Russian President Medvedev urges ratification of new START treaty

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday urged a swift ratification for the U.S.-Russia START treaty, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Medvedev called on the Russian Parliament to ratify as quickly as possible the treaty which consists in the new nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States and signed last April in Prague, Czech Republic.

"The Americans have done what they have promised to do. They have ratified the treaty with several amendments," Medvedev said. "Now it is the turn of our parliament. You have all possibility to do the same. I hope that decision will be made."

Apple CEO Jobs to take medical leave

Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs on Monday announced that he will take a medical leave from the technology company.

Jobs, 55, informed that he is taking another medical leave due to his latest health struggle for the head of the world-known company. The announcement provoked uncertainty over Apple's future direction.

Apple's CEO is a pancreatic cancer survivor who received a liver transplant in 2009. He informed his decision via an email sent to his staff on Monday morning. Jobs said that he intends to focus on his health in the near future.

Chinese President Hu proposes four points to improve US relations

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday proposed four points to improve U.S. relations, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The Chinese leader spoke about his proposal for improving China-U.S. ties ahead of his scheduled visit to Washington D.C. from Tuesday to Friday. He remarked that both nations will benefit from a improved relationship.

U.S. air traffic increases 5.6 percent in October

U.S. air traffic in October experienced a 5.6 percent increase compared to the previous year's rate, according to a recently released U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) report.

According to the report, U.S. airlines carried 62.1 million scheduled domestic and international passengers last October with a passenger total 4 percent above that of two years ago in October 2008. However, it still remained 3.3 percent below the pre-recession level of October 2007.

President Obama commends 'peaceful and orderly' Sudan referendum

U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday congratulated Sudan for peacefully carrying out their historic, week-long referendum regarding the future of southern Sudan.


"The sight of so many Sudanese casting their votes in a peaceful and orderly fashion was an inspiration to the world and a tribute to the determination of the people and leaders of south Sudan to forge a better future," Obama stated.

Nebraska's Teresa Scanlan crowned Miss America 2011

Nebraska's 17-year-old Teresa Scanlan was crowned Miss America 2011 on Saturday night, becoming the youngest since a 1938 age regulation was changed in 1993.

Scanlan, from Gering, Nebraska and a Scottsbluff High School student, was selected out of 52 other participants in the pageant's 90th edition, which was held at Las Vegas' Theater for the Performing Arts, winning a $50,000 scholarship.

In 1938, the beauty pageant placed a rule, requiring all participants to be at least 18 years old, with an age limit at 28. However, in 1993, the rule was changed to 17 to 24. The youngest to ever win Miss America was Connecticut's 15-year-old Marian Bergeron in 1933. 

U.S. cancels 'virtual' fence along Mexican border

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has canceled the controversial project to build a virtual wall to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, the El Universal newspaper reported.

After almost five years, the virtual fence project, which had already consumed more than one billion dollars, was not meeting the objectives according to internal reports of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of Government Accountability Office.

First U.S. ambassador since 2005 arrives in Damascus

Robert Ford, the first U.S. ambassador to Syria since 2005, arrived in Damascus on Sunday, the DPA news agency reported.


"Ford will have a challenging job bringing the different views of Syria and the US to some common ground on issues related to Lebanon and neighboring countries," a western diplomat based in Beirut said, as cited by DPA.

U.S. government issues travel warning for Tunisia

The U.S. Government on Sunday issued a travel warning for Tunisia as violence has gripped the country, leaving scores dead and injured. Travel has also been disrupted.

Hillary Clinton: Tunisia is enduring a significant transition

United States State Secretary Hillary Clinton on Friday said that Tunisia is enduring a significant transition following reports that President Ben Ali left the North African country.


"The United States continues to closely monitor the rapidly evolving events in Tunisia, where earlier today President Ben Ali left his country following several weeks of demonstrations and popular unrest," said Clinton.

Clinton remarked that the United States condemned the violence and urged restraint on all sides. The State Secretary added that the U.S. expects that Tunisian authorities will work on ensuring the right of its people to peacefully assemble and express their views.

Arab Riots: Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution

Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution

By Mona Eltahawy

Not once in my 43 years have I thought that I'd see an Arab leader toppled by his people. It is nothing short of poetic justice that it was neither Islamists nor invasion-in-the-name-of-democracy that sent the waters rushing onto Ben Ali's ship but, rather, the youth of his country.

