Just Foreign Policy News
June 25, 2010
Speaker Pelosi, More War Funding Next Week is No "Emergency"
Speaker Pelosi says she is committed to passing an emergency war supplemental before the July Fourth recess. But there is no "emergency" requiring the House to throw another $33 billion into bloody and pointless occupation of Afghanistan before we celebrate the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from foreign occupation. Representatives McGovern and Obey have demanded answers on Afghanistan and teachers’ jobs at home before voting on more money for war. If the House wants those answers, it has to be prepared to call the Pentagon’s bluff.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/25-10
27 Congress Members Write to Secretary Clinton on Honduras
The Members express "concern regarding the grievous violations of human rights and the democratic order which commenced with the coup and continue to this day."
http://bit.ly/b22zzd
Stone’s "Border" Shows Fall of South America’s Berlin Wall
The failure of the Bush Administration’s effort to overthrow President Chavez sent a new signal about the limits of the ability of the U.S. to thwart popular democracy in the region. Following the reversal of the coup, presidents were elected across South America promising to reverse the disastrous economic policies promoted by Washington. The story of this dramatic transformation has been largely untold in the U.S.. But today, Oliver Stone’s new documentary, "South of the Border," opens in New York.
http://www.truth-out.org/stones-border-shows-fall-south-americas-berlin-wall60732
Is "South of the Border" coming to your town?
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) House Speaker Pelosi stressed the importance of passing a war spending bill by the Independence Day recess, the New York Times reports. Pelosi did not tip her hand on whether funds to help stave off teacher layoffs would be included. Representative Boehner, the minority leader, called for what he termed "clean" legislation to fund military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2) Critics in Congress think Obama should use a shake-up in commanding generals to change the course of what they believe is an intractable war. "I think he has to reassess the strategy," Rep. Jackie Speier said. "I can’t believe for a minute that he’s not rethinking it." Jim McGovern sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking her to hold off on a war-funding bill until Congress can assess the full fallout of a Rolling Stone article that concluded – without correction from the White House – that the president and his commanders have been backing off plans to withdraw starting in July 2011.
3) The departure of McChrystal is likely to make the administration’s internal debates over Afghanistan even more pointed, giving the military a powerful advocate for staying the course as it prepares for a reckoning with more impatient officials like Vice President Biden, the New York Times reports. Obama insisted he was switching military leaders, not strategies. But administration insiders acknowledge there have been preliminary discussions about whether to rethink the approach to a war that is clearly bogging down. "If there continue to be problems," a senior official said, "the debate will intensify between those who say we have to stick with it and those who say we lost the moment to go into Kandahar, and we have to go to Plan B." Plan B would be some combination of Biden’s stripped-down counterterrorism strategy – including a hard deadline for US withdrawal – and an accelerated effort by Karzai’s government to reconcile with the leaders of the Taliban insurgency, said the official.
4) Pakistan is exploiting the troubled US military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there, the New York Times reports. Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement. Afghan officials say the Pakistanis are pushing other proxies, with Pakistani Army chief General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership. Washington has watched with nervousness as General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief tell Karzai they agree with his assessment that the US cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network, a longtime Pakistani asset, the NYT says. Some officials in the Obama administration have not ruled out incorporating the Haqqani network in an Afghan settlement, though they stress Obama’s policy calls for Al Qaeda to be separated from the network. US officials are skeptical that can be accomplished. The Taliban, including the Haqqani group, are ready to "do a deal" over Al Qaeda, a senior Pakistani official close to the Pakistani Army said.
5) British Prime Minister Cameron said on Friday he would like to see UK troops pull out of Afghanistan within five years, Reuters reports. "We can’t be there for another five years, having been there for nine years already," Cameron said.
6) Poland’s interim president Komorowski said he will end his country’s military mission in Afghanistan in 2012, if he wins next month’s runoff election, AP reports. Komorowski narrowly won the first round of voting on Sunday but fell short of an outright majority. He will face a runoff on July 4.
