Nigeria’s Finance Minister on How Falling Oil Prices Impact on Africa’s Biggest Economy Nigeria is surprised by a US decision to slash oil imports from Africa's top petroleum producer, but is eager to deepen its economic relationship with the US in other areas, according to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's finance and economy minister.
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Showing posts from 2014
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South Sudan Peace Talks 'Going Nowhere,' Says Atlantic Council Expert Peace talks aimed at ending South Sudan's civil war are 'going nowhere' because the process is mostly led by countries that are party to the conflict, according to Dr. J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council's Africa Center.
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If Ukraine’s Violence Is Not Addressed, Transformation Will Be Slow, Says Top IMF Official Violence in southeastern Ukraine could adversely impact the country's economic transformation, Aasim M. Husain, deputy director of the International Monetary Fund's European Department, told the Atlantic Council.
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Taliban School Assault Seen Likely to Build Consensus on Fighting Terrorism in Pakistan The killing by Pakistan’s Taliban of more than 140 people, mostly children, at a school is likely to “provide some glue for a consensus [in Pakistan] that you cannot negotiate with terrorist groups,” according to Atlantic Council South Asia specialist Shuja Nawaz. The assault, in northwestern Pakistan, shocked the South Asian nation and drew international condemnation.
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US Cuba Shift Was Presaged by Poll Showing Americans Were Ready for Change President Barack Obama’s sweeping changes to US-Cuba policy were at least in part influenced by an understanding that this was widely favored among the American people. The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center released a poll in February that found support on both sides of the aisle for normalization with Cuba, and this poll has served as a crucial piece of the Cuba policy dialogue.
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US Cuba Shift Was Presaged by Poll Showing Americans Were Ready for Change President Barack Obama’s sweeping changes to US-Cuba policy were at least in part influenced by an understanding that this was widely favored among the American people. The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center released a poll in February that found support on both sides of the aisle for normalization with Cuba, and this poll has served as a crucial piece of the Cuba policy dialogue.
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Coming together for the Syrians Another year draws to a close, but Syria’s civil war — on the brink of entering its fourth year — shows no sign of ending. Since the start of the conflict in 2011, the war has claimed more than 191,000 lives, according to a United Nations figure that covers the period from March 2011 to April 2014. While this death toll is staggering, the refugee crisis created by the war is unimaginable.
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Amid Hong Kong Protests, China Escalates Mainland Crackdown, Too The government of President Xi Jinping is conducting “one of the harshest” Chinese campaigns against civil society and peaceful dissent in the past decade, according to a prominent human rights activist. The campaign has come amid the pro-democracy protests that have roiled Hong Kong since September.
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Coalition Troops Officially End Combat Mission in Afghanistan Amid Growing Security Concerns As US and NATO troops depart Afghanistan, they are taking with them their expertise, hardware, dollars, and jobs – and also leaving behind many questions about the fate of that country's security and economy.
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Echoes of the past Three years since the Arab Spring protests swept through Egypt ending Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year grip on power, the revolution has come full circle after a court dropped criminal charges against the former president over the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising. In a case dubbed by the Egyptian media as the “trial of the century,” Mubarak stood accused of ordering police to kill protesters. Human rights groups say more than 800 people died during the 18-day uprising that eventually led to Mubarak’s ouster on Feb. 11, 2011.
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'The U.S. should be finding ways to engage with Boko Haram' Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group that has a foothold in northern Nigeria, has begun to consolidate control over large swathes of territory threatening the stability of Nigeria and its neighbors. The militants have resorted to using female suicide bombers as they ramp up their fight against the Nigerian government ahead of elections in February. Bronwyn E. Bruton , deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Africa Center, attributes Boko Haram's rise to the Nigerian government's failure to deliver good governance and the atrocities committed by Nigerian security forces.
