Salon.com > Melissa Eddy

U.S., allies try to report Syria to U.N.

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

The United States and its allies pushed ahead Wednesday with efforts to bring Syria before the U.N. Security Council for failure to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite opposition from China and Russia.

A draft of a resolution obtained by The Associated Press finds Syria in "non-compliance with its obligations" with IAEA requirements to allow inspectors access to all nuclear facilities to ensure they are not being used for military purposes.

The draft criticizes Syria's lack of cooperation with "repeated requests for access" by the U.N. nuclear agency to information about a facility at Dair Alzour that appears to have been a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium, which is used to arm nuclear weapons. The site was destroyed in 2007.

The draft was circulated Wednesday to the 35 ministers who serve on the IAEA's board of governors to be discussed and put to vote. It needs majority approval from the board before it can be sent to the Security Council.

The IAEA has tried in vain since 2008 to follow up on strong evidence that the Dair Alzour site, bombed in 2007 by Israeli warplanes, was a nearly finished reactor built with North Korea's help.

Berlin airports reopen as ash moves on

Wed, 25 May 2011 15:55:00 +0000

A cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland that had forced airport closures in northern Germany blew further north and east on Wednesday afternoon, allowing air traffic to resume as experts said the eruption appeared be winding down.

European air traffic controllers said they expected about 700 flights to be canceled on Wednesday, but Eurocontrol added that activity from Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano has declined sharply and that traffic in European airspace could return to normal Thursday.

"There were very few eruptions by the volcano over the last six to 12 hours so the volcano is in a reasonably calm state at the moment," said Brian Flynn, head of network operations for Eurocontrol. "Assuming that continues, we would expect that the European aviation would be able to return to almost a normal situation within the next 24 hours."

Volcano experts in Iceland said the eruption appeared to be tapering off. Observers at the crater were reporting only steam, said Pall Einarsson, from the University of Iceland.

"The worst is over," said Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir in a statement, after touring the region around Grimsvotn on Tuesday.

Suspect in Frankfurt shooting admits targeting American troops

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:40:00 +0000

The suspect in the slaying of two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport has confessed to targeting American military members, a German security official said Thursday as investigators probed what they considered a possible act of Islamic terrorism.

German federal prosecutors took over the investigation into Wednesday's shooting, which also injured two U.S. airmen, one of them critically. They are working together with U.S. authorities.

Hesse state Interior Minister Boris Rhein told reporters in Wiesbaden that the suspect, identified as a 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, was apparently radicalized over the last few weeks. The attacker's family in northern Kosovo identified him as Arid Uka, whose family has been living in Germany for 40 years.

The suspect opened fire on a busload of U.S. airmen on their way from their base in England to serve in Afghanistan, said Marine Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.

Uka's family said he worked at Frankfurt airport and was a devout Muslim. He was taken into custody immediately after the shooting and is to appear later Thursday in federal court in Karlsruhe.

Michelle Obama surprises U.S. troops in Germany

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:05:00 +0000

First Lady Michelle Obama surprised a group of U.S. servicemen and women based in Germany on Thursday, jumping in to serve them steaks at a special Veterans Day meal.

"Oh, my God! Where's my camera," gasped Lavondee Stallings, a preschool teacher whose husband serves in the military, as Obama entered the banquet room at Ramstein Air Base's Officers Club.

Stallings was one of some 200 people with whom the First Lady spent time during a refueling stopover on the way home from her tour of Asia with President Barack Obama.

"I am missing Sasha and Malia desperately," Obama said of her daughters as she spoke to the group gathered for the donated steak dinner, grilled by volunteers from the California-based Cooks of the Valley.

"But it is a thrill to be here with you guys, because we are so grateful to all of you," she said. "Not just our servicemen and women, but their kids, wives, husbands and parents."

After serving, Obama went through the room doling out hugs, handshakes and warm thanks to troops and their families.

She also chatted with their children, asking how they were doing in school and if they worked hard.

Ten-year-old Malaysia Chevere got a special shout-out when she told the first lady about her grades.

German bishop offers to resign over abuse

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:16:00 +0000

A leading conservative Roman Catholic bishop in Germany has written to Pope Benedict XVI offering to resign amid persistent allegations of physical abuse and financial misconduct, the Augsburg Diocese said Thursday.

Bishop Walter Mixa wrote a letter to the pope on Wednesday, the Augsburg diocese said in a statement, offering to step down in hopes of allowing a "new start" for his diocese. He said he would cooperate fully with investigators and offered an apology.

"I ask the forgiveness of all those to whom I may have been unfair and to those who I may have caused heartache," Mixa wrote, acknowledging that he was "fully aware of my own weaknesses."

The Vatican does not comment on possible resignations.

Mixa has been accused of hitting children while a priest decades ago. He initially denied ever using violence against youngsters, but later acknowledged he may have slapped children.

Although the case does not involve any allegations of sexual abuse, Mixa has been a key member of Germany's Bishops Conference for more than a decade and his initial denial of physical violence fueled frustration among German Catholics who saw it as evidence that the church was unwilling to come clean on the issue of abuse.

German court overturns law on phone, e-mail data

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:25:45 +0000

Germany's highest court on Tuesday overturned a law that let anti-terror authorities retain data on telephone calls and e-mails, saying it posed a "grave intrusion" to personal privacy rights and must be revised.

The court ruling was the latest to sharply criticize a major initiative by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and one of the strongest steps yet defending citizen rights from post-Sept. 11 terror-fighting measures.

The ruling comes amid a European-wide attempt to set limits on the digital sphere, that includes disputes with Google Inc. over photographing citizens for its Street View maps.

The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the law violated Germans' constitutional right to private correspondence and failed to balance privacy rights against the need to provide security. It did not, however, rule out data retention in principle.

The law had ordered that all data -- except content -- from phone calls and e-mail exchanges be retained for six months for possible use by criminal authorities, who could probe who contacted whom, from where and for how long.

Polanski best director at Berlin film festival

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:36:00 +0000

The Turkish film "Bal," or "Honey," won the top Golden Bear award Saturday at the 60th annual Berlin film festival, whose jury also crowned Roman Polanski best director.

Polanski, whose film "The Ghost Writer," debuted at the festival, was unable to attend the ceremony, as he remains under house arrest in his Swiss chalet in Gstaad.

Producer Alain Sarde, who accepted the prize on Polanski's behalf, said the director told him he would not have attended the festival even if he had been free, "because the last time I traveled to accept an award I landed in jail."

Polanski was arrested when he arrived in Zurich on Sept. 26 to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. The Swiss must decide whether to extradite him to the U.S. to face possible further sentencing in a 32-year-old sex case.

A joint Silver Bear for best actor was awarded to the stars of the Russian film, "How I Ended the Summer." Grigory Dobrygin and Sergy Puskpalis played opposite one another as an older and younger researcher who clash at a polar station on an island in the Arctic Circle.

Shinobu Terajima won the best actress for starring as a wife forced to tolerate the tyranny of her husband who returns disabled from the second Chinese-Japanese war in the Japanese film "Caterpillar."