US Officials in Asia for Meetings on North Korea

A U.S. government delegation is winding its way through Asia this week to discuss how to respond to North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg is leading the group, which arrives in Japan Sunday.

The delegation includes Stuart Levy, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary on terrorism and financial intelligence. Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, also is expected to be part of the mission.

From Japan, the delegation travels to South Korea, China and Russia. The countries are part of stalled negotiations aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear program.

- VOA

West Bank Clash Could Spark Palestinian Civil War

Responding to a raid on one of its armed cells by its U.S.-supported rival in the West Bank, Iranian-backed Hamas, which already rules Gaza, could start a Palestinian civil war in the disputed territory that the United States and Europe want Israel to abandon.

Click here for the breaking news report, which begins: “Tension between Palestinian factions exploded in their worst violence in nearly two years as a paramilitary police raid left six people dead today in the West Bank, underscoring the risks for the Palestinian Authority as it moves forcefully, with fresh encouragement from President Obama, to disarm militants intent on attacking Israel.”

Israel Holding Huge Civil Defense Drill

Israel is holding the biggest civil-defense drill in its history–a five-day exercise, code-named Turning Point 3.

Amid growing tensions with Iran, Israel is training soldiers, emergency crews, and civilians for the possibility of all-out war.

The scenarios include massive missile attacks possibly with chemical or biological weapons.

The crisis Israel fears is a massive rocket and missile barrage on all fronts: from Iran in the East, to Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in the North, to the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel’s southern border in the Gaza Strip.

Obama’s Appeasement Policy Fanning Flames of Aggression Ahead of Address Validating Islamism

As if to confirm that U.S. President Barack Obama’s policies are effectively emboldening Israel’s enemies and strengthening Islamism by elevating an inherently intolerant and warlike religion to the level of a global political power, Reuters reports:

Obama’s best chance to win over Muslims and Arabs was to use Washington’s leverage on its Israeli ally, said Saudi political analyst Turad al-Amri. “By pressuring Israel, Obama will win in more than one area — in terrorism, the Iran file, Lebanon.”

The U.S. president has said Israel must halt all settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, a demand that sets him on a collision course with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

For PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, Obama’s task was to ensure creation of a Palestinian state. “People of this region don’t want to hear words any more. They want to see deeds,” he said.

In Kabul, Afghan lawmaker Sabrina Saqib said Obama’s roots, as a black American with a Muslim father, meant he understood deprivation and would work to settle the Palestinian issue.

“One speech will not work, but it’s good for a start,” she said of Obama’s planned address on Thursday. “When you pay homage to others and respect them, you enliven their spirit.”

Iranian Analyst Promises Reprisals Against US and its Allies Even if Israel Attacks Iran Without US Help

Appeasement invites aggression….

Iran’s Fars News Agency, which is close to the country’s judiciary and most hardline government factions, has published an interview with an Iranian analyst that seems to threaten the United States with retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran … even if the U.S. does not join in the assault.

Gloating over Israel’s isolation, the article begins:

Israel has been left alone in its threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran, an analyst said, referring to the recent allegations by the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if Israel does not eliminate the Iranian threat, no one will.

“Netanyahu acknowledged that there is no will and power in the world community to confront Iran’s might and influence in the Middle East region and this shows that the visit by the Zionist regime’s prime minister to Washington and the meeting he had with US president Barack Obama were completely fruitless,” a senior analyst on international relations Sa’dollah Zaree’i told FNA on Sunday.

He reiterated that Israel is in a situation that has no ability to perform successful military attack against any regional country.

Noting that any aggression by the regime against Iran could merely accelerate Israel’s demise, Zaree’i warned that Israel threatens Iran from a weak stance but it should know that even a small attack by the regime will be reciprocated by Iran’s pounding response.

“Iran’s response will not be limited to the Zionist regime but its allies will also be within Iran’s range and (will be included in the) military confrontation and will pay for their support for this criminal regime,” he added.

The Case for Calling North Korea’s Bluff

From Collin Spears, via Brooks Foreign Policy Review, comes one of the most interesting and thought-provoking articles yet on the North Korean crisis. He writes:

If the United States and its allies want to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and not just temporarily allay tensions, they must call Kim Jong-Il’s bluff by escalating the situation. As North Korea’s primary benefactor, China is the only nation that can force the North to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and return to 6-Party Talks. However, China will not exert such pressure, until the threat of instability on its border forces it to recalculate the utility of supporting the Kim regime. When the liability of North Korea becomes a greater threat to China’s internal security than the potential presence of American troops at its border, China will cooperate with the American alliance. Contrary to common media depiction, Kim is a rational actor. In fact, when scrutinizing North Korea’s conduct with the supposition that every action it has taken is for the preservation of Kim’s personal power, it is apparent that even the most provocative actions have been deliberate. America must use a realist approach to exploit these aims, if it wants to end the last great impasses of the Cold War.

