Leaked cables: Sweden raised Iraqi refugee flow with US officials

Fri, 21 Jan 2011

Stockholm - Two Swedish cabinet members raised concerns over the flow of refugees from Iraq in 2007 during talks with US officials, a Swedish daily said Friday, citing leaked US diplomatic cables.

While Sweden was prepared to receive asylum seekers there was need for "a return agreement" with Iraq for refugees whose applications were rejected the ministers said, according to US diplomatic cables leaked by whistle-blower site WikiLeaks and quoted by the daily Svenska Dagbladet.

During a September 2007 visit to Iraq, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Tobias Billstrom, minister for migration and asylum policy, met with Iraqi officials and US embassy officials in Baghdad.

According to the US cable, Bildt and Billstrom mentioned concerns that many arrivals after 2003 were "more difficult to assimilate."

Contributing factors were that the asylum seekers were destitute, and often had poor education or lacked language or professional skills.

Iraq and Sweden in early 2008 agreed on a repatriation agreement stipulating that Iraqis whose applications were rejected should voluntarily be sent back to Iraq. Baghdad would guarantee their security.

Sweden in 2007 expected some 20,000 asylum seekers from Iraq and about three in four applications were likely to be approved, Bildt said according to the US cable.

In 2007 there were some 100,000 Iraqis in Sweden, a country of 9 million.

Bildt and Billstrom have declined to comment on the remarks attributed to them.

However, Bodil Ceballos of the opposition Greens said she would request parliament's Committee on the Constitution to summon them.

"Our government has talked a lot about human rights, but this violates them," Ceballos told broadcaster TV4, adding that asylum applications were individual and not based on whether it was easy to assimilate someone.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363485,refugee-flow-us-officials.html.

Iran, world powers resume nuclear talks in Istanbul - Summary

Fri, 21 Jan 2011

Istanbul - Iran and six world powers held the first of two days of talks on Iran's controversial nuclear program in Istanbul Friday, with both sides hoping a positive approach could make headway in the stand-off.

Iran's National Security Council, of which Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili is the secretary general, said the talks had begun with a "positive atmosphere," according to a statement reported by Iranian state PressTV.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany (collectively referred to as the 5+1 group) are seeking improved dialogue with Iran because of concerns about its nuclear program. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is negotiating on behalf of the 5+1 group.

Diplomatic sources said Friday that Ashton advised Jalili to have a bilateral meeting with US undersecretary of state for political affairs William J Burns, who is leading the US delegation, in order to achieve more substantial results.

The talks come just over a month after a round of negotiations in Geneva, which resumed dialogue between Iran and world powers after a 14-month hiatus, but achieved little more than an agreement to hold further talks in Istanbul.

Though Iran insists its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, many countries fear the program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.

Iran's delegation told the six powers in the opening session of talks that it had a right to develop nuclear technology for civilian use and that the lifting of sanctions was a precondition for negotiations.

Despite the pressure of four rounds of United Nations-imposed sanctions, Tehran has not been pressured to abandon nuclear enrichment, which the 5+1 group demands.

In a statement released a day before the start of talks, US state department spokesperson Philip J Crowley said the US sought to "launch a meaningful and practical process that addresses the core issues with Iran's nuclear program."

But with Iran insisting that its nuclear enrichment activities were not up for debate, substantive results from the talks may remain elusive.

In recent days, both sides had expressed tentative hopes for a nuclear swap deal, in which Iranian low-enriched uranium (LEU) would be exchanged in return for foreign-made fuel for a Tehran research reactor.

Seen as a confidence-building measure, such a plan would remove some nuclear material from Iran that could theoretically be used for making bombs, replacing it with fuel that cannot be used militarily.

In a swap deal proposed at talks in 2009, Iran was to send 1,200 kilograms of LEU abroad - a figure that represented about 75 per cent of Iran's nuclear stockpile at the time.

But because Iran's known stockpiles of enriched uranium are now up to more than 3,000 kilograms, world powers say the amount of uranium would need to be revised upwards for a swap deal to be considered meaningful.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363590,talks-istanbul-summary.html.

Indonesian soldiers face jail over torture

Thu, 20 Jan 2011

Jayapura, Indonesia - A military prosecutor in Indonesia's Papua province on Thursday demanded up to one year in prison for three soldiers charged with disobedience for torturing suspected separatist rebels.

In a video posted on the internet in October, soldiers were seen burning the genitals of one suspected rebel and running a knife across the neck of another.

The prosecutors in the court martial in the provincial capital of Jayapura recommended that that the soldiers - Irwan Riskianto, Yapson Agu and Tamrin Makangiri - be sentenced to one year, 10 months and nine months, respectively.

The officers have been detained for two months.