7) Canada announced a multibillion-dollar effort to combat infant mortality and improve maternal health around the globe at the G8, the Washington Post reports, but many aid groups were skeptical, saying the announcement merely reshuffles funds from earlier promises that have not been kept. Oxfam called the proposal "smoke and mirrors" and said the G-8 should stick to the promises made at Gleneagles in 2005. Foreign aid from the G-8 is "flatlining," the group said, adding that "any ‘new’ money for maternal health will have to be taken from vital areas such as education and food."
Iran
8) Congress approved new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran’s energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Iran, Reuters reports. The House passed the bill 408-8; the Senate 99-0. The bill penalizes companies supplying Iran with gasoline. It would effectively deprive foreign banks of access to the U.S. financial system if they do business with key Iranian banks. Global suppliers of gasoline to Iran could also face bans on access to the U.S. banking system, property transactions and foreign exchange in the US. The administration failed to get lawmakers to make blanket exemptions for countries cooperating with efforts to isolate Iran. The legislation only allows the president to waive the new sanctions on companies from "cooperating" countries on a case-by-case basis, for 12 months.
9) Iran said the June 27 departure of a ship carrying aid to Gaza has been canceled because of Israel’s vow to prevent Iranian and Lebanese vessels from breaching its blockade, Bloomberg reports. "We will send the aid through other routes and without Iran’s name," said the head of the Iranian agency to support Palestinians.
Israel/Palestine
10) The Palestinian Authority health ministry said seven oxygen machines donated to the Authority by a Norwegian development agency were seized by Israeli officials en route to hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza, Ma’an News Agency reports. The Ministry of Health appealed to the Norwegian Development Agency, which had supplied the machines, asking that they intervene and demand the release of the equipment.
Colombia
11) A court affiliated with the Organization of American States held the Colombian government responsible for the 1994 assassination of a prominent senator, the Washington Post reports. Manuel Cepeda was shot dead in an operation partly organized by Colombia’s army. The case is no anomaly; hundreds of Colombian cases of murder and massacres are coursing through the inter-American justice system. Dozens of cases of serious violations took place during Uribe’s administration. "What this shows is that human rights is still a major issue in Colombia," said Rep. Jim McGovern, who opposes a trade agreement until he sees major improvements on rights issues. "It’s not just a thing of the past."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) House Looks To Pass War Funding By Recess
Bernie Becker, New York Times, June 24, 2010, 7:36 PM http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/house-looks-to-pass-war-funding-by-recess/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday stressed the importance of passing a war spending bill by the time lawmakers leave for an Independence Day recess, but questions remain about what exactly will be included in the legislation.
At a briefing, Ms. Pelosi indicated she was open to splitting the measure into two parts to help grease the wheels for passage and did not tip her hand on whether funds to help stave off teacher layoffs would be included.
Meanwhile, at his own news conference, Representative John A. Boehner, the minority leader, called for what he termed "clean" legislation to fund military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and suggested his conference could support a measure similar to what the Senate has passed, which included some nonmilitary spending.
In addition to roughly $33 billion for the Defense Department, the Senate measure also contained, among other things, $5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "I think voting for a clean supplemental such as what the Senate did would pass muster with most of my troops," said Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican.
House Democrats now seem to be considering adding roughly $10 billion to the war spending measure to help school districts keep teachers, down significantly from an earlier proposal.
[…]
2) Obama losing Hill liberals on war
Jonathan Allen and Marin Cogan, Politico, June 25, 2010 04:35 AM EDT http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39010.html
As President Barack Obama reaffirms his Afghanistan policy, he’s also emboldening critics in Congress who think he should use a shake-up in commanding generals to change the course of what they believe is an intractable war. "I think he has to reassess the strategy," Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said Thursday. "I can’t believe for a minute that he’s not rethinking it."
Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern fired off a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asking her to hold off on a war-funding bill until Congress can assess the full fallout of a Rolling Stone article that concluded – without correction from the White House – that the president and his commanders have been backing off plans to withdraw starting in July 2011.
