Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:23:39 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Eli Lake :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Eli+Lake istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/5th-us-fleet-seeks-action-over-piracy/86860/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — America's 5th Fleet is appealing to the world's navies and law enforcement agencies to step up their response to a spike in incidents of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. The call comes as the 5th Fleet is closely monitoring a pirated ship off the coast of Somalia carrying a cargo of 33 advanced Russian-made T-72 tanks, spare parts, and ammunition. The arms aboard the Faina, a Ukrainian vessel flying the flag of Belize, were reported to be bound for Kenya, though an... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/bin-ladens-son-makes-return-to-pakistan/86796/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda is consolidating its leadership in the territory under its control in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden's son and heir apparent, Sa'ad bin Laden, has returned to Pakistan from his safe haven in Iran, according to messages posted on a Qaeda jihad Web forum known as al-Hesbah. An organization that tracks and translates discussions on such forums, the SITE Institute, provided its subscribers with a summary of messages describing what it said was an escape by Sa'ad bin Laden from an... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/us-shrugs-at-n-korea-nuclear-move/86568/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — North Korea's decision to reactivate a nuclear plant in Yongbyon that it shuttered earlier this year is meeting with little more than a shrug from the Bush administration, which is working desperately to secure the $700 billion it is requesting from Congress to bail out Wall Street's investment banks. Secretary of State Rice yesterday promised that talks with North Korea would continue, despite the regime's provocative move and the unknown condition of the country's leader Kim... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/mccain-to-go-negative-in-stretch/86407/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The McCain campaign is gearing up to criticize Senator Obama for his past associations with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and a former Weather Underground operative, William Ayers, in the home stretch of the presidential race. The McCain campaign, according to one aide, decided it would play the Wright and Ayers cards after Mr. Obama's campaign ran ads linking Senator McCain to a talk radio host, Rush Limbaugh. "Our position is we are no longer going to feel constrained to avoid his... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/spies-warn-that-al-qaeda-aims-for-october-surprise/86326/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of two major terrorist attacks on Western targets, America's counterterrorism community is warning that Al Qaeda may launch more overseas operations to influence the presidential elections in November. Call it Osama bin Laden's "October surprise." In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America's military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda's leadership to intermediate members of the... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/embassy-attack-in-yemen-a-wake-up-call/86195/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — In the wake of a terrorist attack on the American Embassy in Yemen, a retired FBI agent who investigated the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole is urging America to hold the Yemeni government accountable for letting jihadists out of prison. "We need to make it clear that the release of people with American blood on their hands is wrong, and they will be held accountable if they continue to do so," Ali Soufan, who rose to the rank of supervisory special agent in the FBI before retiring... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/bin-ladens-organization-regroups-at-yemen/86131/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Yemen, the site of a car-bomb attack yesterday on the American Embassy, is quietly emerging as a base for Al Qaeda veterans of the Iraq war, who are seeking refuge there and are close to establishing the kind of safe haven the group enjoys on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. American intelligence officials believe that Osama bin Laden's organization is regrouping in the governorates of Ma'rib, al-Jawf, and Hadhramaut along Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia, and that Al Qaeda in... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/britain-breaks-with-us-over-pakistan/86038/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Britain is voicing reservations about the Pentagon's new military push into northeast Pakistan, claiming publicly that its troops in Afghanistan are not participating in the cross-border raids into the territory believed to host Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants that have become near daily occurrences. On a stop in Islamabad yesterday, the British justice minister and former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said the American incursions into the Federally Administered Tribal... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/israel-waging-secret-war-with-iran/85831/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Israel and America are intensifying a clandestine war against Iran that has run hot and cold since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but has grown more urgent as Iran races to obtain an atomic bomb. That is a central claim in a new book, "The Secret War with Iran," by an Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, who also details a series of mishaps during the past 2 1/2 years that have likely delayed Iran's efforts to go nuclear. While President Bush and other Western leaders have warned of... