close

Welcome to JBS.org

Login or create your account below.

Member Login

Foreign Policy



Clinton Speculates if Pakistan Knows Where Al-Qaeda Leaders Are PDF Print E-mail
Written by Warren Mass   
Thursday, 29 October 2009 13:41

VOA News has reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while speaking to Pakistani journalists in Lahore on October 29,  said it is hard to believe that Pakistani authorities do not know where al Qaeda leaders are hiding. Clinton said it is also difficult to believe the Pakistani government could not "get" the terrorists if it wanted to.

“Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002,” Bloomberg News quoted Clinton’s statement to a group of editors in the eastern Pakistani city. “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to. Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.”

Clinton engaged in question-and-answer session with students at the Government College of Lahore, where she told the students that inaction by their government would result in ceding territory to terrorists.

 
Deadly Blast Rocks Peshawar After Clinton Arrives in Pakistan PDF Print E-mail
Written by Warren Mass   
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 14:00

A car bomb explosion blasted through the crowded Meena Bazaar market area of Peshawar, the most populous city in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, on October 28, killing at least 90 people and wounding 100 others. The blast occurred a short time after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for three days of talks with senior government officials. The two cities are about 88 miles apart.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister of North West Frontier Province, said in a telephone interview with Reuters news that the blast was set off by a suicide bomber in a car packed with as much as 330 pounds of explosives.

Reuters reported that the explosion occurred in the busy Peepal Mandi market street “in a city that for years served as the headquarters of the Pakistan- and U.S.- backed mujahideen war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan.” (In an article entitled “Bleeding Afghanistan” published in The New American magazine for December 8, 1986, this writer interviewed an American journalist who told of meeting up with a mujahideen group in Peshawar in June 1985 and was issued a Soviet-made AK-47 automatic rifle before accompanying the resistance fighters into Afghanistan.)

 
NATO Chief Demands Stronger Afghanistan Effort PDF Print E-mail
Written by Warren Mass   
Thursday, 22 October 2009 14:00

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking during a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Bratislava, Slovakia, on October 22, called for the defense alliance’s members to redouble their efforts to train and equip Afghan forces, warning that inaction would have serious consequences.

During his talk, entitled ''New Challenges — Better Capabilities,''  Rasmussen countered the increasing anti-war sentiment in NATO countries with a warning against inactivity, stating:

Afghanistan is the most complex challenge which NATO has ever undertaken. And I am well aware that there are an increasing number of people, also here in Slovakia, who are asking if the cost of our engagement in Afghanistan is too high. To these people, I want to say very clearly and unambiguously that the cost of inaction would be far higher. Leaving Afghanistan behind would once again turn the country into a training ground for Al Qaeda. The pressure on nuclear-armed Pakistan would be tremendous. Instability would spread throughout Central Asia. And it would only be a matter of time until we, here in Europe, would feel the consequences of all of this.
 
Fraud Could Cut Karzai Lead in Afghan Vote PDF Print E-mail
Written by Warren Mass   
Monday, 19 October 2009 13:39

Afghanis, Americans, and the rest of the world waited in anticipation on October 19 for the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) that is investigating reports of fraud in the nation’s August 20 presidential election to release its results — results that will determine if incumbent President Harmid Karzai has been unequivocally reelected.

The commission released figures back on September 16 showing Karzai with 54.6 percent of the vote. According to Afghan law, if a single candidates fails to receive over 50 percent of the vote, a runoff vote must be held.

One late-breaking AP report announced that ECC investigators had thrown out nearly a third of Karzai's votes.

 
UNHRC Endorses Gaza War Crimes Report PDF Print E-mail
Written by Warren Mass   
Friday, 16 October 2009 14:00

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva voted 25 to six on October 16 in favor of a resolution to endorse a report that accuses both Israel and the Palestinians of committing "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during the December 2008-January 2009 war.

Voting in favor of the resolution were Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, and Zambia.

Voting against the resolution were were the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Ukraine. Eleven countries abstained from the vote. The report, which was written by a group of investigators led by South African judge Richard Goldstone (hence, “The Goldstone Report”), calls on both sides to conduct investigations into the war crimes accusations within six months. If Israel and the Palestinians refuse to comply, the matter would be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

 
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 Next > End >>

Page 1 of 4