Read more at the Washington Post


Tunisia gets a change of Zine

by Globe and Mail Editorial

The first successful overthrow of an Arab leader by his own people since the colonial era ended is a warning sign to many of the region’s autocrats that their grip on power is no longer assured.

Read more



Tunisia Seethes

by New York Times Editorial

With as many as 30 people dead and the country in an uproar, criticism has been pouring in from Washington, the European Union and the United Nations. France, Mr. Ben Ali’s most influential ally, has so far remained shamefully silent.

Read more


Ouster of Tunisia president: An opportunity for Arab autocrats to respond to the people

by Christian Science Monitor Editorial Board

The demonstrations were sparked in December when an educated but typically jobless young man killed himself after authorities confiscated fruits and vegetables he was selling without a permit. As one witness told Reuters, however, “It is not just about unemployment any more. It’s about freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, all the freedoms.”

Read more


Is Tunisia Next?

by Elliott Abrams

What’s next? The regime has no real alternatives except members of Ben Ali’s family, a solution unlikely to satisfy Tunisian society. While his wife is said to view herself as a successor, and this might have worked ten years ago, the time for an Argentine-like hand-off to the ruler’s wife is over.

Read more at the Council on Foreign Relations


Tunisia: Dependence on Europe Fuels Unemployment Crisis and Protests

by Lahcen Achy

Even as the level of education among job seekers in Tunisia has improved, the government has failed to make policies guaranteeing enough job creation to absorb new entrants to the labor market, especially among those with university degrees.

Read more at the CATO Institute



Tunisia: Lessons of Authoritarian Collapse

by Thomas Carother

With democracy’s spread having slowed over the last decade we've gotten out of the habit of receiving such news and have forgotten some of the basic lessons of authoritarian collapse. The fall of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia usefully reminds us of them.

Reade more at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace


Obama's 'Arab Spring'?

by Marc Lynch

Yesterday I noted the spread of seemingly unrelated protests and clashes through a diverse array of Arab states -- Tunisia, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt. Last night, protests spread to Algeria, partly in response to rising prices on basic food items but more deeply by the same combination of economic desperation, fury over perceived corruption, and a blocked political order.

Read more at the Foreign Policy

Three American troops die in central and northern Iraq

Three American service members were killed in two separate incidents in central and northern Iraq on Saturday morning, the U.S. military confirmed, but few details were immediately released.

A statement from U.S. Forces - Iraq said two U.S. service members were killed and another was injured while conducting operations in northern Iraq. A second statement said a third U.S. service member was killed in central Iraq.


While the U.S. military refused to provide additional details, saying the details were being held pending notification of next of kin, Iraqi police said three U.S. troops were involved in a shooting incident in the northern city of Mosul. Other details were not available, although media reports indicated that the U.S. service members in Mosul were struck by gunfire from two Iraqi soldiers.

Guyana man sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in JFK terror plot

A Guyana national in the United States was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday for his participation in a terror plot against John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) airport, prosecutors said.

Abdel Nur pleaded guilty on June 29, 2010, for providing material support to the conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack at JFK Airport in New York by exploding fuel tanks and the fuel pipeline underneath the airport.

Nur was part of a four-man group that conspired to commit terrorism in the United States. Abdul Kadir was sentenced last month to life in prison while Russell Defreitas was also sentenced in July. The other suspect, Kareem Ibrahim, is still on trial.

Colombian police capture key man in drug cartel linked to Mexico and the U.S.

Colombian police on Thursday announced the capture of a man who is believed to have been a key figure in a Colombian drug cartel which has links to Mexico and the United States.

According to the El Colombiano newspaper, Julio Enrique Ayala Muñoz was identified as a man at the service of the drug cartel known as "Los Comba." The criminal organization is led by brothers Javier Antonio and Luis Enrique Calle Serna.

Ayala, also known as "Condor," was in charge of the relations with the Sinaloa cartel which operates in Mexico's drug-plagued north. He is accused of shipping tons of cocaine to Mexico after which the Sinaloa cartel shipped the cocaine to the United States.

The Birth of a New Nation in Africa: The Sudan Referendum

In Sudan, an Election and a Beginning

by Barack Obama, President of the USA

NOT every generation is given the chance to turn the page on the past and write a new chapter in history. Yet today — after 50 years of civil wars that have killed two million people and turned millions more into refugees — this is the opportunity before the people of southern Sudan.

