Israel, Kuwait secret talk will lead to Arab ties against Iran, claims Israeli FM

JERUSALEM: Israel is holding secret talks with some Arab states that do not recognize it, looking to establish diplomatic ties based on a common fear of Iran, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday. Amongst the countries he was in contact with were Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Lieberman told newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth – the first such disclosure by a senior Israeli official.<br/><br/>Both these states, along with most other Arab nations, have traditionally been highly hostile towards Israel, which has only signed peace deals with two neighbours – Egypt and Jordan. However, anti-Israeli sentiment was being superseded by a growing concern over Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s regional allies, and the menace of Islamist militancy, Lieberman said.<br/><br/>“For the first time there is an understanding there that the real threat is not Israel, the Jews or Zionism. It is Iran, global jihad, (Lebanese Shiite guerrilla group) Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda,” the foreign minister said. “There are contacts, there are talks, but we are very close to the stage in which within a year or 18 months it will no longer be secret, it will be conducted openly,” added Lieberman, who is a far rightist in the coalition government.<br/><br/>Yedioth paraphrased Lieberman as saying some new Israeli-Arab peace accords would be signed in 2019. “I’m certain that by then we will have a situation in which we have full diplomatic relations with most of the moderate Arab states. And you can count on my word,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long hinted that Israel and the Gulf states share a similar goal in halting Iran’s nuclear program, saying they all saw a mortal threat in its ambitious atomic drive. Iran denies that it is planning to build nuclear weapons.<br/><br/>Senior Israeli officials have also said that like themselves, moderate Sunni states are worried that Washington was not taking a tough enough line with Tehran. However, analysts have scoffed at the idea that ties between Israel and much of the Arab world could be normalised while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained unresolved. US-brokered peace talks between the two are floundering, with no indication that a resolution is anywhere in sight.

Israel, Kuwait secret talk will lead to Arab ties against Iran, claims Israeli FM

JERUSALEM: Israel is holding secret talks with some Arab states that do not recognize it, looking to establish diplomatic ties based on a co...

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Obama calls for irregular forces to lay down arms in Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday to press pro-Moscow groups to lay down their arms in Ukraine amid escalating tensions.<br/><br/>Obama used the phone call requested by Moscow to express his "grave concern about Russian government support for the actions of armed, pro-Russian separatists who threaten to undermine and destabilize the government of Ukraine," the White House said.<br/><br/>"The president emphasized that all irregular forces in the country need to lay down their arms, and he urged President Putin to use his influence with these armed, pro-Russian groups to convince them to depart the buildings they have seized."<br/><br/>Washington said earlier it was consulting European allies and hinted that more sanctions on Russia's economy could be coming, to punish what it sees as Moscow's sponsorship of pro-Russia violence in eastern Ukraine.<br/><br/>In the latest in a string of tense phone calls between the two leaders, Obama "reiterated the importance of Russia withdrawing its troops from Ukraine's border in order to defuse tensions."<br/><br/>He also hailed Ukraine's "remarkable restraint" in the face of what Washington brands as Russian meddling in its neighbor.<br/><br/>The Kremlin had earlier said Putin told Obama the charges of interference were "unfounded."<br/><br/>The White House and the State Department signaled fresh sanctions could be coming for Russia over what Washington says are provocations in eastern Ukraine, including the seizure of administrative and police buildings by Moscow-backed armed groups.<br/><br/>And Obama pointed out to Putin "Russia's growing political and economic isolation as a result of its actions in Ukraine and made clear that the costs Russia already has incurred will increase if those actions persist," the White House said.<br/><br/>In a sign of growing tensions in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War, a Russian Su-24 fighter jet made several low-altitude, high-speed passes near the USS Donald Cook cruise missile destroyer over the Black Sea.<br/><br/>EU foreign ministers also announced they were expanding the list of 33 Ukrainian and Russian officials and business leaders hit by asset freezes and visa bans for their role in the Ukraine crisis -- though the bloc stopped short of harsher measures ahead of a Geneva meeting of top EU, US, Russian and Ukrainian officials this week.<br/><br/>Obama warned that while a diplomatic solution is still possible, "it cannot succeed in an environment of Russian military intimidation on Ukraine's borders, armed provocation within Ukraine and escalatory rhetoric by Kremlin officials."

