A heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities said on Thursday, as the hunt went on for the masterminds of the killing.

Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence.

Authorities tracked the suspected assassins on Wednesday to a house near the scene of the crime in Pétionville, a northern, hillside suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. A firefight lasted late into the night and authorities detained a number of suspects on Thursday.

Police Chief Charles Leon paraded 17 men before journalists at a news conference late on Thursday, showing a number of Colombian passports, plus assault rifles, machetes, walkie-talkies and materials including bolt cutters and hammers.

“Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” Charles said. “There were … 26 Colombians, identified by their passports … and two Haitian Americans as well.”

He said 15 Colombians were captured, as well as two Haitian Americans. Three of the assailants were killed and eight remained on the run, Charles said.

Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano said in a statement that preliminary information indicated that Colombians involved in the attack were retired members of the country’s military. He said Bogota would cooperate in the investigation.

Haiti’s minister of elections and interparty relations, Mathias Pierre, identified the Haitian-American suspects as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55.

A State Department spokesman could not confirm if any U.S. citizens were among those detained, but U.S. authorities were in regular contact with Haitian officials, including investigative authorities, to discuss how the United States could provide assistance.

Officials in the mostly French- and Creole-speaking Caribbean nation had said on Wednesday the assassins appeared to have spoken in English and Spanish.

“It was a full, well-equipped commando, with more than six cars and a lot of equipment,” Pierre said.

Officials have not yet given a motive for the killing. Since taking office in 2017, Moïse had faced mass protests against his rule — first over corruption allegations and his management of the economy, then over his increasing grip on power.

An angry crowd gathered on Thursday morning to watch the police operation unfold, with some setting fire to the suspects’ cars and to the house where they had hunkered down. Bullets were strewn in the street.

“Burn them!” shouted some of the hundreds of people outside the police station where the suspects were being held.

Charles said the local population had helped police track down the suspects, but he implored residents in the sprawling seafront city of 1 million people not to take justice into their own hands.

Residents of Brooklyn’s ‘Little Haiti’ react to Moise assassination

A 15-day state of emergency was declared on Wednesday to help authorities apprehend the killers. But interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said on Thursday it was time for the economy to reopen and that he had given instructions for the airport to restart operations.

Vacuum of power

Moïse’s death has generated confusion about who is the legitimate leader of the country of 11 million people, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

Haiti has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986, grappling with a series of coups and foreign interventions.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission – meant to restore order after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – ended in 2019 with the country still in disarray.

“I can picture a scenario under which there are issues regarding to whom the armed forces and national police are loyal, in the case there are rival claims to being placeholder president of the country,” said Ryan Berg, an analyst with the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Haiti’s 1987 constitution stipulates the head of the Supreme Court should take over. But amendments that are not unanimously recognized state that it be the prime minister, or, in the last year of a president’s mandate – the case with Moïse – that parliament should elect a president.

The head of the Supreme Court died last month due to COVID-19 amid a surge in infections in one of the few countries yet to start a vaccination campaign.

There is no sitting parliament as legislative elections scheduled for late 2019 were postponed amid political unrest.

Moïse just this week appointed a new prime minister, Ariel Henry, to take over from Joseph, although he had yet to be sworn in when the president was killed.

Joseph appeared on Wednesday to take charge of the situation, running the government response to the assassination, appealing to Washington for support and declaring a state of emergency.

Henry – considered more favorably by the opposition – told Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste that he did not consider Joseph the legitimate prime minister and he should revert to the role of foreign minister.

“I think we need to speak. Claude was supposed to stay in the government I was going to have,” Henry was quoted as saying.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti said on Thursday Joseph would remain leader until an election was held, urging all parties to set aside their differences.

Moïse, backed by the international community, had been pushing to hold both elections and a constitutional referendum in September, efforts that were vehemently opposed by Haitian civil society, which had called first for a transitional government to guide the country to a vote.

Pierre told Reuters the Cabinet intended to guide the country to elections in two months’ time as planned.

“There are many unknowns about what happens next,” said Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “But it is important to remember that that was also the case before the assassination of Moïse.”

(REUTERS)

The US military mission in Afghanistan will end on August 31, President Joe Biden announced Thursday, as Afghan commandos battled the Taliban for control of a provincial capital in the most brazen assault by the militants since Washington stepped up its troop withdrawal.

