Cheney endorses Georgia’s membership into NATO
September 6, 2008
U.S. warships arrived at the Georgian port town of Poti bringing humanitarian supplies. Poti is also home to an occupying contingent of the Russian military.
Not surprisingly, Russia expressed displeasure:
“Naval ships of that class can hardly deliver a large amount of aid,” said Andrei Nesterenko, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman. “Such ships have a hold for keeping provisions for the crew and items needed for sailing. How many tonnes of aid can a ship of that type deliver?”He said that the presence of US warships could contravene international conventions governing shipping in the Black Sea, and in particular restrictions on the entry of naval ships from countries that do not share a Black Sea coastline.
The United States also has naval vessels stationed near the Georgian port of Batumi.
Sphere: Related ContentRussian President ready for new Cold War
August 27, 2008
Russian President Dimitri Medvedev says Russian is ready to fight a new Cold War after his country approved annexation of two “breakaway” regions of Georgia. He made a very disturbing statement in The Times of London:
Sphere: Related ContentPresident Medvedev set tensions soaring when he recognised the independence of two breakaway republics inside Georgia. We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War, he said. Hours earlier he had ordered his Foreign Ministry to start establishing diplomatic ties with the secessionist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
North Korea to kick out South Koreans
August 3, 2008
Are we truly seeing a North Korea on the reform track? One would have to say “no” as the North Korean government threatens to kick South Korean companies out of the North because of criticisms which arose over the murder of a homemaker from the South while visiting a tourist area in the North.
Sphere: Related ContentThe wisdom of “hard power”
July 16, 2008
We regularly stand in awe of the wisdom of Charles Krauthammer. This analysis of the reasons why Ingrid Betancourt was freed from her six years of captivity is a worthy example of a remarkable sage:
In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of “soft power” — the use of diplomatic and moral resources to achieve one’s ends. Europe luxuriates in soft power, nowhere more than in l’affaire Betancourt in which Europe’s repeated gestures of solidarity hovered somewhere between the fatuous and the destructive. . . .
And so the innocent languish [under the heavy hand of oppressors in Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan], as did Betancourt [under FARC], until some local power, inexplicably under the sway of the Bush notion of hard power, gets it done — often with the support of the American military. “Behind the rescue in a jungle clearing stood years of clandestine American work,” explained The Washington Post. “It included the deployment of elite U.S. Special Forces . . . a vast intelligence-gathering operation . . . and training programs for Colombian troops.”
But no thanks to the United States from the world or Betancourt.
Sphere: Related ContentIsrael has a year to destroy Iran’s nuke program
June 29, 2008
From the London Telegraph:
Sphere: Related ContentA former head of Mossad has warned that Israel has 12 months in which to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme or risk coming under nuclear attack itself. He also hinted that Israel might have to act sooner if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election.
ElBaradei to quit IAEA if Israel Strikes Iran
June 21, 2008
‘Ball of fire’ if Iran attacked: IAEA chief
Sphere: Related Content…[He] warned that he would not be able to continue in his role as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general should the Islamic republic be attacked. His stark comments came as Iran stressed yet again that it will not negotiate with world powers over its nuclear programme if it is required to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment.
Kofi Babble
December 12, 2006
The United States definitely needs someone with the moral authority of Kofi Annan to remind us to stay on the straight and narrow.
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