The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs has demanded briefings with Pretoria embassy employees ‘pushed out’ by Lana Marks
Manuel Chang will be tried at home, but the American embassy is not happy
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/ 23 September 2009
The United States will keep its government facilities in South Africa closed for a second day on Wednesday due to undisclosed security fears.
Sudan’s security apparatus has halted production of three Arabic newspapers for allegedly defying a censorship order, and on Wednesday confiscated an English-language daily for reporting the story. ”That story has caused us problems,” said Nhial Bol, editor of the Citizen, which planned on Wednesday to publish an article and editorial on the censorship.
Spanish, French and American tourists once filled the winding alleys of Sanaa’s old quarter, drawn by Yemen’s 2 500-year-old history and unique architecture. But a spate of attacks on foreigners is driving visitors away and souvenir shop owner Hussain Abdel Moghni says the only tourists who come to Yemen these days are ”adventurers”.
United States forces were drawn deeper into Iraq’s four day-old crackdown on Shi’ite militants on Friday, launching air strikes in Basra for the first time and battling militants in Baghdad. The fighting has exposed a rift within the majority Shi’ite community and put pressure on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
A wave of attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed 51 people, while insurgents fired a barrage of mortars at Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, sending United States embassy staff scurrying into bunkers. The deadliest attack was in the city of Mosul where a suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden truck into an Iraqi army base.
Serbia’s neighbours in Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria dealt a blow to the Serb campaign to overturn Kosovo’s month-old independence on Wednesday by announcing they would recognise the new republic. In a joint statement issued in Zagreb, Budapest and Sofia, they said the decision was based on ”thorough consideration”.
Protesters in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, burnt shops and vehicles and yelled for independence on Friday as the region was hit by its biggest protests for nearly two decades, testing China’s grip months before the Olympics. Peaceful street marches by Tibetan Buddhist monks over previous days gave way to bigger scenes of violence and resentment in the remote, mountainous region.
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/ 22 February 2008
Serb rioters enraged by Kosovo’s secession stormed the United States embassy in Belgrade and set it on fire, leaving one person dead and drawing swift condemnation from Washington and the United Nations Security Council. The US State Department said the lack of protection for its mission was intolerable and demanded the Security Council respond.
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/ 7 February 2008
United Nations goodwill ambassador and Hollywood megastar Angelina Jolie visited Iraq on a humanitarian mission on Thursday and met top officials to demand help for people displaced by the war. "There are over two million displaced people and there never seems to be a real coherent plan to help them," she said.
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/ 4 February 2008
Resolutions at the United Nations or African Union could alter the mission of French troops in Chad, France’s Foreign Minister said on Monday as a first planeload of evacuees landed at a Paris airport. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin said French forces secured Chad’s airbases and were protecting French and foreign civilians.
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/ 3 February 2008
Fierce fighting with tanks and helicopter strikes rocked the capital of Chad for a second day on Sunday as rebels surrounded President Idriss Déby Itno in his palace and hundreds of foreigners fled the country. International aid organisations reported bodies in the streets and hundreds of people wounded.
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/ 2 February 2008
Rebels penetrated the capital of Chad on Saturday, clashing with government troops and moving toward the presidential palace after a three-day advance through the Central African nation, a French military spokesperson and witnesses said. Witnesses reported looting and gunfire near government buildings.
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/ 31 January 2008
A Sudanese-backed Chadian rebel column has advanced deep into Chad towards the capital, Ndjamena, in the west, the government said in a statement broadcast by state media on Thursday. A separate security source in Ndjamena said the column of about 300 vehicles had passed through the town of Ati and halted 250km east of Ndjamena.
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/ 21 December 2007
The European Union’s chief election observer on Friday condemned violence that has marred the lead-up to Kenya’s elections, left at least 70 people dead since July and risks disenfranchising 20 000 people. Alexander Graf Lambsdorff was visiting the epicentre of tribal clashes that have been ongoing for months.
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/ 23 November 2007
A series of near-simultaneous explosions ripped through courthouse complexes on Friday in three north Indian cities, killing at least 13 lawyers and injuring dozens more, officials said. Federal authorities blamed militants trying to spark unrest between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority.
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/ 14 November 2007
A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded two on Wednesday just outside the heavily fortified Green Zone compound in Baghdad that houses the United States embassy and government ministries, police said. They said the bomb targeted a passing US military convoy.
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/ 14 November 2007
A loud explosion rocked central Baghdad on Wednesday, shaking buildings inside the heavily fortified Green Zone compound that houses the United States embassy and Iraqi government ministries, witnesses said. Some witnesses said a car bomb had exploded near a police station not far from the Green Zone.
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/ 28 October 2007
Turkey sharpened its threat to invade northern Iraq on Saturday when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared its army ready to attack Kurdish rebels ”when needed”, regardless of international opposition. Erdogan has been under pressure from America, Iraq and other countries to pull back from a move that could further destabilise the region.
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/ 10 October 2007
Shoddy construction work, safety lapses, kickbacks, internal disputes and ballooning costs — the new United States embassy complex in Baghdad is mired in a deluge of problems, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the frontline of fire from lawmakers.