The bottom line: The president and congressional critics, long on a collision course over the war in Afghanistan, are hurtling ever faster toward each other since the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and doves on Capitol Hill are feeling a little tougher right now.
The anti-war coalition continues to be a thorn in the side of Democratic leaders, who are trying to find a way to move a war-funding bill over liberal objections and past a Republican Party unified in its opposition to using the must-pass $33 billion measure as a source of domestic spending.
War critics say Obama is missing a golden opportunity to use the McChrystal flap as an excuse to reshape his policy in Afghanistan. Instead, he’s reaffirming a policy that was shaped in large measure by McChrystal and using acclaimed Gen. David Petraeus to execute it, leaving himself little room to cast blame should things go wrong. "He’s doubling-down," said a senior Democratic congressional aide.
It’s not clear how the funding fight, or the larger battle over conduct of the Afghanistan war, will be resolved. But no one is backing down.
For 48 hours, Obama has been saying he’s not interested in a recalibration of his policy, even gently mocking those who hope for a quick exit next summer. "We did not say, starting in July 2011, suddenly there will be no troops from the United States or allied countries in Afghanistan," Obama said Thursday. "We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us."
But the firing of McChrystal – and the choice of Petraeus – has cleared the way for a fresh debate over the war. And while Petraeus should cruise to confirmation, it’s clear that many Democrats may love the general but are starting to hate the war.
"Until a full and complete explanation of these [McChrystal] comments and views are presented to Congress, we believe that a vote of the House of Representatives on the administration’s request for a supplemental appropriation for the war in Afghanistan would be inappropriate," McGovern and 29 colleagues wrote to Pelosi. Of the McChrystal-Petraeus trade, McGovern said, "Same menu, different waiter."
[…] While most lawmakers are supportive of the Petraeus pick, some say no one – not even Ulysses S. Grant – could win the war. "That McChrystal thing is just a symptom of what we won’t face up to, which is that it’s a totally failed policy," Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) told POLITICO. "If we were on the verge of a great success, do you think we’d fire the general? So it was an absolute confirmation of the failed policy and yet the policy doesn’t change."
[…]
3) As Generals Change, Afghan Debate Narrows To 2 Powerful Voices
Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, New York Times, June 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/world/europe/25petraeus.html
Washington – The messy departure of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is likely to make the Obama administration’s internal debates over Afghanistan even more pointed, giving the military a powerful advocate for staying the course as it prepares for a reckoning with more impatient officials like Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
President Obama insisted he was switching military leaders, not strategies, when he fired General McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, on Wednesday. But administration insiders acknowledge that there have been preliminary discussions about whether to rethink the approach to a war that is clearly bogging down.
[…] Mr. Obama reiterated Thursday that the pace of withdrawal would be open to debate. "We did not say that starting July 2011 suddenly there would be no troops from the United States or allied countries in Afghanistan," he said. "We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us. We said that we’d begin a transition phase in which the Afghan government is taking on more and more responsibility."
At the same time, though, the setbacks on the battlefield and persistent questions about the reliability of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, have strengthened Mr. Biden’s hand, some officials said. During the policy debate last fall, he argued for a narrower counterterrorism strategy with many fewer troops and a clear endgame for the United States. In many ways, setting the July 2011 date was a concession to Mr. Biden.
"There aren’t camps; there is a policy," said Antony Blinken, the vice president’s top national security adviser. "It’s a crystal clear policy set by the president that everyone is following. He said at the West Point speech that after 18 months troops will begin to come home."
With General Petraeus now directly responsible for reversing the tide in Afghanistan, he and Mr. Biden will loom large in the coming months, two pivotal voices as Mr. Obama weighs his strategy against the political costs of an unpopular war. The symbolism was evident in the Rose Garden on Wednesday when Mr. Obama announced the change in command, flanked by the general and Mr. Biden.
"If there continue to be problems," a senior official said, "the debate will intensify between those who say we have to stick with it and those who say we lost the moment to go into Kandahar, and we have to go to Plan B."