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Boko Haram Steps Up Offensive as Nigeria Halts US Military Training Program Boko Haram, the African militant group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over the summer, appears to have borrowed a page from the jihadists' playbook as it unleashes a deadly wave of attacks across northern Nigeria in its quest to carve out an Islamic state rooted in Shariah law.
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Obama’s India envoy nominee Verma faces Senate Indian American Richard Rahul Verma, US President Barack Obama’s nominee to serve as the next US Ambassador to India, faced questions from senators on a range of issues, particularly the future of the civilian nuclear deal, the protection of intellectual property rights, counterterrorism cooperation and gender-based violence.
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National Intelligence Council Chairman Calls for More Long-Term Intelligence Work Russia's aggressive posture in its neighborhood is an "interesting inflection point in global politics," much like the fall of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 and al Qaeda's attack on the US on September 11, 2001, Gregory F. Treverton, chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, told the Atlantic Council. "The first time around when the Soviet Union fell we so quickly said, 'Well, that's over,'" Treverton said, adding that as a policy person he had believed at the time that the expansion of NATO following the end of the Cold War was a good thing, but "we probably were, in retrospect, pretty dismissive."
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Obama Likely to Seek a ‘Wartime’ Defense Secretary In the days since Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigned, two prominent candidates to replace him have said publicly they will not do so. They are former Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy and Rhode Island Democratic Senator Jack Reed. As President Barack Obama seeks a new appointee, the priorities for a defense secretary have changed since he selected Hagel, then chairman of the Atlantic Council, in February 2013, according to Barry Pavel, director of the Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. The president probably will want a “wartime secretary,” Pavel said in an interview with Ashish Kumar Sen earlier this week.
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An Iran Nuclear Deal: Better Than Nothing if We Get It, But Not a Resolution As Iran and six other nations announced a seven-month extension of their effort to reach a deal to limit the Iranian nuclear program, the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig said Iran will pose a nonproliferation threat even if a deal is struck. Kroenig, a nonresident senior fellow with the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, said the US and its allies must increase their pressure on Tehran to reach an agreement, but that a deal along the lines of the current negotiation will not be comprehensive.
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Obama to Visit India in January President Barack Obama will travel to India in January, becoming the first US president to visit the country twice while in office. Bharath Gopalaswamy, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, tells Ashish Kumar Sen why this visit is important—and notably how it will be seen by India’s main rivals, China and Pakistan.
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Nuclear Deal Could Open US-Iran Cooperation Against ISIS, Ex-Officials Say As international negotiators approach next week’s self-imposed deadline for reaching a compromise to let Iran pursue a nuclear program, US and French former officials told Atlantic Council forums this week that a deal could offer new advantages in the Middle East. An agreement could create an opportunity for a US-Iranian “open relationship” on confronting militant threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, Ambassador Thomas Pickering told a November 19 forum at the Council in Washington. “For the first time, the United States and Iran have gotten down to the wire, along with our European and Russian and Chinese colleagues, to something that could in one way or another generate, if not a sea change, certainly a major shift in the situation in the region,” said Pickering, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs.
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US Prez gets Modi’s Republic Day invite, says yes US President Barack Obama has accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to be the chief guest at Republic Day celebrations on January 26 in New Delhi. This will be the first time when a US President will be the guest of honour at an event that both India and the United States hold close to their hearts — the founding day of the Constitution. Also, Obama will be the first US President to visit India twice while still in office.
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Obama offers shield to 5 m illegal immigrants In one of the bold decisions of his presidency that could benefit thousands of Indian techies seeking the Green Card, US President Barack Obama has unveiled sweeping immigration reforms that will shield almost five million illegal immigrants from deportation. In a pro-immigrant speech from the White House on Thursday night, Obama urged Americans to show compassion toward “undocumented Americans” who have worked hard but “see little option but to remain in the shadows or risk their families being torn apart.”
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Rights group wants law to tackle communal violence The failure of successive Indian governments to prosecute those responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Sikhs in the aftermath of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination has left Indians more vulnerable to communal violence and distrustful of the judicial system, according to a New York-based human rights group.