Nearly 20 years after it invaded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the US military has “achieved” its goals in the country, killing Osama bin Laden, degrading Al-Qaeda and preventing more attacks on the United States, Biden said in a White House speech.

“We are ending America’s longest war,” he said.

“The status quo is not an option,” Biden said of staying in the country. “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan.”

“The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies created to respond to a world as it was 20 years ago,” he said. “We need to meet the threats where they are today.”

We are repositioning our resources to meet terror threats where they are now: across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

But make no mistake: we have the capabilities to protect the homeland from any resurgent terrorist challenge emanating from Afghanistan.

Biden said the United States “did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build” and that the Afghan people alone should determine their future.

But he acknowledged the uncertainty about what that future would look like.

Asked if a Taliban takeover was “inevitable,” the president said: “No, it is not.”

But, he admitted, “the likelihood there is going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely.”

“The Afghan government… has to come together,” the president said. “They clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place. The question is, will they generate the kind of cohesion to do it?”

He expressed faith in Afghan forces, who for years have been trained by and received equipment from the United States, against the resurgent Taliban.

“I do not trust the Taliban,” Biden said, “but I trust the capacity of the Afghan military.”

And he flatly rejected comparisons with the US experience in Vietnam.

“The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army,” Biden said. “They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.”

“There’s going to be no circumstance where you are going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan,” he added. “It is not at all comparable.”

Fighting rages

Biden’s address came as fighting raged for a second straight day in the capital of Afghanistan’s Badghis province, with residents either fleeing the city or barricading themselves in their homes.

Plumes of smoke billowed over Qala-i-Naw, soundtracked by gunfire as the insurgents fought hundreds of Afghan commandos rushed to the city overnight.

Qala-i-Naw resident Aziz Tawakoli said Taliban fighters were still roaming the city.

“You can see them going up and down the streets on their motorcycles,” he said.

Badghis health official Abdul Latif Rostaee said at least 10 civilians had been taken to hospital since the fighting erupted.

“Our security forces are bravely fighting them and the enemy is being pushed back,” Badghis Governor Hessamuddin Shams told AFP on Thursday. “They are fleeing. We will give a hard blow to the enemy.”

Badghis provincial council member Zia Gul Habibi said the Taliban had suffered casualties, but also surrounded the city.

“All districts are under their control… People are really in fear,” she said. Afghan civilians have long paid an outsized price in the fighting.

Since the US ramped up its withdrawal—which the Pentagon has said is 90 percent complete—the Taliban have launched a blistering campaign to capture new territory, and fears are mounting that Afghan forces will collapse without vital American air support.

President Ashraf Ghani said the government had the capacity to handle the situation, but admitted difficulties lay ahead.

“What we are witnessing is one of the most complicated stages of the transition,” he said in a speech in Kabul.

“Legitimacy is ours; God is with us.”

Taliban victory?

In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said most British troops had left Afghanistan, as part of a NATO withdrawal in parallel to the US pullout.

The Taliban, meanwhile, appear to be pressing for a full military victory.

Supposed peace talks between the insurgents and the government in Doha have largely fizzled out after months of deadlock, and the Taliban have captured dozens of new districts since early May. Human Rights Watch said the insurgents were forcing people from their houses in northern areas that they had captured.

Biden pledged to continue supporting the Afghan government and security forces and said thousands of Afghan translators who worked for US forces and face threats from the Taliban would be able to find refuge in the United States.

“There is a home for you in the United States, if you choose,” he said. “We will stand with you, just as you stood with us.”

(AFP)

Iran has begun the process of producing enriched uranium metal, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Tuesday, a move that could help it develop a nuclear weapon and that three European powers said threatened talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Iran’s steps, which were disclosed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and which Tehran said aimed to develop fuel for a research reactor, also drew criticism from the United States, which called them an “unfortunate step backwards.”

U.S. and European officials made clear that Iran’s decision would complicate, and potentially torpedo, indirect U.S.-Iranian talks seeking to bring both nations back into compliance with the 2015 deal, which was abandoned by former President Donald Trump.

The deal imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme to make it harder for Tehran to develop fissile material for nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. After Trump withdrew, Iran began violating many of the restrictions.

Tehran has already produced a small amount of uranium metal this year that was not enriched. That is a breach of the deal, which bans all work on uranium metal since it can be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb.