Plan B would be some combination of Mr. Biden’s stripped-down counterterrorism strategy – including a hard deadline for American withdrawal – and an accelerated effort by Mr. Karzai’s government to reconcile with the leaders of the Taliban insurgency, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.
Any public showdown between the general and the vice president is likely to wait until the end of the year, when the administration begins a formal review of whether the troop surge has worked. Until then, White House officials said, Mr. Biden fully supports the strategy.
"We’ll know in December," an official said. "By the time we get to July 2011, all the presurge forces will have been there for two years. That’s a perfectly appropriate amount of time to begin transferring troops out."
[…]
4) Pakistan Is Said to Pursue Foothold in Afghanistan
Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Carlotta Gall, New York Times, June 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/world/asia/25islamabad.html
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests, Pakistani and American officials said.
The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said.
[…] Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.
In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership.
Washington has watched with some nervousness as General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, shuttle between Islamabad and Kabul, telling Mr. Karzai that they agree with his assessment that the United States cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network, a longtime Pakistani asset. In a sign of the shift in momentum, the two Pakistani officials were next scheduled to visit Kabul on Monday, according to Afghan TV.
Despite General McChrystal’s 11 visits to General Kayani in Islamabad in the past year, the Pakistanis have not been altogether forthcoming on details of the conversations in the last two months, making the Pakistani moves even more worrisome for the United States, said an American official involved in the administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan deliberations. "They know this creates a bigger breach between us and Karzai," the American official said.
Though encouraged by Washington, the thaw heightens the risk that the United States will find itself cut out of what amounts to a separate peace between the Afghans and Pakistanis, and one that does not necessarily guarantee Washington’s prime objective in the war: denying Al Qaeda a haven.
It also provides another indication of how Pakistan, ostensibly an American ally, has worked many opposing sides in the war to safeguard its ultimate interest in having an Afghanistan that is pliable and free of the influence of its main strategic obsession, its more powerful neighbor, India.
[…] Some officials in the Obama administration have not ruled out incorporating the Haqqani network in an Afghan settlement, though they stress that President Obama’s policy calls for Al Qaeda to be separated from the network. American officials are skeptical that that can be accomplished.
Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said on a visit to Islamabad last weekend that it was "hard to imagine" the Haqqani network in an Afghan arrangement, but added, "Who knows?"
At a briefing this week at the headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistani analysts laid out a view of the war that dovetailed neatly with the doubts expressed by Mr. Karzai. They depicted a stark picture of an American military campaign in Afghanistan "that will not succeed."
They said the Taliban were gaining strength. Despite the impending arrival of new American troops, they concluded the "security situation would become more dangerous," resulting in an erosion of the American will to fight. "That is the reason why Karzai is trying to negotiate now," a senior analyst said.
General Pasha, the head of the intelligence agency, dashed to Kabul on the eve of Mr. Karzai’s visit to Washington in May, an American official said. Neither Mr. Karzai nor the Pakistanis mentioned to the Americans about incorporating the Haqqanis in a postwar Afghanistan, the official said.
Pakistan has already won what it sees as an important concession in Kabul, the resignations this month of the intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar. The two officials, favored by Washington, were viewed by Pakistan as major obstacles to its vision of hard-core Taliban fighters’ being part of an Afghanistan settlement, though the circumstances of their resignations did not suggest any connection to Pakistan.
[…] The offer by Pakistan to make the Haqqanis part of the solution in Afghanistan has now been adopted as basic Pakistani policy, said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University, and a confidant of top military generals.
"The establishment thinks that without getting Haqqani on board, efforts to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan will be doomed," Mr. Hussain said. "Haqqani has a large fighting force, and by co-opting him into a power-sharing arrangement a lot of bloodshed can be avoided."
The recent trips by General Kayani and General Pasha to Kabul were an "effort to make this happen," he said.
Afghan officials said General Kayani had offered to broker a deal with the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and had sent envoys to Kabul from another insurgent leader and longtime Pakistani ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, with the offer of a 15-point peace plan in March.