Read more at NY Times



Jimmy Carter: Where Sudan is headed

by Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the USA

Key challenges include demarcating final borders, resolving citizenship issues, building a framework for economic cooperation and managing the division of revenue from oil, most of which is currently extracted from fields in the South, but refined and pumped through pipelines crossing the North for export via Port Sudan on the Red Sea. An especially critical problem concerns the disputed oil-rich border area of Abyei, which remains unresolved and a source of much tension.

Read more at CNN International


Africa unhinged?

by Benny Avni

Yet the first significant breakup of an African country since the end of the colonial era raises the specter of splits in other ethnically divided nations in the continent -- and those divorces are less likely to be amicable. Is a wave of secessions ahead?

Read more at the NY Post


Sudan's vote: Independence could work for both North and South

by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial

Virtually all nations, including China and the United States as well as Sudan's neighbors, are watching the referendum in Southern Sudan on whether it should become an independent nation or continue to be yoked to the North as part of a single nation.

Read more

A vote to celebrate for south Sudan

by Solomon Attari

I am very proud that in my time as chief there has not been a single fight or any violence. In a village this size, with all of us who know each other so well, there are often disagreements. But one thing that we can all agree on is the value of peace. We will settle our differences through discussion and compromise, and never resort to force.

Read more at the Guardian


Answering Your Sudan Questions, Take 1

by Nicholas Kristof

The intense and prolonged suffering of the Sudanese people has naturally aroused humanitarian concern of the international community. In addition, a resumption of civil war would inevitably affect the nine bordering nations. The entire continent of Africa could be affected, as well as the worldwide religious community. It is important to recognize the enormous size of Sudan – equal to the United States east of the Mississippi River.

Read more at the NY Times


Americans: Support Today's Referendum - and Democracy - in South Sudan

by Heather Robinson

Omar al Bashir, president of Sudan, has spoken nicely in recent days about respecting the outcome of the vote. But his history of reportedly unleashing janjaweed militias on ethnic African villages and his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes against fellow Muslims in Darfur, combined with his recent statement threatening imposition of Sharia Law in the North if the South breaks away, are troubling.

Read more at the Huffington Post

Dividing rights and obligations

by Boston Globe Editorial



There are now about 1.5 million southerners in northern Sudan, mostly of Christian or traditional animist faith. “If south Sudan secedes,’’ Bashir said last month, “we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity. Sharia and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion, and Arabic the official language".

Read more







Sudan’s Referendum—The Birth of a New Nation?

by Marina Ottaway

Southern Sudanese are widely expected to vote for independence—splitting the largest country in Africa and the Arab world in two—in a referendum on January 9. The referendum was designed to be the culmination of a peace process ending decades of conflict between the north and the south, but there are lingering fears that tensions could erupt into violence.

Read more at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Sudan, Oil, and Security

by Chris Scanzoni

Though the conflict in Darfur has publicly captivated Americans, U.S. officials are vigorously striving to prevent a war in Sudan that promises even greater human costs. A January referendum for southern secession and the potential derailment of a delicate 2005 peace deal ending a 22-year civil war between the northern Arabs and southern Christians could revive the bloody conflict in the nation.

Read more at the Roosevelt Institute

Sudan, after the breakup: Can violence be prevented?

By Ibrahim Sharqieh

Though a creation of an independent South Sudan may solve one source of the conflict, renewed violence is still a possibility since the referendum does not address many of the root causes of this conflict. Most important, the referendum fails to address the issue in the oil rich border city of Abyei, whose inhabitants face the choice of staying with the North or joining the South.

Read more at the Christian Science Monitor

The Arizona Tragedy: Guns and the language of violence

What’s senseless is our tolerance for guns

By Derrick Z. Jackson

Only a decade ago, US gun manufacturers produced 947,000 pistols and revolvers and 3 million guns of all types (most of the rest were rifles and shotguns) for the domestic market, according to the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms. In 2009, that production reached 2.4 million pistols and revolvers and 5.4 million guns overall. The number of federal background checks for guns has zoomed, from 8.5 million in 2002 to 14.4 million last year.

