Re: World News Thread
Still some unrest in Chile. The army is being brought in to support order in some regions and help stabilize the region for rebuilding.
But Chile has been hit hard by the quake.
Extra troops deployed amid Chile earthquake unrest
23:10 GMT, Monday, 1 March 2010
Thousands of Chilean troops are heading to the country's devastated earthquake zone as reports emerge of desperate survivors turning to looting and arson.
President Michelle Bachelet said a total of 7,000 troops would soon be in place in areas around Concepcion.
The city, Chile's second-largest, was the closest to the epicentre of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake.
At least 723 people have been confirmed dead, with 19 more missing, officials say, with the toll expected to rise.
Ms Bachelet said reinforcements would join the troops already in the provinces of Bio Bio and Maule, bringing the total to some 7,000.
Concepcion will see another night under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, with reports emerging from the city of residents clashing with police as they lay siege to shops and supermarkets in the search for food.
The army was called in to help the police force deal with looters, some of whom filled shopping trolleys with groceries while others made off with plasma TVs and other electrical appliances.
Some 160 people were arrested for looting and breaking the curfew, police said on Monday.
Clashes with looters saw one 22-year-old man shot and killed.
And by Monday evening tensions had flared once more, with troops deployed to the streets after a blaze began in a looted supermarket.
Chilean newspaper La Tercera reported that despite the presence of troops, a huge fire was intentionally started at a building housing the Polar department store.
The blaze caused the building to collapse, La Tercera reported. Marco Riquelme, a regional spokesman for the department store, told La Tercera the incident was a "clear example" of the "chaotic situation" survivors were enduring in Concepcion. ...
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The IAEO says Iran is still not cooperating on the nuclear issue, and finally Russia seems to be more intent on supporting further sactions. It'll now be interesting to see if that can create enough pressure to force movement on the issue, or if Iran feels save enough to go on with China still covering it's back.
MARCH 1, 2010, 4:46 P.M. ET
New Momentum for Iran Sanctions
VIENNA—The new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran isn't cooperating with U.N. inspectors, and Russia appeared to move closer to supporting sanctions, adding momentum to efforts at the U.N. Security Council to pressure Tehran to rein in its nuclear program.
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, speaking to reporters at his first scheduled news conference since he took the post in December, defended his agency's impartiality in a Feb. 18 report that said Iran may be working on a missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload.
The IAEA board of governors, which is meeting this week, is expected to recommend that the report be forwarded to the Security Council for consideration during discussions on possible sanctions.
The report and Mr. Amano's speech Monday represent a shift from the less-confrontational stance of Mr. Amano's predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, who led the agency for 12 years.
Mr. Amano said Iran is cooperating with the mandate of the IAEA to make sure no known sources of uranium are being diverted for military use. But he said there is much that Iran keeps off limits to inspectors charged with verifying whether its nuclear program is peaceful or military in nature.
The Feb. 18 report listed questions of "concern" that prevent the IAEA from declaring Iran's nuclear program to be peaceful, as Tehran claims. On Monday, Mr. Amano said the report was based on an impartial analysis of credible information from multiple sources.
Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said the findings in the report were "unjustified."
U.S. Ambassador Glyn Davies said the report presents a "factual" list of the IAEA's concerns and will "help focus Security Council Members on how far Iran has to go" to meet its international requirements.
Mr. Davies said the international community, led by the U.S., China, Russia, France, the U.K. and Germany would now need to "find new ways to change Iran's direction."
China, however, has opposed sanctions, and Russia has dragged its feet. In Paris Monday, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Moscow was ready to consider new sanctions, but insisted that any measures not harm the Iranian population.
Mr. Medvedev's comment echoed previous statements from Russia, which has alternately expressed willingness and reluctance to support efforts to punish Iran.
But French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France and Russia had "extremely close" positions regarding sanctions against Iran. France, with the U.S, has been particularly aggressive in pursuing new sanctions.
Mr. Sarkozy said any sanctions should be "intelligent" and not harm the Iranian population, a spokesman for the president said. The two leaders didn't discuss details of what sanctions should be imposed, according to the spokesman.
In an October deal brokered by Mr. ElBaradei, the U.S., France, Russia and Iran tentatively agreed that Iran should export most of its stocks of low-enriched uranium for further enrichment to fuel a medical research reactor in Iran. Iran later backed out of that deal.
In a letter on February 18, Iran asked the IAEA to seek potential suppliers willing to sell fuel required for a medical research reactor. Mr. Amano said he forwarded the Iranian request to potential suppliers, and that the October deal also "remains upon the table."
Mr. Davies said there are few countries capable of providing nuclear fuel according to Iran's particular needs. He said these countries "would have qualms" about unilaterally supplying fuel to Iran.
—Max Colchester in Paris contributed to this article.
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Medvedev visiting France. The presidents will sign a deal selling Mistral warships to Russia, wich Russia says it needs and would built trust between the countries. On the other hand, those sales cause some unease in eastern Europe, with the short Russia-Georgia war still in good memory, as well as in other NATO countries.