As for the Haqqanis, whose fighters stretch across eastern Afghanistan all the way to Kabul, they are prepared to break with Al Qaeda, Pakistani intelligence and military officials said.
The Taliban, including the Haqqani group, are ready to "do a deal" over Al Qaeda, a senior Pakistani official close to the Pakistani Army said. The Haqqanis could tell Al Qaeda to move elsewhere because it had been given nine years of protection since 9/11, the official said.
[…]
5) UK’s Cameron wants Afghan pullout within five years
Sumeet Desai, Reuters, Fri Jun 25, 2:44 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100625/ts_nm/us_britain_cameron_afghanistan_2
Toronto – British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday he would like to see UK troops pull out of Afghanistan within five years.
Asked if UK troops would be home by the time of the next election, due by 2015, Cameron said, "I want that to happen, make no mistake about it."
"We can’t be there for another five years, having been there for nine years already," he told reporters on the sidelines of a G20 summit.
[…]
6) Komorowski: pullout from Afghanistan in 2012
Associated Press, Tuesday, June 22, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062201209.html
Warsaw, Poland – Poland’s interim president said Tuesday he will end his country’s military mission in Afghanistan in 2012, if he wins next month’s runoff election.
Bronislaw Komorowski said he would start scaling back Poland’s force of some 2,600 troops in Afghanistan in 2011, and end the mission the following year. He said his plan would echo that of the Obama administration, which wants to start bringing U.S. troops home in July 2011.
Komorowski, 58, narrowly won the first round of voting on Sunday but fell short of an outright majority. He will face a runoff on July 4 against Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of former President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash in April. Parliament Speaker Komorowski assumed presidential duties after the crash.
Hours after returning from a visit to Afghanistan, he said the time was ripe to seek political rather than military solutions there. Poland will press for turning the Afghan mission into a more civilian one at an autumn NATO summit. Komorowski has previously said he favors ending Poland’s military involvement but hadn’t talked about a timeline.
[…]
7) G-8 finalizes $10B aid venture amid criticisms
Howard Schneider and William Branigin, Washington Post, June 25, 2010; 4:11 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062502903.html
Toronto – As the world’s major industrialized nations gathered Friday for a round of summit meetings, Canada announced a multibillion-dollar effort to combat infant mortality and improve maternal health around the globe. The initiative could amount to as much as $10 billion, but some skeptical aid groups argued that it merely reshuffles funds from earlier promises that have not been kept.
Amid a growing mood of spending austerity among the world’s wealthiest nations, Canada’s proposed Muskoka Initiative has emerged as the major development venture under discussion at meetings here and at Ontario’s Muskoka resort about 100 miles north of Toronto.
Canada announced Friday that it is committing nearly $3 billion to the initiative. But part of that funding was already pledged, a fact that aid groups say makes assessing the new program difficult. The new funding from Canada amounts to about $1.1 billion over the next five years, and the existing money comes to $1.75 billion.
[…] Maternal mortality and health are among a set of targets, called the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, where progress has been most lacking, according to a recent World Bank report. The bank said it was concerned that the global economic downturn would leave tens of millions of additional people in poverty.
Named after the lakeside resort where leaders of the Group of Eight nations gathered Friday, the Muskoka Initiative is part of what officials say is an effort to concentrate on core development goals even as some of the larger financial commitments made by the group have lagged.
A promise five years ago to deliver $50 billion in additional development assistance, for example, has only produced about half that much.
Officials from Save the Children, which has been following discussion of the Canadian plan, said they expect the countries to pledge around $10 billion for it over five years. The Obama administration’s latest budget proposal includes an extra $350 million a year for the effort, according to Michael Klosson, former U.S. ambassador to Cyprus and now a vice president with the organization.
[…] Other aid organizations were already taking aim, arguing that talk of new initiatives rings hollow when earlier ones have been ignored.
