Archive for December, 2008
December 8th, 2008 at 07:52am
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visited India and Pakistan last week in the wake of the November 26 terrorist attacks on Mumbai in which gunmen killed more than 170 people. Rice pledged U.S. support to India’s investigation of the attacks and emphasized the importance of cooperation in international counterterrorism efforts between India, the U.S., and Pakistan.
“I know that this is a very difficult time for the people of India, for the people of Mumbai, but I hope that it is a time also when you can feel the sense of solidarity and support that is there in the international community from your friends,” Rice said during a joint press conference with Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Kumar Mukherjee.
Rice declined to respond to accusations that the gunmen were linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmir-based group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, stating she would not, “jump to any conclusions about who is responsible.” However, Rice said that the U.S. expects “all responsible nations to participate and cooperate in bringing these perpetrators to justice,” noting that “Pakistan has a special responsibility to do so.”
Rice also met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other top officials. Meanwhile, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his security advisers in order to help coordinate security efforts and defuse regional tensions. U.S. security experts, including FBI forensics investigators, have been deployed to the region to support the investigation.
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December 6th, 2008 at 11:58am
While attending a conference in Belgium on December 2, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed the United States’ support of a gradual, informal resumption of contacts between NATO and Russia. She stated, “This isn’t an issue of isolating Russia, but it is an issue of what kinds of contacts are appropriate. And I think this is a completely appropriate thing for the alliance to do.”
Relations between NATO and Russia were suspended in August following the Russian-Georgian crisis. The resumption of relations was also supported by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and other foreign ministers attending the conference.
Though Georgia and Ukraine have yet to be offered an official invitation to join NATO, Rice stressed that their eventual membership remains important to the U.S.
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December 5th, 2008 at 04:09pm
A federal judge has ruled that the United States lacks adequate evidence to justify holding five Algerians detained as terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rejected government claims that there was enough evidence to continue detaining the men, who have been held in Guantanamo for nearly seven years after being arrested in Bosnia. “Seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer to a question so important is, in my judgment, more than plenty,” Judge Leon said.
The men released by Judge Leon’s order – Lakhdar Boumediene, Mohamed Nechla, Hadj Boudella, Mustafa Ait Idir and Saber Lahmar – were among a group of detainees who won the right to challenge their detention in U.S. federal courts in an earlier Supreme Court ruling. In October, another federal judge ordered a separate group of Chinese Muslims released after a federal court hearing.
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