Obama calls for irregular forces to lay down arms in Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday to press pro-Moscow groups to lay down t...

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Ukrainian tanks take up positions

KIEV:Pro-Russian insurgents dug in across eastern Ukraine, fortifying their positions around seized buildings and erecting fresh barricades even as Ukrainian tanks took up positions outside one eastern city now controlled by armed men.<br/><br/>In Kiev, Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, announced an "anti-terrorist operation" to root out the separatists, but it was unclear how that measure differed from the one announced yesterday, which resulted in no visible action.<br/><br/>Much of the focus was on the eastern city of Slovyansk, 160 kilometres from the Russian border, which has come under ever more secure control of the gunmen since it was taken over on Saturday.<br/><br/>An Associated Press reporter saw at least 14 armoured personnel carriers with Ukrainian flags, one helicopter and military trucks parked 40 kilometres (24 miles) north of the city. Other heavy military equipment appeared to be parked in a nearby area off limits to journalists.<br/><br/>Government troops at a checkpoint at the spot, located outside the town of Izyum, searched vehicles driving in and out for weapons.<br/><br/>Roads into Slovyansk were dotted with militia's checkpoints, at least one with a Russian flag. Another bore a sign reading: "If we don't do it, nobody will."<br/><br/>Despite mounting fears of a possible imminent assault by Ukrainian troops, the city appeared calm. That may be because the threat the Ukrainian military posed to the highly organised pro-Russian insurgents was unclear.<br/><br/>One video posted online late yesterday showed a hapless Ukrainian tank stuck in the mud in a field reportedly outside Slovyansk. Local residents chased it on foot, trying to stop it, shouting: "Who are you going to fire at?"<br/><br/>The insurgents, many of them armed, continued to occupy government, police and other administrative buildings in at least nine cities in the country's Russian-speaking east of the country, demanding broader autonomy and closer ties with Russia. The central government has so far been unable to rein in the insurgents, and many of the local security forces have switched to their side.<br/><br/>The unrest comes a month after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula following the removal of Ukraine's pro-Russian president in Kiev after months of protests.<br/><br/>The city of Horlivka, also not far from the Russian border where the local police station was seized yesterday by unidentified gunmen, has been turned into the latest of a wave of sit-ins across eastern Ukraine.<br/><br/>Outside the police station, a sign pinned to the wall of tyres listed items required by protesters, including blankets, drinking water and tape to cover up windows smashed during the storming of the building.<br/><br/>Anatoly Zhurov, a 53-year-old Horlivka resident at the site, said the insurgents' goal was to resist the government in Kiev.<br/><br/>Elsewhere the interior ministry in the Donetsk region said the police station in Kramatorsk that had been seized by pro-Russian gunmen was "liberated" today, but a nearby small airport was still controlled by the militia.<br/><br/>Mr Turchynov, speaking to parliament in Kiev, gave few details of the "anti-terrorist operation", saying only that it would be conducted in a "responsible and balanced" manner. He blamed Russia for sponsoring the camouflage-wearing insurgents, who are often armed and move with a precision unlikely for local militia.<br/><br/>"The plans of the Russian Federation were and remain brutal. They want not only for Donbass (Donetsk region), but for the whole south and east of Ukraine to be engulfed by fire," Mr Turchynov said. The aim of the government operation is to "defend the citizens of Ukraine, to stop terror, stop crime and stop attempts to tear our country into pieces".<br/><br/>Ukraine's security services said they have identified a Russian foreign intelligence agent who is running pro-Russian operations in Slovyansk. It named him as Igor Strelkov, a man they said also co-ordinated Russian troops in Crimea during the seizure of military facilities on the peninsula that used to belong to Ukraine.<br/><br/>Russia strongly warned Kiev against using force against the pro-Russian protesters, saying Moscow could walk out of the international conference in Geneva on Thursday that is devoted to the Ukrainian crisis.<br/><br/>"You can't send in tanks and at the same time hold talks. The use of force would sabotage the opportunity offered by the four-party negotiations in Geneva," Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference.<br/><br/>In a sign that Ukraine's economic situation is becoming ever more dire, its central bank increased its benchmark interest rate by a whopping 7% to 14.5%. The move aims to contain the risk of inflation by supporting the currency, which has been falling to record lows in recent days. A dropping currency fuels inflation by boosting the cost of imports.<br/><br/>However, hiking interest rates can cause collateral damage to the economy by making loans and mortgages more expensive to residents and businesses.<br/><br/>Ukraine has relied on cheap gas supplies from Russia for years. Moscow raised gas prices for Kiev in the past weeks, leaving Ukraine scrambling to pay the mounting gas bills as well as past bills that Russian president Vladimir Putin now says adds up to over 35 billion dollars.<br/><br/>In the wake of Moscow's threats to cut off energy supplies to Ukraine, the German utility company RWE AG said it has started supplying gas to Ukraine via Poland and could sell it up to 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year. Ukraine consumes between 52 and 55 billion cubic metres of gas a year.<br/><br/>In Kiev, two pro-Russian politicians were attacked by pro-Western activists as tensions mounted over unrest in the east.<br/><br/>Oleh Tsaryov, a pro-Russian politician and a candidate in the May 25 presidential elections, was beaten by dozens of enraged activists early today as he was leaving a television studio. The activists pelted him with eggs, shouted insults and then assaulted him.<br/><br/>Another Russian-leaning politician and presidential hopeful, Mikhaylo Dobkin, was sprayed with a green disinfectant and had flour thrown at him late yesterday.<br/><br/>Moscow has accused Kiev authorities of condoning such radicalism and says attacks against pro-Russian candidates shows that the presidential election will not be fair or democratic.