“Today, Iran informed the Agency that UO2 (uranium oxide) enriched up to 20% U–235 would be shipped to the R&D laboratory at the Fuel Fabrication Plant in Esfahan, where it would be converted to UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) and then to uranium metal enriched to 20% U–235, before using it to manufacture the fuel,” an IAEA statement said.

A confidential IAEA report seen by Reuters said the agency had confirmed that Iran had taken steps to begin the process of producing enriched uranium metal.

Britain, France and Germany said on Tuesday they had “grave concern” about Iran’s decision, which violates the nuclear deal, formally named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon,” they said in a joint statement issued by Britain’s foreign ministry.

“With its latest steps, Iran is threatening a successful outcome to the Vienna talks despite the progress achieved in six rounds of negotiations,” they said, and urged Iran to return to the talks in the Austrian capital, which began in April and adjourned on June 20. No date has been set for a next round.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Washington was not setting a deadline for the talks, but noted “that as time proceeds Iran’s nuclear advances will have a bearing on our view of returning to the JCPOA.”

Price said the United States found it “worrying” that Iran was continuing to violate the agreement “especially with experiments that have value for nuclear weapons research.

“It’s another unfortunate step backwards for Iran,” he said. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA, noted the agency’s report on Iran’s latest violation of the 2015 deal as well as the Biden administration’s decision to maintain the Iran sanctions reimposed by Trump, also violations of the accord.

“The only way out of this vicious circle is resumption of #ViennaTalks without delay and full restoration of #JCPOA,” he wrote on Twitter.

Source: REUTERS

After American troops withdrew without notifying them, Afghan soldiers guarding the Bagram Air Base have been left with thousands of Taliban prisoners and a fear that the enemy will attack.

The sprawling military complex about 60 kilometres north of the capital, Kabul, was at one point home to tens of thousands of US and allied soldiers, and one of the most important military sites of the two-decade war in Afghanistan.

But the last of the US soldiers quietly left the base last week, effectively completing their withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaving a massive security vacuum that the Afghan military will struggle to fill.

The new commander of the Bagram base, General Mirassadullah Kohistani, on Monday spoke candidly about the challenges ahead, as reporters were given a tour of the largely deserted base.

“You know, if we compare ourselves with the Americans, it’s a big difference,” Kohistani said, admitting his forces could not be as “powerful” as the Americans.

“But according to our capabilities … we are trying to do the best and as much as possible secure and serve all the people.”

The lack of a clear handover or transition plan appears to have made the task even more challenging.

Kohistani said he only knew of the foreign forces’ exit after they had left.

“We did not know of their timeline for departure. They did not tell us when they left.”

The US announced Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.

“We [heard] some rumour that the Americans had left Bagram … and finally by seven o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” said Kohistani.

Rotting food where restaurants once bustled

The Bagram base is key to the security of the Afghan capital while also providing strategic cover to much of the country’s rugged north, where the Taliban have focused their recent offensives.

Kohistani insists his troops can hold the base from the Taliban and that he has “quite enough” soldiers.

But with roughly 3,000 troops under his command, the figure is a tiny percentage of the number of American and allied forces during its US-led heyday.

For US troops, morale was kept up in the then-buzzing mini-city with swimming pools, cinemas, spas and fast food outlets like Burger King and Pizza Hut.

For Kohistani’s men, the entertainment venues are closed, the warehouses are locked and the shuttered dining facilities offer only the stench of rotten food from boxes of expired meal packs.

In a sign of the challenges the Afghan military faces without US backing, 1,000 troops fighting the Taliban in the country’s north fled into neighbouring Tajikistan on Monday.

Taliban ‘will definitely try to attack here’

At Bagram, Kohistani said he was already receiving reports that the Taliban were making “movements in rural areas”.

One soldier, a private named Rafiullah, offered a clear picture of what he expected would come.

“The enemy are determined and will definitely try to attack here,” Rafiullah said as two Afghan military helicopters took off behind him.

“But we will not give them the chance.”

If or when the Taliban do mount an offensive to take Bagram, one of their targets will undoubtedly be a huge prison that holds up to 5,000 Taliban inmates.

“We haven’t come here to sleep. Everybody here is prepared to secure Bagram. Our morale is high,” insisted Rafiullah.

Another soldier also defiantly said he was ready to fight the Taliban but nevertheless signalled a feeling of unease over a lack of firepower and leadership.

“We will not surrender but we need weapons and strong backing from our leaders,” he said.