Click here to continue.

UN envoy extends condolences over passing of former President of Sudan

The Secretary-General's Special Representative to Sudan today commiserated over the passing of the African nation's former President Jaafar Nimeiri.

Iranian Missiles Can Hit US East Coast

Israel believes that Iran’s long-range missiles can reach America’s East Coast.

China Confidential analysts agree, and add that Iran and North Korea can already attack American coastal cities with short-range missiles tipped with North Korean nuclear warheads.

North Korea has a stockpile of nuclear warheads; and the missiles capable of delivering them can be concealed in shipping containers and launched from seagoing cargo ships flying so-called flags of convenience.

North Korea and Iran have successfully test-fired missiles from cargo ships.

There is no defense against that kind of attack.

Secretary-General condemns ''despicable'' mosque bombing in Iran

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today condemned as “despicable” the bombing of a mosque in the Iranian city of Zahedan which reportedly killed at least 20 people and wounded many others.

Leaders called to special climate talks

Unprecedented number of summits as world struggles to hammer out agreement before vital meeting in December
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 31 May 2009

World leaders are to meet for an unprecedented second summit on climate change this year to try to get agreement on a tough new treaty by December, and may even get together for a third time before the end of the year.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, is to call the world’s heads of government to New York in September to “galvanise political will” about what he describes as “the defining issue of our time”. And there are plans for another G20 summit to discuss the issue in the autumn.
These will follow a meeting of 17 key world leaders convened at the initiative of President Barack Obama immediately after the annual G8 summit in July. Observers cannot remember any similar progression of top-level meetings to address any issue over such a short period of time.
The moves come as pressure mounts on the leaders to reach agreement at December’s vital negotiations in Copenhagen, billed as the world’s last chance to get to grips with global warming before it escalates out of control.
On Friday a think tank headed by the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan reported that climate change was already killing 300,000 people and affecting 300 million. The day before, 20 Nobel Prize winners, meeting in London, warned that it posed as great a threat as nuclear war. And in Copenhagen on Tuesday 500 business chief executives called for “an ambitious and effective treaty” to “help establish a firm foundation for a sustainable economic future”.
The summits are part of an extraordinarily intense series of meetings over the next six months that will take negotiators from Bonn to Bangkok and from Barcelona to the Ilulissat in Greenland. The first three are formal discussions on a UN treaty for the Copenhagen talks, while key ministers from 30 countries will go to the small Greenland town next to the Arctic’s fastest melting glacier at the end of next month to try to hammer out a “political declaration” to accompany it.
The next round of negotiations opens in Bonn tomorrow, but no one is expecting a breakthrough. Talks in the former West German capital in April made little progress beyond agreeing to draw up negotiating texts.
These will be on the table for the first time tomorrow, but they mainly serve to highlight divisions between countries and show how far there is to go in six short months to meet December’s deadline.
One of the main stumbling blocks is how much rich countries will undertake to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases in the short to medium term. There is general agreement that they should be reduced by a drastic 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050, the minimum that scientists say will be needed to avoid dangerous climate change. But setting more immediate targets is proving much harder.
Ten days ago, China flung down the gauntlet by calling on rich countries to cut emissions by 40 per cent by 2020. The only advanced economy to come near that is the European Union, which has promised unilaterally to reduce them by 20 per cent by then, rising to 30 per cent if other countries follow suit. But at present there is little sign of other industrialised nations taking up the challenge; despite the new priority President Obama is giving to climate change, his plans would amount to a cut of only a few per cent from 1990 levels.
In return, developing countries, including China and India, would agree to slow the growth of their emissions through “measurable, verifiable and reportable” measures. But India has just signalled that it will not open such plans to global scrutiny unless rich countries deliver on a promise to provide funds to help it tackle and adapt to climate change.
That is the second sticking point. Developing countries want to get at least $200bn a year, which works out at about 0.5 per cent of rich nations’ economic output and is about the same size as current development aid. It is a relatively small sum, especially in the context of the amounts spent in recent months on bailing out the banks, but developed country government are baulking at it. Last week Australia described the demands as “unimaginable”.
In the end, senior negotiators say, success or failure will depend not so much on the climate talks themselves, but on whether the world adopts a Green New Deal as the best way to revive the world’s economy.