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Sincerity needed to fight al Qaeda Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid is an avid user of social media. So when he sent out a message on Twitter recently it was not the fact that he had taken to the cybersphere that caused people to sit up and take notice, but that his earthly location was listed as being in Pakistan’s Sindh province.
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Obama 'most popular' among Indian-Americans A majority of Indian Americans have a favorable opinion of US President Barack Obama and a negative opinion of the Republican Party to which fellow Indian-Americans Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley belong, according to a national poll of Asian-American voters.
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U.S. must keep human rights on agenda with Indian leader In 2005, the George W. Bush administration revoked the U.S. visa of Narendra Modi over his alleged involvement in riots in India’s western state of Gujarat that left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. Modi, a Hindu nationalist leader, was chief minister of Gujarat at the time of the riots.
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Blacklisted US Sikhs in visa tangle Three decades after many Sikhs fled the violence that devastated their families in Punjab, the Indian government is continuing to make it hard for them to visit India. Their crime? Sikh Americans say it’s the price they’re being forced to pay for having sought political asylum in the West.
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No bottlenecks: PM to US bizmen PM Narendra Modi wooed US businesses with the promise of less red tape and a more business-friendly environment and cautioned that any delay on their part would mean having to wait in a long line as the rest of the world flits to the “new spark of confidence that has arisen in India.”
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Two Indian-Americans in race for top law officer job in US Two Indian-Americans —one of whom recently caused considerable strain in the US-India relationship — are being mentioned in political circles as potential successors to US Attorney General Eric Holder who on Thursday announced his decision to resign after more than five years on the job.
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US court issues summons, but PM enjoys immunity Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys immunity as a sitting head of government from a lawsuit filed in a New York court that seeks punitive damages and compensation from him for his alleged role in the Gujarat riots in 2002, senior US administration officials said on Friday.
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Iraq’s neighbors have vital role in fight against ISIL As the U.S. cobbles together an international coalition to take on the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, it is looking to its friends and allies in the Middle East for support. The response from one ally, Turkey, has so far been less than enthusiastic.
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World Trade Centre attacks: US still at war after 13 years Thirteen years after Al Qaida militants hijacked and crashed four commercial airliners into the World Trade Centre towers in New York, the Pentagon near Washington and a field in Pennsylvania, the United States of America remains at war with an enemy that has expanded its global footprint.
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Islamist militants behead U.S. journalist US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that the world is “appalled” by the execution of an American journalist by militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and gave no indication that the US will stop bombarding the militants in Iraq.
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Kerry in Baghdad as another key town falls US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Baghdad on Monday as Sunni radicals closed in on the Iraqi capital. Flying in from Jordan on a visit which the State Department had sought to keep secret amid security concerns, Kerry met Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and was to hold talks with Iraqi leaders across the political and communal spectrum.
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Iraq crisis worries Obama administration The Obama administration is reacting with alarm as Islamic militants overrun cities in Iraq and make a push for the capital Baghdad, laying to waste a US investment of billions of dollars and thousands of American and Iraqi lives during a nearly decade-long war.
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Good news from Pakistan There was a spot of good news from Pakistan this week.The Pakistani Taliban, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians in suicide attacks, split in two after a significant faction rejected the militant group’s leader, Maulana Fazlullah, saying “the present leadership has lost its path.”
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Obama invites Modi to US US President Barack Obama on Friday called Narendra Modi to congratulate him on the Bharatiya Janata Party's electoral success and invite him to visit the US. Obama invited Modi to visit Washington "at a mutually agreeable time to further strengthen our bilateral relationship", the White House said in its readout of the phone call.
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It's time for an 'honest' conversation on Egypt Egypt’s relationship with the United States of America has been tested by the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi by the army last summer and it will require a “candid, honest” conversation to heal the rift, according to Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy.