Witnessing history since the start of Cold War

If the Taliban do seize control of Bagram, it will be part of a longstanding pattern. The airfield was first built by the Americans for its Afghan ally during the Cold War in the 1950s.

The Soviet Union vastly expanded it after the Red Army invaded Afghanistan in 1979. After their withdrawal, the base was controlled by the Moscow-backed government and later by the shaky mujahideen administration during the 1990s civil war.

It was reported that at one point the Taliban controlled one end of the three-kilometre runway, and the opposition Northern Alliance the other.

Bagram ultimately fell into the Taliban’s hands after they overran large swaths of the country in the mid-1990s.

Following the September 11 attacks and the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Americans took control of the base and used it as the launching pad for air strikes against the Taliban and to protect Afghan forces.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

Donald Rumsfeld, a forceful U.S. defence secretary who was the main architect of the Iraq war until President George W. Bush replaced him when the United States found itself bogged down after three years of fighting, has died at age 88, his family said in a statement on Wednesday.

“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather,” the statement said. “At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico.”

The statement did not say when Rumsfeld died.

Rumsfeld, who ranks with Vietnam War-era defense secretary Robert McNamara as the most powerful men to hold the post, brought charisma and bombast to the Pentagon job, projecting the Bush administration’s muscular approach to world affairs.

With Rumsfeld in charge, U.S. forces swiftly toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but failed to maintain law and order in the aftermath, and Iraq descended into chaos with a bloody insurgency and violence between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. U.S.  troops remained in Iraq until 2011, long after he left his post.

Rumsfeld played a leading role ahead of the war in making the case to the world for the March 2003 invasion. He warned of the dangers of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction but no such weapons were ever discovered.

Only McNamara served as defence secretary for longer than Rumsfeld, who had two stints – from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, for whom he also served as White House chief of staff, and from 2001 to 2006 under Bush.

Rumsfeld was known for imperious treatment of some military officers and members of Congress and infighting with other members of the Bush team, including Secretary of State Colin Powell. He also alienated U.S. allies in Europe.

In 2004, Bush twice refused to accept Rumsfeld’s offer to resign after photos surfaced of U.S. personnel abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The scandal triggered international condemnation of the United States.

The United States faced global condemnation after the photos showed U.S. troops smiling, laughing and giving thumbs up as prisoners were forced into sexually abusive and humiliating positions including a naked human pyramid and simulated sex. One photo showed a prisoner forced to stand on a small box, his head covered in a black hood, with wires attached to his body.

Lightning rod for criticism

Rumsfeld personally authorized harsh interrogation techniques for detainees. The U.S. treatment of detainees in Iraq and foreign terrorism suspects at a special prison set up under Rumsfeld at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, drew international condemnation, with human rights activists and others saying prisoners were tortured.

He was a close ally of Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, who had worked for Rumsfeld during the 1970s Republican presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ford.

Rumsfeld became a lightning rod for criticism and, with the Iraq war largely a stalemate and public support eroding, Bush replaced him in November 2006 over Cheney’s objections.

Days after vowing Rumsfeld would remain for the rest of his term, Bush announced his departure a day after mid-term elections in which Democrats took control of Congress from Bush’s Republicans amid voter anger over the Iraq War.

Robert Gates, a soft-spoken but demanding former CIA director, took over from Rumsfeld in December 2006 and made sweeping strategic and military leadership changes in Iraq.

Many historians and military experts blamed Rumsfeld for decisions that led to difficulties in Iraq. For example, Rumsfeld insisted on a relatively small invasion force, rejecting the views of many generals. The force was then insufficient to stabilize Iraq when Saddam fell.

Rumsfeld also was accused of being slow to recognize the emergence of the insurgency in 2003 and the threat it posed.

The U.S. occupation leader under Rumsfeld, L. Paul Bremer, quickly made two fateful decisions. One dissolved the Iraqi military, putting thousands of armed men on the streets rather than harnessing Iraqi soldiers as a reconstruction force as originally planned.

The second barred from Iraq’s government even junior members of the former ruling Baath Party, essentially emptying the various ministries of the people who made the government operate.

Afghanistan invasion

Rumsfeld also oversaw the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban leaders who had harbored the al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. As he did in Iraq two years later, Rumsfeld sent a small force to Afghanistan, quickly chased the Taliban from power and then failed to establish law and order.