Ukrainian tanks take up positions

KIEV:Pro-Russian insurgents dug in across eastern Ukraine, fortifying their positions around seized buildings and erecting fresh barricades ...

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Israel strike on Iran would spell doom for US Empire: Analyst

<p style="text-align: justify;">TEHRAN:If Israel launches a military attack on Iran, it will end the US Empire which might be more accurately termed as the New World Order bankster empire, a political analyst says.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">“If Netanyahu attacks Iran and succeeds in dragging the US and Russia into the war, this week could witness not just the end of the US Empire, but the beginning of the end of civilization,” Kevin Barrett, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, wrote in an article for Press TV website.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">He added that while irrational attachment to Israel has lured the Empire into a series of disastrous attacks on Muslim-majority states, US President Barack Obama has thus far resisted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's orders to attack Iran.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">“The US is still doing the bidding of the Zionist bankster oligarchs who are the real power behind the Western throne. And those oligarchs – or at least the hawkish among them – are still pushing for world war,” the analyst said.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">He said the oligarch hawks and the Israeli premier as their front man, frustrated by US resistance to attacking Iran, are trying to start World War III in less direct fashion.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">“Now, with the great powers on hair-trigger alert, Netanyahu, who has spent $3 billion preparing a go-it-alone plan to attack Iran, can light the fuse of World War III any time he chooses,” Barrett explained.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">He pointed to the Malaysian Flight 370 incident and suggested it might have been an attempt to inflame Western public opinion against Iran.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">Following the disappearance of the Malaysian plane, many American and Zionist propaganda outlets focused suspicion on a fabricated story about two Iranian men who supposedly boarded Flight 370 on stolen passports, he added.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">The commentator pointed to the apparent photoshopping of the two Iranians boarding Malaysian Flight 370 and asked, “Was this yet another attempt to incite wars against Israel's enemies?”</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">“Even if the Empire's lunatic fringe [the Israel-centric neoconservatives] is stymied this week, they will have many future opportunities to wreak havoc – unless relatively rational Western leaders, assuming that any exist, decide to expose the neocons' gravest misdeeds and put an end to their reckless warmongering,” Barrett concluded.</p>

Israel strike on Iran would spell doom for US Empire: Analyst

TEHRAN:If Israel launches a military attack on Iran, it will end the US Empire which might be more accurately termed as the New World Order ...