The military said the soldiers had acted unprofessionally and charged them with disobeying orders. Rights activists said the soldiers should have been charged with violating human rights.

Another video posted on YouTube in July showing police officers taunting a fatally wounded suspected rebel sparked an outcry.

Papua is home to a low-level separatist insurgency with sporadic violence continuing despite regional autonomy awarded in 2001.

The former Dutch colony was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a UN-sponsored referendum that Jakarta was accused of manipulating.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363265,soldiers-face-jail-torture.html.

Cosmonauts install camera in spacewalk at ISS - Summary

Fri, 21 Jan 2011

Moscow - Two Russian cosmonauts installed a communications antenna and a camera outside the International Space Station Friday in their first spacewalk of the year.

Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka spent five hours and 23 minutes on the spacewalk.

They installed a camera outside the station that will allow for better viewing of the docking of Russian Soyuz capsules arriving at the ISS and an antenna that will allow the sending of large files back to Earth at 100 megabytes per second, US space agency NASA said.

The cosmonauts also removed a broken part outside the station that had been used for an earlier experiment and brought inside materials for an experiment about exposure to space.

It was the first spacewalk for Kondratyev outside the station orbiting 350 kilometers above Earth.

Three Russian spacewalks are planned for the year.

Current ISS residents also include Russian Alexander Kaleri, Americans Scott Kelly and Catherine Coleman and Italian Paolo Nespoli.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363606,spacewalk-iss-summary.html.

Brazil death toll likely to reach 1,000 from floods, mud

Fri, 21 Jan 2011

Rio de Janeiro - Several dozen more bodies were recovered Friday, bringing the death toll to 785 from more than a week of floods and mudslides, according to figures released by civil defense workers.

Officials fear the death toll will top 1,000, based on reports that another 400 people are still missing.

Heavy rainfall dropped the disaster on the state of Rio de Janeiro - a broad swath of countryside just beyond the city of Rio.

Recovery teams continue to work round the clock in the hilly Serrana region searching for the dead, while civil defense units distributed food and water. Most roads have been cleared for passage.

Brazil's worst weather catastrophe in recent history has left at least 6,000 people homeless. Another 8,000 people had to temporarily vacate their homes because of flooding, and spent some time in emergency shelters.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363611,reach-1000-floods-mud.html.

33 Ben Ali relatives arrested in Tunisia: state TV

Thu, 20 Jan 2011

Tunis - Tunisian authorities have arrested 33 members of ousted president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's family on charges relating to their accumulation of a large chunk of the country's wealth, state television reported Thursday.

No information was given about the identity of the detainees, or their relationship with the autocratic leader of 23 years, who was toppled last week by a popular revolt.

The television report showed images of jewelery, luxury watches and international credit cards, which had been confiscated from the suspects.

On Wednesday, the authorities already began investigating Ben Ali 's assets, as well as those of his family and his wife Leila's powerful Trabelsi clan.

The Trabelsis are accused of having systematically creamed off Tunisian resources during Ben Ali's long years in power.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363264,arrested-tunisia-state-tv.html.

Belorussian president strikes back at critics

Fri, 21 Jan 2011

Minsk/Kiev - Belarus's authoritarian president, Aleksander Lukashenko, lashed out at his critics as was sworn in for a fourth term in office Friday.

"We will protect our security and stability from threats, whether they come from inside the country or outside," he said.

"I would like to remind people who do not wish Belarus well one of our old folk sayings: 'Don't start a fire at your neighbor's house. It might just spread to yours'," he said.

European Union diplomats stayed away from the inauguration to protest the December 19 vote, which they believe was rigged in Lukashenko's favor, as well as subsequent crackdowns on the opposition. Some of them gathered instead in Lithuania for a series of EU meetings.

The ambassadors of Poland, Germany, Lithuania and nine other EU nations with legations in the capital Minsk had left Belarus on Thursday.

Also absent from Friday's ceremony were the ambassadors of the United States and Ukraine, the Belapan news agency reported.

Lukashenko described his election victory as a matter of life and death.

"It wasn't a question of electing a president," he said. "In reality the fate of our country was being decided, whether to be independent and strong or to fall into slave-like dependency," he said Friday.

More than 20,000 Belorussians took to the streets to protest Lukashenko's victory on election day. Police used force to break up the demonstrations, arresting more than 600 people.

A wide-ranging crackdown against government opponents has continued through January, with police raiding opposition homes and offices almost daily. Thirty-three opposition leaders and journalists are now awaiting trial in connection with the December demonstrations.

International groups, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), have been virtually unanimous in their criticism of the election and the continuing crackdowns.

Lukashenko has ordered the OSCE to close its office in Belarus and has threatened the EU with sanctions of his own.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363524,president-strikes-back-critics.html.