U.S. forces during Rumsfeld’s tenure also were unable to track down Osama bin Laden. The al Qaeda chief slipped past a modest force of U.S. special operations troops and CIA officers along with allied Afghan fighters in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001. U.S. forces killed him in 2011.

Critics argue that had Rumsfeld devoted more troops to the Afghan effort, bin Laden may have been taken. But as he wrote in “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” his compilation of truisms dating to the 1970s: “If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.”

Another quote from “Rumsfeld’s Rules” was equally apt: “It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.”

Rumsfeld was known for his rollicking news conferences in which he sparred with reporters and offered memorable quotes.

Speaking in 2002 about whether Iraq would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, he said: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Rumsfeld later titled his memoir “Known and Unknown.”

“Stuff happens,” he told reporters in April 2003 amid rampant lawlessness in Baghdad after U.S. troops captured the Iraqi capital.

During his time away from public service, Rumsfeld became wealthy as a successful businessman, serving as chief executive of two Fortune 500 companies. In 1988, he briefly ran for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination.

Rumsfeld also served as a Navy pilot, U.S. NATO ambassador and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He and wife Joyce had three children.

(REUTERS)

Racism against people of African descent remains systemic in many parts of the world, the U.N. human rights chief said on Monday, calling for states to dismantle discrimination and prosecute law enforcement officials for unlawful killings.

Michelle Bachelet, in a global report sparked by the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, said that police use of racial profiling and excessive force is entrenched in much of North America, Europe and Latin America.

Structural racism creates barriers to minorities’ access to jobs, healthcare, housing, education and justice, she said.

“I am calling on all states to stop denying, and start dismantling, racism; to end impunity and build trust; to listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to confront past legacies and deliver redress,” she said in the report to the Human Rights Council.

Bachelet welcomed a “promising initiative” by U.S. President Joe Biden in signing an executive order in January to address racial inequity across the United States.

Her report cited 190 deaths of Africans and people of African descent worldwide at the hands of law enforcement officials in the past decade – most in the United States.

“With the exception of the case of George Floyd, no one was held accountable,” Mona Rishmawi, head of the rule of law branch who led the report, told a news conference.

It selected seven “emblematic cases”, including that of Floyd. A judge sentenced former police officer Derek Chauvin on Friday to 22-1/2 years for his murder, video of which galvanised the national Black Lives Matter protest movement.

Other victims include an Afro-Brazilian boy, 14, shot dead in an anti-drug police operation in Sao Paulo in May 2020 and a Frenchman of Malian origin, 24, who died in police custody in July 2016.

“One (Brazilian) mother in particular said to us ‘you always talk about George Floyd. Every day we have a George Floyd here and nobody talks about it’,” Rishmawi said. “We realised that we were only touching the tip of the iceberg.”

The scourge is most prevalent in countries with a legacy of slavery, the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, or colonialism resulting in large communities of people of African descent, the report said.

“Systemic racism needs a systemic response,” Bachelet said. “There is today a momentous opportunity to achieve a turning point for racial equality and justice.”

Source: REUTERS

Top diplomats said Sunday that further progress had been made at talks between Iran and global powers to try to restore a landmark 2015 agreement to contain Iranian nuclear development that was abandoned by the Trump administration. They said it was now up to the governments involved in the negotiations to make political decisions.

It was the first official meeting since Iran’s hard-line judiciary chief won a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election last week.

Some diplomats expressed concern that Iran’s election of Ebrahim Raisi as president could complicate a possible return to the nuclear agreement.

Enrique Mora, the European Union official who chaired the final meeting of the sixth round of talks between Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran, told reporters that “we are closer to a deal, but we are not still there.”

“We have made progress on a number of technical issues,” Mora added. ”We have now more clarity on technical documents – all of them quite complex – and that clarity allows us to have also a great idea of what the political problems are.”

He did not elaborate.

Top Russian representative Mikhail Ulyanov said the members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, “took stock of the significant progress made at the Vienna talks, including at the sixth round, and decided to make a break to allow participants to consult with their capitals in preparation for what is supposed to be the final round of negotiations.”

“There are a few controversial points which require political decisions. Apparently diplomatic efforts to find common language have been almost fully exhausted. So the time has come for political decisions,” Ulyanov added.

The nations involved in the negotiations have been trying to resolve the major outstanding issues on how to return the U.S. into the landmark agreement, which then-U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of unilaterally in 2018. Trump also restored and augmented sanctions to try to force Iran into renegotiating the pact with more concessions.