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US readies fresh sanctions against Russia U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Thursday accused Russia of “distraction, deception and destabilisation” in eastern Ukraine and warned that it will face crippling sanctions if it does not stop fomenting unrest. Kerry’s warning came hours after Russia conducted military exercises near Ukraine’s border and a week after the US, Russia, European Union and Ukraine agreed in Geneva to take steps to de-escalate the crisis.
U.S. ‘disappointed’ by Israeli impenitence for ‘weakness’ remark
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U.S. criticizes Turkey Twitter ban; urges restrictions lifted
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U.S. infuriated by Israeli defense minister’s comments
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SEALs’ tanker seizure highlights Libyan power wrangling over oil, power The daring, high-seas seizure of a rogue oil tanker by U.S. Navy SEALs off the coast of Cyprus this week has focused fresh attention on the power struggle that has turned Libya into a political time bomb more than two years after the ouster of strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
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Kerry warns of ‘very serious’ response to Crimea-Russia alliance The U.S. and its European allies ratcheted up the threat of economic sanctions and visa restrictions on Russia on Thursday if Moscow continues to escalate the crisis in Ukraine — as thousands of Russian troops conducted military maneuvers near the Ukrainian border.
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US court drops visa case against Khobragade A federal judge in New York has dismissed the case against Devyani Khobragade, whose arrest and strip search on charges of visa fraud frayed the US-India relations. But prosecutors hinted that they may file a new indictment based on claims that she exploited her Indian housekeeper.
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John Kerry says any resumption of aid to Egypt would depend on reforms in Cairo Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday that the Obama administration will soon decide on whether to resume military aid to Egypt , including Apache helicopters key to counterterrorism operations in the lawless Sinai Peninsula that abuts Israel .
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Reset? What reset? U.S.-Russia ties at worst since Cold War Five years ago, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton playfully presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a red “reset button,” a symbol of the Obama administration ’s intention to improve ties that had hit a low point during the George W. Bush administration .
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Minister sees breakthrough ‘in months’ for long-split Cyprus The top diplomat from the Turkish north of Cyprus said core differences with the Greek south could be resolved in a “matter of months,” putting the divided Mediterranean island’s reunification within reach for the first time in four decades.
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Israelis had U.S. help in intercepting Iranian missile shipment to Palestine The State Department revealed Wednesday that even as the Obama administration was engaging in direct and very high-stakes nuclear negotiations with Iran , U.S. officials for months have been secretly collaborating with Israeli intelligence to track an illicit Iranian weapons shipment bound for Palestine .
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Obama shoved to sidelines as Russia ignores U.S. threats of isolation President Obama warned Russia on Monday of possible U.S. sanctions over its military land grab in Ukraine , but Moscow brushed aside international threats, tightening its stranglehold on Crimea and calling audaciously for a national unity government in Kiev.
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Spread of brutal Nigerian terrorist group alarms U.S. Boko Haram , the al Qaeda -inspired African terrorist group fighting to establish an Islamic state rooted in Shariah law, is expanding its operations from northeastern Nigeria into neighboring Cameroon and Niger — much to the alarm of U.S. officials.
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State Department’s annual report shows human rights at risk The past year has been a particularly bad one for human rights around the world, from a deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria to a bloody crackdown by Egyptian security forces on demonstrators in Cairo to the collapse of a packed eight-story garment factory in Bangladesh , the State Department says in an annual report.
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Georgia P.M. Garibashvili eyes NATO membership, while keeping Russia at bay Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili is determined to maintain his country’s embrace of the West by boosting economic ties with the European Union and eventually joining NATO , but he worries about pressure from Russia to bring the former Soviet republic into Moscow’s fold.
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Clashes in Ukraine capital are a reaction to rampant corruption, domestic divisions The political upheaval that has bloodied the streets of Kiev this week is largely viewed in the Western media through a Cold War prism that pits the West against Russia , but the unrest in Ukraine has been many years in the making — a reaction to rampant corruption, lawlessness and deep domestic divisions within the country.