In a press release, the anti-hunger group Oxfam called the proposal "smoke and mirrors" and argued that the G-8 should stick to the promises made at Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005. Overall foreign aid from the G-8 is "flatlining," the group said, adding that "any ‘new’ money for maternal health will have to be taken from vital areas such as education and food."
"Let them deliver what they promise. Don’t come up with new things," said Salil Shetty, director of a group that monitors implementation of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. He argued that the developed countries had fallen short on promises to cancel debt and increase overall foreign aid.
[…]
Iran
8) Congress OKs sanctions on Iran’s energy, banks
Susan Cornwell, Reuters, June 25, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65N6RZ20100625
Washington – Congress on Thursday approved tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran’s energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran. The House of Representatives passed the bill 408-8 and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law. The Senate had approved it 99-0 earlier in the day.
[…] U.S. lawmakers from both parties have been pushing for months to tighten U.S. sanctions on Iran. At the Obama administration’s request, they held off until the U.N. Security Council and the European Union agreed on new multilateral sanctions. But the lawmakers then declared that still tougher measures were needed.
"The U.N. sanctions, though a good first step, are quite tepid. And they are tepid because there are other members of the Security Council who want to keep doing that business with Iran. … The United States … has to pass these unilateral sanctions," Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski said.
The bill penalizes companies supplying Iran with gasoline as well as international banking institutions involved with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its nuclear program or what Washington calls its support for terrorist activity.
It would effectively deprive foreign banks of access to the U.S. financial system if they do business with key Iranian banks or the Revolutionary Guards. Such banks would be "shut out of the U.S. financial system," said the bill’s House author, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman.
[…] Global suppliers of gasoline to Iran could also face bans on access to the U.S. banking system, property transactions and foreign exchange in the United States.
[…] Some companies worldwide, such as Italy’s oil and gas company Eni and French energy giant Total have been backing away from business with Tehran amid the U.S. drive to isolate Iran. But other companies are still in business with Iran or considering it. Russia’s Gazprom says it is interested in developing the Azar oil field, and industry sources say China has been selling gasoline to Iran.
The Obama administration failed to get U.S. lawmakers to make blanket exemptions for countries that are cooperating with multilateral efforts to isolate Iran. The legislation only allows the president to waive the new sanctions on companies from "cooperating" countries on a case-by-case basis, for 12 months.
[…]
9) Iran Gaza Shipment Canceled Over Israeli Blockade Vow
Ali Sheikholeslami, Bloomberg, June 25, 2010
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-25/iran-gaza-shipment-canceled-over-israeli-blockade-vow.html
June 25 – Iran said the June 27 departure of a ship carrying aid to the Gaza Strip has been canceled because of Israel’s vow to prevent Iranian and Lebanese vessels from breaching its blockade of the Palestinian enclave.
"The Zionist regime has made sending aid to Gaza a political issue," Hossein Sheikholeslam, head of the Iranian agency to support Palestinians, was cited as saying by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency late yesterday.
He referred to Israel’s warning to the United Nations that it may take military action to prevent ships from reaching Gaza. "In order not to give the Zionist regime an excuse, we will send the aid through other routes and without Iran’s name," said Sheikholeslam, a former lawmaker and diplomat.
[…] "The costs of sending aid to Gaza has increased," Sheikholeslam said. "As Israel has said it will confiscate ships, no company is prepared to rent their vessels."
[…]
Israel/Palestine
10) MOH: Israel prevents delivery of oxygen to hospitals
Ma’an News Agency, June 24, 2010
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=294521
Bethlehem – Seven oxygen machines donated to the Palestinian Authority by a Norwegian development agency were seized by Israeli officials en route to hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza, the Ramallah-based health ministry said.
The machines, the ministry said in a Thursday statement, were confiscated by Israeli officials who claimed that the generators attached "came under the category of possible use for non-medical purposes" if they were delivered to the southern Gaza governorates.
While only one generator was bound for southern Gaza, all seven were taken, the statement said, and "all were badly needed for medical treatment."