Ulyanov said after heading back to report on the talks’ results to their respective governments, he expected the diplomats to return for the final round of talks in Vienna in about 10 days and said they could finalize negotiations by mid-July.

“I believe we have all chances to arrive at the final point of our negotiations, maybe even by mid-July, unless something extraordinary and negative happens,” he said.

In a written statement after the talks Sunday, the E3 European senior diplomats urged speedy decision-making in the capitals involved in the talks.

“Delegations will now travel to capitals in order to consult with their leadership,” the diplomats wrote without giving their names, as is customary. “We urge all sides to return to Vienna and be ready to conclude a deal. The time for decision is fast approaching.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs said Sunday before the meeting that “we think almost all the agreement documents are ready,” according to semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr.

“Of the main issues that remain disputed, some have been resolved and some remain, but it has taken on a very precise form and it is quite clear what the dimensions of these disputes are,” Seyyed Abbas Araghchi said.

The U.S. did not have a representative at the table in Vienna. However, President Joe Biden’s administration has signaled willingness to rejoin the Iran deal under terms that would broadly see the United States scale back sanctions and Iran return to its 2015 nuclear commitments. A U.S. delegation in Vienna is taking part in indirect talks with Iran, with diplomats from the other world powers acting as go-betweens.

Sunday’s meeting was overshadowed by the election of Raisi in Iran, which puts hard-liners firmly in control of the government at a time when Tehran is enriching uranium at its highest levels ever, though still short of weapons-grade levels. Tensions remain high with Iran and both the U.S. and Israel, which is believed to have carried out a series of attacks targeting Iranian nuclear sites as well as assassinating the scientist who created its military atomic program decades earlier.

Raisi is the first Iranian president sanctioned by the U.S. government even before entering office, over his involvement in the 1988 mass executions, as well as his time as the head of Iran’s internationally criticized judiciary – one of the world’s top executioners.

In Jerusalem, new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned Sunday that Raisi’s election as Iranian president was “the last chance for the world powers to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement and to understand who they’re doing business with.”

“These guys are murderers, mass murderers: a regime of brutal hangmen must never be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction that will enable it to not kill thousands, but millions,” he said.

Israel has long stated that it opposes arch-enemy Iran’s nuclear program and said it would prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Sunday he hoped the election of the new Iranian president would not be an obstacle to reaching a deal in Vienna.

“We are very close. We have been working for two months,” Borrell told reporters during a visit in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. “So I hope that the results of the elections is not going to be the last obstacle that will ruin the negotiation process.”

(AP)

The U.N. General Assembly unanimously elected Antonio Guterres to a second term as secretary-general on Friday, giving him another five years at the helm of the 193-member organization at a time a deeply divided world faces numerous conflicts, the growing impact of climate change, and a pandemic still circling the globe.

Ambassadors in the assembly chamber burst into applause as Assembly President Volkan Bozkir announced Guterres’ re-election by “acclamation,” without a vote. Just before the announcement, Estonia’s U.N. Ambassador Sven Jurgenson, the current Security Council president, read a resolution adopted by the 15-member council recommending Guterres for a second term.

Under the U.N. Charter, the General Assembly elects the secretary-general on the recommendation of the Security Council.

Guterres was the only candidate nominated by a U.N. member state, his home country Portugal where he previously served as prime minister, and the country’s current president was in the assembly chamber to watch the event.

Immediately after his re-election, Guterres took the oath of office and delivered an address urging U.N. member nations “to do everything we can to overcome current geostrategic divides and dysfunctional power relations.”

“There are too many asymmetrics and paradoxes,” he said. “They need to be addressed head on.”

Guterres expressed hope that “what we are living through today in terms of mistrust is, I hope, an aberration but it cannot become the norm.”

Traditionally, candidates for the U.N.’s top job have been nominated by a U.N. member state, but that is not a requirement in the U.N. Charter or in a resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 2015.

That measure made the previously largely secretive selection of the secretary-general more open and transparent, allowing member states for the first time to see basic information about all candidates, including their resumes, and to question them at open sessions.

Guterres, a former U.N. refugee chief, was elected by the assembly to succeed Ban Ki-moon after a hotly contested and transparent race in October 2016 that initially included 13 candidates — seven women and six men. Guterres took office on Jan. 1, 2017.