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AFP reporter Sardar Ahmad killed in Kabul hotel attack

KABUL:Sardar Ahmad, a staff reporter at the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, was killed in a Taliban attack on Kabul's Serena hotel, it was confirmed Friday.<br/><br/>Ahmad, 40, was shot dead along with his wife and two of his three children when four teenage gunmen attacked the hotel on Thursday evening.<br/><br/><iframe src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/c/embed/192a67ce-d83f-4dbf-af9d-30a451a87168" height="360" width="480" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe><br/><br/>An AFP staff photographer identified the four bodies at a city hospital and said the family's youngest son was undergoing emergency treatment after being badly wounded in the attack.<br/><br/>Four teenage gunmen with pistols hidden in their socks managed to penetrate several layers of security to attack the hotel, a prestigious venue favoured by foreign visitors to the capital, on Thursday night.<br/><br/>The assault came on the eve of Nawroz, the Persian New Year which is a major holiday in Afghanistan, and the hotel was hosting special celebrations.<br/><br/>Hired in 2003 to cover daily briefings by the US-led coalition at Bagram airbase, Ahmad went on to become AFP's senior reporter in Kabul, covering all aspects of life, war and politics in his native country.<br/><br/>He was a specialist in security issues, with strong contacts on both the government and Taliban sides, allowing him to file balanced stories on the complex conflict wracking Afghanistan.<br/><br/>Ahmad was a versatile journalist with an eye for unexpected stories that opened a window on life in Afghanistan away from the bombs and blast walls.<br/><br/>His last feature for AFP, filed on Tuesday, was about a lion rescued by animal welfare officials from living on a rooftop in Kabul -- a follow-up to a story Ahmad himself broke last year.<br/><br/>His time covering the briefings at Bagram allowed Ahmad to achieve an impressive level of fluency in English -- and a distinctive American accent.<br/><br/>Outside AFP, Ahmad founded the successful Kabul Pressistan local news agency which provided fixing and translation services for numerous foreign reporters coming to Kabul.<br/><br/>A total of nine people were killed in Thursday's attack, officials said, including four foreigners.<br/><br/>The Afghan interior ministry spokesman said that while investigations were ongoing, the details of the assault pointed to a lapse of hotel security.

AFP reporter Sardar Ahmad killed in Kabul hotel attack

KABUL:Sardar Ahmad, a staff reporter at the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, was killed in a Taliban attack on Kabul's Serena hot...

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Crimea declares independence

The Supreme Council of the Crimea adopted a decree "On the independence of the Crimea."<br/><br/>"The extraordinary plenary session of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, on March 17, 2014 adopted the resolution "On the independence of the Crimea." Eighty-five deputies voted for the document," the press-center of the Supreme Council of the Crimea said.<br/><br/>The adopted document also states that the Republic of the Crimea in the face of the Supreme Council addresses the Russian Federation with a proposal to accept the Crimean Republic in the structure of the Russian Federation as a new entity with a status of a republic.<br/><br/>The adopted document states: "The Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, on the basis of direct will of the peoples of the Crimea expressed at the referendum of 16 March 2014, which showed that the people of the Crimea want to join Russia, and, consequently, separate from Ukraine and create an independent state, guided by the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Crimea, adopted at an extraordinary plenary session of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on March 11, 2014, and the extraordinary plenary session of Sevastopol City Council on March 11, 2014, decides: to proclaim the Crimea an independent sovereign state - the Republic of the Crimea, in which the city of Sevastopol has a special status."<br/><br/> <br/><br/> 

Crimea declares independence

The Supreme Council of the Crimea adopted a decree "On the independence of the Crimea." "The extraordinary plenary session of...

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Pakistan and pakistan and what again pakistan

Thank you very much

Pakistan and pakistan and what again pakistan

Thank you very much

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US warns Russia against further military moves in Ukraine

WASHINGTON:Top US officials warned against further Russian military aggression into eastern Ukraine as Americans and Western allies prepared to slap more sanctions on Russian officials and to protect the new government in Kiev.<br/><br/>Sanctions could be announced as soon as Monday, officials said, and would send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin following Sunday's vote on a Russian-backed referendum to split Crimea from Ukraine. The US rejected the vote and top lawmakers called it a sham.<br/><br/>"We are putting as much pressure on the Russians as we can to do the right thing," Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser at the White House, said Sunday on "Meet the Press."<br/><br/>White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement rejecting Sunday's referendum in the Crimean region and called Russia actions "dangerous and destabilizing."

US warns Russia against further military moves in Ukraine

WASHINGTON:Top US officials warned against further Russian military aggression into eastern Ukraine as Americans and Western allies prepared...

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