Showing posts with label Meeting. Show all posts
Taliban will free US soldier if 5 'operatives' released from Gitmo - AP
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| Taliban associated video production group Manba al-Jihad December 7, 2010 release of someone that appears to be US soldier Bowe Bergdahl (L), who has been held hostage by the Taliban since his disappearance from his unit on June 30, 2009 (AFP Photo / IntelCenter) |
The Afghan Taliban say they are willing to release a US soldier captured in 2009. The group has demanded the release of five senior operatives from Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for the soldier's freedom. US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is “in good condition,” Taliban spokesperson Shaheen Suhail told AP. Bergdahl has been in captivity since June 30, 2009. The Taliban are demanding the five Gitmo detainees be released before they hand over Bergdahl to the US, Suhail said, adding that the militant movement "wants to build bridges of confidence" through the exchange. Suhail made the remarks from the Taliban's newly opened office in the Qatari capital Doha. The proposal comes as the US attempts to press forward with talks with the Taliban despite angry denunciations from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Kabul suspended security talks with Washington on Wednesday, saying the Afghan government had been sidelined by the US and Taliban in their proposed peace negotiations. "As long as the peace process is not Afghan-led, the High Peace Council will not participate in the talks in Qatar," President Karzai said in a statement. Kabul also complained that the militant movement poses as a representative of the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,’ an entity that Afghan authorities do not recognize as legitimate. The name was used by Afghanistan back when the country was under Taliban rule in the 1990s. The Islamist government was recognized but a handful of UN members, but was ousted by the 2001 NATO invasion. Kabul’s anger came a day after the Taliban opened its office in Doha with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, which the Karzai government blasted as an attempt to create a rival embassy in Qatar. "The agreement was that the office should open only – and only – for negotiations, not as a political entity like a parallel institution to the Afghan Embassy which is already there," Shafiullah Nooristani, a member of the High Peace Council said. The US was expected to start talks with the Taliban as early as this week in Doha. Washington is attempting to secure a safe exit from Afghanistan for its troops next year. Some expected the preliminary talks to open on Thursday, but the meeting became unlikely after Kabul voiced objections, a senior US source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
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Obama’s ratings plummet after surveillance scandal
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| US President Barack Obama (AFP Photo / Pool) |
President Barack Obama’s approval rating has dropped from 53 to 45
percent in the past month, with 61 percent of US poll respondents
criticizing his handling of domestic government spying in wake of the
NSA surveillance scandal. The latest national CNN poll offers evidence that the president
is suffering the political consequences of the National Security
Agency’s spy tactics, which were first revealed by whistleblower
Edward Snowden this month. The president’s approval rating is now the lowest it has been in
more than a year and a half, with the majority of Americans
expressing ill feelings toward Obama. Fifty percent of poll
respondents said they do not believe Obama is honest and
trustworthy, 54 percent disapprove of his job handling, and 61
percent disapprove of the way he’s handling US government
surveillance, according to the CNN/ORC International survey. About 60 percent of respondents also said that the US government
is so large and powerful that it endangers American freedoms. Obama’s disapproval rating has been on the rise for months,
increasing from 51 percent in January to 54 percent in April and
57 percent in June. “The drop in Obama’s support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point
decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along
with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama
coalition,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said in the
news agency’s release of the findings. Obama’s approval rating among independent voters plummeted by 10
points in the last month, with only 37 percent agreeing with his
job handling and 61 percent disapproving of it this month. Holland believes the significant drop in Obama’s support comes as
a result of recent government scandals, including the IRS’
targeting of conservative groups, the Justice Department’s
criminal pursuit of journalists, and the revelation of the NSA’s
extensive surveillance program. “It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs
have damaged Obama’s standing with the public, although older
controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their
toll as well,” he told CNN. Former President George W. Bush came under scrutiny for
government surveillance when he was in office, but Obama’s
disapproval rating is now lower than his predecessor’s. About 52
percent of Americans disapproved of Bush’s handling of government
surveillance of US citizens in 2006, which is 9 points lower than
the 61 percent who felt that way about Obama today. But criticism of the Obama administration stretches beyond the
US. The president has lost significant support in Europe,
particularly in France, Germany, and Italy. Obama is likely to
face tough questions about the NSA’s data collection program from
policymakers at this year’s G-8 Summit in Ireland. Peter Schaar, Germany’s freedom of information commissioner, told
Reuters that he plans to ask questions “regarding these
monstrous allegations of total monitoring of various
telecommunications and Internet services.” German Chancellor
Angela Merkel also said she would bring up the topic with Obama
while he is in Europe this week. “The most upset party in all of this, I think, is the
Germans,” Michael J. Geary, an assistant professor at
Maastricht University, told the National Journal. “The Germans
were the most snooped-upon country, apparently, in March. In a
country where memories of the former East German Stasi are still
quite fresh, the response has been quite critical.” Markus Ferber, a member of Merkel’s Bavarian sister party and a
member of the European Parliament, last week accused
Washington of using “American-style Stasi methods.” “I thought this era had ended when the DDR fell,” he said,
referring the German Democratic Republic. Obama’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is equally
likely to culminate in a discussion about the NSA’s surveillance
program, especially since recent documents uncovered
the agency’s interception of classified communications of former
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The unraveling of the NSA’s surveillance program has taken a hard
hit at Obama’s reputation, both domestically and internationally.
And as Obama meets with European leaders this week, he will
likely face further criticism for a program that has thrust the
discussion of government spying onto the global stage. “We certainly understand that, like the United States,
countries in Europe have significant interests in privacy and
civil liberties,” Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council
told the National Journal. And with the majority of Americans
disapproving of their president’s job handling and European
leaders publicly condemning Obama, the administration will face
tough questions at the G-8 Summit and beyond.
US spied on Russian President Medvedev at 2009 G20 summit – NSA leaks
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| Russian President Dmitry Medvedev holds a press briefing in London on April 2, 2009 after a day of talks at the G-20 summit (AFP Photo / RIA Novosti / Kremlin Pool / Vladimir Rodionov) |
As Britain readies to host the G8 summit, the documents uncovered by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed that back in 2009 US spies intercepted top-secret communication of then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, during his visit to London.The shocking news has been broken by The Guardian which has seen the documents. It also revealed that a UK intelligence agency, GCHQ, monitored foreign politicians and intercepted their emails during the 2009 G20 summit held in the British capital. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by UK intelligence agencies to read their email traffic.The 39th G8 summit is scheduled to start on Monday in the small Northern Irish resort town of Lough Erne with all the nations who were present at the 2009 London meeting attending.According to the leaked documents viewed by the British paper, the details of the intercept of Medvedev’s communications were set out in a briefing prepared by the US National Security Agency (NSA), and shared with high-ranking officials from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The document was drafted in August 2009, four months after the Russian president attended the London G20 summit. In the wake of the scandalous leak of NSA documents, US officials have been defending massive surveillance tactics stressing that they were crucial in the fight against terrorism. However, the recent revelations about the actions of the NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) suggests this was simply a case of espionage.During the London summit, GCHQ used what one document described as "ground-breaking intelligence capabilities" to intercept the communications of the foreign delegations. The spy agency set up internet cafes where they used an email interception program and key-logging software to monitor delegates' use of computers. The security of delegates’ BlackBerrys had been penetrated to enable GCHQ see their messages and phone calls.Among other targets of surveillance at the summit was the Turkish finance minister and possibly 15 others in his party.