This year, seven individuals submitted applications to be secretary-general without backing from any government, including most recently former Ecuadorian President Rosalia Arteaga.

Source: AP

A top official from the Chinese county that hosted a fatal ultramarathon last month has been found dead, authorities said Friday, as 27 people face punishment over the incident.

In May, extreme weather at an ultramarathon in northwestern Gansu province killed 21 runners when freezing rain, high winds and hail hit competitors.

The deadly incident sparked calls for more regulation and raised questions over why organisers had apparently ignored the incoming weather.

On Friday, provincial authorities told a press conference that the Communist Party secretary of Jingtai county — which hosted the event — had been found dead.

Li Zuobi was confirmed to have died after falling from the building where he lived. Police received the incident report on Wednesday, and have since ruled out homicide.

27 people, including municipal government officials, face criminal charges or disciplinary actions over the deadly ultramarathon.

Among those punished include the party secretary and mayor of Baiyin city — which holds jurisdiction over Jingtai — as well as the magistrate of the county, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Last month’s incident also led to a suspension of sports competitions that lacked national safety standards, including events such as mountain trail running and ultra-long distance running.

Source: AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden will bring a grave Brexit warning to his first meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Prevent a row with the European Union from imperilling the delicate peace in Northern Ireland.

On his first trip abroad since taking office in January, Biden meets Johnson on Thursday in the English seaside resort of Carbis Bay ahead of a Friday-Sunday G7 summit, a NATO summit on Monday, a U.S.-EU summit on Tuesday and a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva the following day.

Biden will try to use the trip to burnish his multilateral credentials after the tumult of Donald Trump’s presidency, which left many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia bewildered and some alienated.

Biden, though, has an uncomfortable message for Johnson, one of the leaders of the 2016 Brexit campaign: Stop heated EU divorce negotiations from undermining a 1998 U.S.-brokered peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.

“President Biden has been crystal clear about his rock-solid belief in the Good Friday Agreement as the foundation for peaceful co-existence in Northern Ireland,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Any steps that imperil it or undermine it would not be welcomed by the United States,” said Sullivan, who declined to characterise Johnson’s actions as imperilling the peace.

Britain’s exit from the European Union strained the peace in Northern Ireland to breaking point because the 27-nation bloc wants to protect its markets, yet a border in the Irish Sea cuts off the British province from the rest of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland shares a border with EU member Ireland.

Such is Biden’s concern over Northern Ireland that Yael Lempert, the top U.S. diplomat in Britain, issued London with a demarche – a formal diplomatic reprimand – for “inflaming” tensions, the Times newspaper reported.

Biden will also speak on Thursday about donating more COVID-19 vaccines to poor countries.

End of the ‘Troubles’

The 1998 peace deal largely brought an end to the “Troubles” – three decades of conflict between Irish Catholic nationalist militants and pro-British Protestant “loyalist” paramilitaries that killed 3,600 people.

Biden, who is proud of his Irish heritage, will make a statement of principle about the importance of that peace deal, Sullivan said.

“He’s not issuing threats or ultimatums, he’s going to simply convey his deep-seated belief that we need to stand behind and protect this protocol,” Sullivan said.

Although Britain formally left the EU in 2020, the two sides are still trading threats over the Brexit deal after London unilaterally delayed the implementation of the Northern Irish clauses of the deal.

The EU and Britain tried to solve the border riddle with the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement, which keeps the province in both the United Kingdom’s customs territory and the EU’s single market.

Pro-British unionists say the Brexit deal that Johnson signed contravenes the 1998 peace deal and London has said the protocol is unsustainable in its current form after supplies of everyday goods to Northern Ireland were disrupted.

Britain, home to a large Airbus facility, and the European Union are hoping to resolve a nearly 17-year old dispute with the United States over aircraft subsidies to Boeing and Airbus.

U.S., British and EU officials have expressed optimism that a settlement can be reached before July 11, when currently suspended tariffs will come back into force on all sides.

One source close to the negotiations said the discussions were progressing well but a deal was unlikely to be reached before the U.S.-EU summit next week.

Johnson, who wrote a biography of British wartime leader Winston Churchill, will agree with Biden an “Atlantic Charter”, modelled on the 1941 deal struck by Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The two leaders will agree to a task force to look at resuming UK-U.S. travel as soon as possible.

(REUTERS)