There's also significant economic interests on the line, especially in the energy sector.
Another topic was Iran, were Russia seems to be more and more unhappy, too.
Medvedev Begins 3-Day Visit to France
By STEVEN ERLANGER - Published: March 1, 2010
PARIS — The president of Russia, Dmitri A. Medvedev, came to Paris on Monday with warships, natural gas and a special relationship with Europe on his mind. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, greeted him warmly on the start of what will be a three-day visit, designed to enhance the prestige of both men, profit their companies and remind French voters that Mr. Sarkozy’s foreign policy is not beholden to Washington.
Despite open American criticism from the Obama administration and from Congress, as well as from European Union allies in the Baltics, Mr. Sarkozy announced that France had entered “exclusive negotiations” to sell four Mistral-class amphibious assault ships to Russia.
The Russian naval commander has said that with the Mistral, which can carry helicopters or tanks, Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia would have been much faster. The arms sale would be the largest by a NATO country to Russia; Mr. Sarkozy said the ships would be sold without sophisticated technology.
But in a joint news conference with Mr. Medvedev Monday evening, Mr. Sarkozy said that Russia is “a partner,” no longer an enemy, and that “it’s time to turn the page” on the cold war. “How are we to say to Russian leaders — ‘We need you for peace, like on Iran,’ but then say: ‘We don’t trust you’? That would be totally inconsistent.”
Mr. Medvedev called the deal “a symbol of trust between our two countries” and pressed for “Russia and France to be partners on European security,” something that will put Washington’s teeth on edge.
Mr. Sarkozy, for his part, said that France was now a full member of NATO and an ally of the United States, and that “Russia has nothing to fear from NATO.” Still, Mr. Sarkozy said, “we should think together of what the security architecture of Europe should look like,” and said he would like to draw Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose country has an even more privileged relationship with Russia, into the conversation.
The two men, of equal, modest height and both in solid-color neckties, also praised an important deal signed on Monday between the main French natural gas company, *** Suez, and the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom. *** Suez agreed to acquire a 9 percent stake in the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, intended to send Russian gas directly to Western Europe while avoiding Poland and Ukraine. In return, Gazprom will supply *** Suez with up to an additional 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually from 2015. Nord Stream has previously been largely a Russo-German deal.
Poland’s foreign minister, Radislaw Sikorsky, once compared Nord Stream — which bypasses traditional gas transit countries and thus renders them vulnerable to pressure if Moscow should restrict gas supplies — to the secret 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and that secretly divided up Europe.
The French electricity giant, EDF, has already taken a 10 percent stake in the Gazprom pipeline South Stream, to run under the Black Sea. Both pipelines compete with Nabucco, a proposed but troubled pipeline backed by the United States and the European Union.
There will be other deals for one of Russia’s major partners, with French investments in Russia last year outstripping those of the United States, according to Mr. Medvedev aides. There should be some celebration, too, with the two countries having in January inaugurated a “France-Russia” year of cultural exchanges and high-level visits.
The European Union’s position on Russia has been divided, at best, especially after the brief war with Georgia and the virtual annexation by Russia of two breakaway Georgian enclaves, effectively changing the post-war borders of Europe. Mr. Sarkozy, then in the rotating presidency of the European Union, rushed to Moscow to end the war, but the agreement he reached with Mr. Medvedev then has never been fully carried out.
Russia, especially its powerful prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, who is expected to visit France again in June, has been clear about creating a special relationship with Europe and undermining the NATO alliance with Washington as an outdated relic of the cold war and a divided Europe. Mr. Medvedev himself has proposed a new “security architecture” for Europe that would supersede NATO but allow Russia a sphere of interest in eastern Europe, a proposal that Europeans reject.
Mr. Sarkozy did not criticize the idea in public, and Mr. Medvedev emphasized that it was open to changes.
Iran was also a topic of discussion, with France pushing both Washington and Moscow hard for painful sanctions on Iran, as the best and perhaps final chance to pressure Tehran to give up uranium enrichment, as the Security Council has demanded. Mr. Medvedev has expressed disappointment and criticism of Iranian behavior, and Moscow is seen willing to vote for another set of sanctions on Iran, if not necessarily crippling ones; China has opposed new sanctions, arguing for another round of diplomacy.
On Monday, Mr. Sarkozy said that Mr. Medvedev, on the topic of new Iran sanctions, “told me of his receptiveness to the question of sanctions so long as they don’t create humanitarian dramas.” Mr. Medvedev said that the sanctions should be “smart,” adding: “These sanctions should not target the civilian population.”
Senior French officials, however, think that if the sanctions are not crippling and profound, Tehran will never respond as the West desires.
Mr. Medvedev also said that the United States and Russia are “near an accord” on a new treaty on strategic nuclear weapons to replace an expired one.
Mr. Medvedev, his wife and his large delegation are staying at the Ritz Hotel, where security is high. He will visit Notre Dame Cathedral on Tuesday, while he and Mr. Sarkozy will inaugurate a large exhibit of Russian art at the Louvre.