The six others were bound for government hospitals in the northern Gaza, inducing the European Hospital in Gaza City, the Rafdieyah hospital in Nablus, and other facilities in Ramallah and Hebron.
The Ministry of Health made an official appeal to the Norwegian Development Agency, which had supplied the machines, asking that hey intervene and demand the release of the equipment at the soonest possible date.
"Any delay in obtaining the medical equipment will negatively affect the health of patients," the statement concluded, holding all partners responsible for the well being of Palestinians as the goods are withheld.
Colombia
11) Backlog of Colombian human rights cases pose a test for new president, the U.S.
Juan Forero, Washington Post, Friday, June 25, 2010; 4:12 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062503704.html
Bogota, Colombia – The verdict this week was a milestone: A distant court affiliated with the Washington-based Organization of American States held the Colombian government responsible for the 1994 assassination of a prominent senator.
Lion of a radical political party whose members were slain by the hundreds, Manuel Cepeda was shot dead in an operation partly organized by Colombia’s army. But the 16-year-old case is no anomaly in a country suffering from a simmering, half-century-old guerrilla conflict. Hundreds of cases of murder and massacres, old and new, are coursing through the inter-American justice system.
As President Alvaro Uribe prepares to leave office in August after eight years in power, investigators at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a branch of the OAS, are grappling with many of these cases. The most recent have triggered a firestorm here and as far away as Europe: the army’s systematic killing of peasant farmers to inflate combat kills and revelations that Uribe’s secret police spied on opponents, foreign diplomats and rights groups.
"If you put all of this together, the extrajudicial executions, the espionage of human rights defenders, it’s all really a constant over the years," Santiago Canton, an Argentine who has headed the rights commission for nine years, said by phone from Washington. "That’s very dangerous."
The backlog of cases and what they say about Colombia’s history of rights violations poses a test for Uribe’s successor, Juan Manuel Santos, a former defense minister elected Sunday. Among his priorities is winning U.S. congressional approval of a free trade pact, which would eliminate tariffs on Colombian exports. So far, the effort has stalled because of Democratic concerns about rights violations and impunity here.
Colombia’s record is also a challenge for the Obama administration as it tries forging closer ties to the rest of Latin America. The effort has been hamstrung by diplomatic imbroglios, including criticism from some governments of Uribe’s rights record and U.S. support for Colombia’s army.
[…] Investigators from the rights commission examine cases from OAS member states, including the United States, whose operation of the Guantanamo detention center for Taliban fighters has been condemned. Peru has lodged the most complaints, 1,400. Mexico’s offensive against drug cartels has generated numerous cases. And in Venezuela, Hugo Ch?vez’s carefully calibrated repression of opponents is under increasingly close scrutiny.
But Washington’s closest ally in the region, Colombia, has lodged the most serious cases of abuse before the commission, investigators familiar with the cases said. In all, the commission is evaluating 1,055 cases. "In other countries, there are violations of human rights," said Victor Abramovich, a former investigator for the commission whose work focused on Colombia. "But in Colombia, you have crimes against humanity, which are more systematic."
Some go back years, including the most notorious: the 1985 firefight between the army and rebels in the building housing the Supreme Court, which left 100 dead, including 11 justices. But dozens of cases of serious violations took place during Uribe’s administration.
"What this shows is that human rights is still a major issue in Colombia," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who closely tracks Colombia and opposes a free trade agreement until he sees major improvements on rights issues. "It’s not just a thing of the past."
In the court’s latest ruling on Colombia, the case involving the assassination of Cepeda, the state was ordered to apologize publicly to Cepeda’s family, build a monument in his honor and fund a university scholarship in his name. Vice President Francisco Santos told Colombian radio that the state would adhere to the ruling.
Ivan Cepeda, the senator’s son, welcomed the verdict but said he hoped that it would also spur more resources to improve criminal investigations of rights-related crimes in Colombia. "If there were justice in Colombia," he said, "you wouldn’t have to go the inter-American system of justice."
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
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