military hardware, an official said Saturday.
India is updating its military capabilities with hardware worth tens of billions of dollars in the face of long-standing tensions with regional rivals China and ...
EU Sees Hope of Recovery from Recession
May 12, 2012
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union says that a recession brought on by a crippling debt crisis could give way to a modest recovery later this year — provided governments persevere on the tough austerity track.It suggested that more growth-enhancing measures can be pursued alongside strict budgetary controls, but only as long as they do not ...
UN Chides Blast as ‘Violence Syrians Do Not Need’
May 10, 2012
DARAA - A blast that hit troops escorting UN observers in Syria's south on Wednesday was "a graphic example of violence that the Syrian people do not need," said UN observer chief Major General Robert Mood.
The incident in the southern city of Daraa came a day after UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan warned that his peace plan could be the last ...
UN Must Bolster Observer Mission to Syria: Erdogan
May 09, 2012
The UN should bolster its mission to Syria with up to 3,000 observers to give a full picture of the situation in the country, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday."We need 1,000, 2,000, maybe 3,000 observers, a major mission so they can visit the whole country and see what is happening," Erdogan said ...
French Leader Hollande Face Questions over EU Pact
May 08, 2012
PARIS - France's president-elect Francois Hollande was plunged straight into the European economic debate on Monday, as doubts over his plans and turmoil in Greece threatened to tip the eurozone back into crisis.
The 57-year-old Socialist won power on Sunday, ousting right-wing ...
Socialist Candidate Wins French Presidential Election
May 07, 2012
PARIS – French Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande, has won the French presidential election, according to a report by Agency France Press. AFP said that, based on exit polls, Hollande gained between 52 and 53.3 percent of the vote, putting an end to the political career of ...
9/11 ‘Mastermind’ Back Before Guantanamo Judge
May 06, 2012
The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four alleged co-conspirators will appear in public for the first time in more than three years, when U.S. officials start a second attempt at what is likely to be a drawn out legal battle that could lead to the ...
Clinton Presses China to Help on Global Challenges
May 05, 2012
BEIJING — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday urged China to play a responsible role in the world by respecting human rights and helping to deal with challenges posed by Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs and violence in Syria and Sudan and South ...
Japan, South Korea Urges No More North Korea “Provocations”
May 03, 2012
VIENNA - Japan and South Korea urged North Korea on Wednesday to refrain from any new "provocations", amid concern the secretive Asian state will soon conduct a new nuclear test. North Korea, which tested plutonium devices in 2006 and 2009, has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test; a senior source ...
Sarkozy Fighting for His Future, Likely to Lose
May 02, 2012
PARIS— President Nicolas Sarkozy is the underdog, and he knows it. Not a single poll has predicted he will win re-election on Sunday, and leading figures in his government are already lining up new jobs.In televised interviews, Sarkozy's on the defensive and paints himself as a victim. At campaign rallies, he's boxer-like, punching the air, torso ...
EU Wrangles Over Bank Rules in Crisis Aftermath
May 01, 2012
BRUSSELS — Disagreement between European states on new banking rules is highlighting a key weakness in the continent's effort to fight its crisis — whereas the financial sector is spread across national borders, it's still individual countries that have to pick up the bill when things turn sour.
At the heart of the dispute is not only the question of how to ensure ...
Iran Hopes for ‘Success’ in Next Nuclear Talks
April 30, 2012
TEHRAN - Iran hopes May 23 talks with world powers in Baghdad over its disputed nuclear program will result in "success," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday, according to ISNA news agency.
"The Istanbul talks were a success and we hope that the Baghdad meeting also will be a success, and if we took one step forward in ...
EU Treaty Likely Delayed: German Opposition
April 29, 2012
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refusal to amend a European treaty on fiscal discipline with measures to promote growth in struggling EU countries might delay the deal's ratification in Germany, an opposition leader ...
Ban Warns N. Korea to Refrain from Nuclear Test
April 28, 2012
THAILAND QUOTE - UN leader Ban Ki-moon warned North Korea on Friday against conducting a nuclear test, amid speculation Pyongyang may be planning such a move after a failed rocket launch earlier this month.
Labelling the rocket launch a "threat to international peace and ...
Sarkozy Rules out Deal with Far Right
Thursday April 26
PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday ruled out any pact with Marine Le Pen's National Front after its electoral breakthrough but insisted far-right supporters should not be demonized.
As Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande accused Sarkozy of going too far to "seduce" the far right, European Union president ...
North Korea’s Nuclear Test Ready “Soon”
April 25, 2012
BEIJING - North Korea has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters, which will draw further international condemnation following a failed rocket launch if it goes ahead.The isolated and impoverished state sacrificed the chance of closer ties with the United ...
Iraq PM in Iran for 2-Day Visit
April 23, 2012
TEHRAN - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki arrived in Tehran on Sunday for two days of meetings with Iranian leaders and senior officials on various bilateral issues, Iran's IRNA state news agency reported.
The visit notably comes ahead of an important May 23 meeting to be hosted in Baghdad between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers on ...