Read more at the Boston Globe

Guns and responsibility

By Eugene Robinson

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, said in a statement that "if Congress had not allowed the 'Assault Weapons Ban' to expire in 2004, the shooter [Loughner] would only have been able to get off 10 rounds without reloading. Instead, he was able to fire at least 20 rounds from his 30-round clip."

Read more at the Washington Post

Are Wackos With Guns Just a Fact Of Life in America?

by Henry Blodget

Obviously, with 300+ million people in this country, we're not going to stop some people from going nuts. And given the depth of the American commitment to the right to own guns, we're also apparently not going to stop having guns available at Walmart -- or at the neighborhood sports store, which is where Loughner got his Glock.

Read more at the Huffington Post

Armed citizens -- not assault weapons ban -- could have stopped Arizona carnage

by Rodger Jones

Arizona-like tragedies make me think back to one survivor of the 1991 Luby's Cafeteria massacre in Killeen, Suzanna Gratia Hupp. Twenty-one people died in that, including Hupp's mother and father. Hupp went to that restaurant armed, but she left her gun in the car to comply with the law. She came to regret that for obvious reasons.

Read more at the Dallas Morning News

Thought experiment

by Michael Tomasky

But if guns are part of your life, it may be the imagery that comes to mind, and it's far worse than calling someone a dirty name or a war criminal. And sure it's happened among liberals, but it's worse among conservatives.

Read more at the Guardian

Guns, not talk, cost lives

by Telegraph View

The American political classes would do better to focus on gun-control laws that allow, in Arizona, a 22-year-old with mental health problems to buy a Glock 19 handgun. But with the President (and indeed Miss Gifford) staunch defenders of the individual's Second Amendment right to bear arms, such a debate is unlikely to get very far.

Read more

Tombstone Politics

by Timothy Egan

In my home state Washington, federal officials recently put away a 64-year-old man who threatened, in the most vile language, to kill Senator Patty Murray because she voted for health care reform. Imagine: kill her because she wanted to give fellow Americans a chance to get well. Why would a public policy change prompt a murder threat?

Read more at the New York Times

Serious Guns and White Terrorism: Two Unasked Question in Tucson Mass Murder

by Bill Quigley

Does the US really need tens of millions of assault weapons and hundreds of millions of other guns? We already put more of our people in prison than any country in the world and we spend more on our military than all the rest of the world together. How fearful must we be?

Read more at the Huffington Post

Shooting in Tucson

by Tom Hayden

Rep. Gifford’s office was vandalized by the right-wing in March 2009 in a protest against national health care bill. She also faced attacks for her opposition to S.B. 1070, Arizona’s tough anti-immigrant law. Judge John Roll, killed in the incident, also was subject to significant threats due to his positions on immigration.

Read more at ZNET

Charges filed against the Tuscon gunman

Prosecutors on Sunday filed a federal complaint against Jared Lee Loughner, charging him with the attempted assassination of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday.

The shooting happened at about 10.11 a.m. MST at a supermarket in northwest Tucson on Saturday where Giffords was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" of the year. Loughner, 22, opened fire, killing six people and injuring 13 others.

Authorities clear suspicious package near the White House

Parts of a park near the White House in Washington, D.C. were briefly evacuated on Sunday afternoon after a suspicious package was found, officials said.

U.S. Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser said the suspicious package was found in Lafayette Park, just behind the White House, at around 12.15 p.m. EST. He provided no details about the nature of the package, or what made it suspicious.

Authorities investigate suspicious package near the White House

Authorities on early Sunday afternoon are investigating a suspicious package which was found in a park near the White House in Washington, D.C., officials said.

A spokesperson for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) said the suspicious package was found in Lafayette Park, just behind the White House. Hazmat crews along with the U.S. Secret Service and other agencies are investigating the incident.

The White House has not been evacuated.

Copyright 2010 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved.

Six dead, U.S. Congresswoman Giffords among at least 12 injured in Az. shooting

At least six people were killed and U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was among twelve people injured on Saturday morning when a gunman opened fire at a public event in Tucson, Arizona, officials said.

The shooting happened just after 10 a.m. MST at a supermarket in northwest Tucson where Giffords was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" of the year. "My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now," Giffords tweeted just before the shooting. "Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later."

According to local officials, a 21-year-old man identified as Jared Laughner walked up to Giffords and shot her in the head before turning the gun on others at the event. The Pima County Sheriff's Department said a total of 18 people were shot, six of them fatally.