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/the-youth-vote-attracts-both-campaigns/85758/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The presidential election will hinge in large part on the Election Day turnout of younger voters, who surveys show favor Senator Obama by a large margin but also rarely show up to vote in the same percentages as the older Americans who favor Senator McCain. The Obama campaign has established a network of "youth directors" as part of its field operations. The aim is to register and get to the polls the youth vote, which Democrats have been trying to attract for nearly 40 years. The... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/succession-is-question-for-pyongyang/85553/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The identity of the next leader of North Korea and the security of his hold on power are emerging as topics of intense speculation in defense ministries and intelligence headquarters around the world after reports suggesting that the Hermit Kingdom's leader, Kim Jong Il, has suffered a stroke. American intelligence reports to senior government officials surfaced in late August speculating that Mr. Kim may have suffered a stroke as early as August 14, the date of the last public... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/american-raids-penetrating-pakistan/85460/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — American military forces are stepping up cross-border ground attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. In the last two weeks, the military has begun launching ground assaults in the Pakistani border provinces known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, American intelligence and military officials said. The region is believed by American and Pakistani intelligence to be hosting the leadership of Al Qaeda... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/russia-sets-war-games-in-caribbean/85365/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — With American-Russian relations declining to the point of Cold War-era posturing, Moscow is sending ships to the Caribbean. If the scheduled joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy take place, the maneuver would be one of Russia's most provocative exercises in the Western Hemisphere since the Soviet Union supported Marxist guerrillas in Nicaragua and El Salvador — and could entangle the Kremlin in the Monroe Doctrine, which holds that the Europeans should keep out of the American... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/adviser-says-mccain-will-be-balanced-on-foreign/85156/ Thu, 4 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST ST. PAUL, Minn. — One of Senator McCain's top foreign policy advisers is assuring the press that the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee will have a balanced ideological approach to foreign policy and should not be characterized as "neoconservative." When quizzed at an event on foreign policy, Ambassador Richard Williamson said he takes advice from both neoconservatives and their ideological foes inside the Republican Party. "So some of those that are seen as neocons will have... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/doug-feith-joins-the-hudson-institute/85145/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 21:30:55 EST ST. PAUL, Minnesota— A former undersecretary of defense for policy and a key planner of the Iraq war, Doug Feith, will be taking up a new post at the Hudson Institute in Washington. The Hudson Institute's CEO, Kenneth Weinstein, said that Mr. Feith will be heading up the institute's center for national security strategies. "We are very excited to have someone of Doug's caliber on our staff at Hudson Institute," Mr. Weinstein said. "He is a very significant addition. He brings wide policy... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/palin-speech-is-abruptly-canceled/85106/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST ST. PAUL, Minn. — The McCain campaign is showing signs of being spooked by the press frenzy about Governor Palin's family, abruptly canceling a scheduled appearance by the presumptive vice presidential nominee, moving to keep the candidate under wraps until today's prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention here. The organizers of the Republican National Coalition for Life's cocktail-buffet reception told The New York Sun that the McCain campaign called them late Monday evening to... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/gop-warns-democrats-over-palin/85014/ Tue, 2 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST ST. PAUL, Minn. — Republicans are warning Democrats that if they attack Governor Palin's family over the disclosure that the 17-year-old, unmarried daughter of Senator McCain's running mate is five months pregnant, they do so at their own peril. Despite comments from Senator Obama today urging the press to "back off" from stories about Bristol Palin, Republicans predict the attacks will be coming from Democrats in general and affiliated independent groups. Senator Coleman, a Republican from... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-to-take-on-mccain-abortion-record/84851/ Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The Obama campaign is seeking to exploit Senator McCain's anti-abortion voting record in a bid to retain the votes of women who may be unaware of the Republican presumptive nominee's pledge to run a pro-life administration if elected. The effort may face a harder time if Mr. McCain announces a running mate such as Senator Lieberman or Governor Ridge, who favor abortion rights. Regardless of the choice of Senator McCain's running mate, the candidate himself and the Republican... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/sharif-maneuvers-for-power-in-pakistan/84638/ Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — All eyes will be on Pakistan's former premier, Nawaz Sharif, after his announcement yesterday that he is pulling his party out of the government, rupturing the coalition of political parties that effectively drove President Musharraf from power. Despite vowing to play a constructive role in his country's politics, Mr. Sharif is believed by most experts to be biding his time and waiting for new parliamentary elections after the presidential contest next month to make his political... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iran-plans-new-nuclear-facility/84515/ Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — On the heels of a breakdown in talks intended by the West to defuse the Iranian nuclear crisis, Iran is planning to build a new nuclear power facility. Reports surfaced yesterday in Iran's official news agencies that plans are under way to build the facility in the southwest province of Khuzestan. The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the deputy of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed Saeedi, as saying the new 350-megawatt power plant will be constructed in the small city of... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/woodward-book-may-credit-petraeus/84410/ Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — A few weeks in advance of the release of Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush administration, speculation is surging that it will portray the latest phase of the war in Iraq as a success, credited to the recently departed commander of forces there, General David Petraeus. Almost nothing has appeared in the press about the book, "A War Within: A Secret White House History," and The New York Sun has been unable to reach anyone who has read the manuscript. But one source familiar with... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-adviser-offers-some-advice-to-damascus/84260/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, will make a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement a priority only if the two sides, meeting now in Turkey, make substantial progress before the inauguration. That is what a foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama told Syria's foreign minister last month while on a visit to Damascus. While the trip was not connected to the Obama campaign, Daniel Kurtzer nonetheless provided Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem with some advice of his own. "I... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iran-threatens-to-shut-strait-of-hormuz/83142/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Two days after a diplomatic deadline passed for Iran to end the reprocessing and enrichment of uranium, the chief of the country's Revolutionary Guard force is threatening to close down one of the world's most critical oil shipping passageways, the Strait of Hormuz. The Revolutionary Guard commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, spoke to Iranian reporters after testing a new antiship missile that he said could sink "enemy ships" at a range of more than 200 miles. He said shutting down the... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/sadr-hold-may-be-slipping-in-iraq/83196/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Iran's bellicosity comes as its closest Iraqi political ally, Moqtada al Sadr, appears to be capitulating to the Iraqi government's demand that his Mahdi Army disarm and rejoin the political process as a social services organization. The Wall Street Journal reported last night that a recent brochure for Mr. Sadr's organization says the Mahdi Army "is not allowed to use arms at all." The brochure also says "The Mahdi Army will now be guided by Shiite spirituality instead of anti-American... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/peter-rodman-64-was-a-top-pentagon-official/83088/ Mon, 4 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Americans began mourning over the weekend the loss of one of the country's premier foreign policy thinkers and strategists, Peter Rodman. At 64, Rodman succumbed to leukemia, leaving behind his wife Veronique, his daughter Theodora, and his son Nicholas. Rodman's career in public service began as an assistant to Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration, where he played a key role in opening the talks that led to the normalization of ties between Nixon's America and Mao's... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/bushs-order-on-intelligence-sparks-a-furor/83046/ Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Fed up with the White House's reluctance to share intelligence, Republican lawmakers briefed yesterday on a new executive order reshuffling the intelligence community walked out in protest, and their leader is threatening tougher measures. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told The New York Sun yesterday that he would punish the intelligence community from now on when they asked to spend money in areas that were not... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/olmert-ouster-likely-to-slow-peace-parley/82972/ Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Israeli peace talks with Syria and the Palestinian Arabs will likely stall in the aftermath of Ehud Olmert's decision to step down as prime minister and not seek his party's nomination in a vote scheduled for mid-September. The political shake-up in Jerusalem will hurl Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, into the middle of a primary contest with Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, who has emerged as an Iran hawk in the last year, pledging the Jewish state will not tolerate a... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/bush-meets-chinese-democracy-activists/82892/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Before departing for Beijing for the Olympic Games, President Bush is signaling that he will raise concerns from Chinese human rights activists in his meetings with Chinese leaders. Mr. Bush met yesterday with five Chinese exiles, including Harry Wu, the geologist who spent nearly 20 years in Chinese labor camps and later wrote about his native country's gulags, or the laogai. Also at the meeting was Wei Jingsheng, a man considered by many to be the father of China's democracy... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/bush-proposes-merit-pay-for-diplomats/82621/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — In the waning months of his administration, President Bush is proposing merit pay for foreign service officers who promote democracy and human rights. A section of a speech Mr. Bush delivered yesterday that called for merit pay, reviewing what he has dubbed his "freedom agenda," was excised from the final draft, administration officials said. Nonetheless, the classified directive the president signed last month on American policy to promote democracy and human rights suggests that... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/israeli-visit-will-pose-obama-tours-biggest-test/82434/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Senator Obama is in Jerusalem today for perhaps the most challenging test yet of his presidential tryout on the world stage. Not only has Israel's ruling party just agreed to primaries that will result in new leadership for the Jewish state by mid-September, but relations between the outgoing Olmert government and the Bush administration are at their most strained, with the State Department charting new policy on Iran and negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs. Complicating... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/maliki-bets-that-obama-will-prevail/82374/ Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — In throwing his support behind Senator Obama's plan for a 16-month timetable for an American withdrawal from Iraq, Prime Minister al-Maliki is calculating that Mr. Obama may well be the next president of America, and betting that a successful visit by Mr. Obama to Baghdad will advance Iraqi interests in a new administration. RELATED: Maliki's Bet. It was a move aimed at ingratiating the Shiite ruling majority in Baghdad with the man they expect to win the November presidential... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-maliki-may-soon-talk-of-a-timeline/82274/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — When Senator Obama arrives in Baghdad this week, he will have a chance to hear directly from Prime Minister al-Maliki whether the Iraqi leader supports the 16-month withdrawal timeline that Mr. Obama has embraced on the campaign trail. Mr. Maliki landed in the center of the American presidential campaign during the weekend when a German magazine, Der Spiegel, printed an interview that quoted him as endorsing in principle Mr. Obama's timetable. A spokesman for Mr. Maliki yesterday... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/despite-saudi-promises-textbooks-filled-with-hate/82163/ Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Two years after protracted American-Saudi negotiations persuaded the State Department that the Saudis would remove religious intolerance from their national textbooks, a new study finds the books still portray non-Sunni Muslims as the enemies of true believers. The report from the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute finds that the Saudi textbooks are filled with the austere supremacism of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, despite promises from the Kingdom in 2006 to alter... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/bushs-iran-decision-brings-mixed-reactions/82075/ Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Just as Senator Obama was in the process of refining his position on the Iraq war, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is seizing on President Bush's decision to embrace diplomacy on Iran as a move that fits with his own plan to begin nuclear talks with the mullahs without preconditions. The undersecretary of state for political affairs, William Burns, will attend European talks with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, on Saturday as part of what has been... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-outlines-plan-for-true-success-in-iraq/81973/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The presidential candidate who promises to tell his generals to end the Iraq war is now saying that a modest victory is achievable in the country, where the government left behind stops sectarian killing and does not provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda. The mere mention of an Iraq victory yesterday in a major national security speech by Senator Obama cuts against the rhetoric of many of the Democratic party's leaders, such as Senate Majority Leader Reid, who more than a year ago said... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/mccain-will-call-for-a-surge-of-troops/81861/ Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Senator McCain will announce plans today for an Iraq-style "surge" of troops in Afghanistan. An adviser to the campaign told The New York Sun that, in a speech to be delivered in Albuquerque, N.M., the senator will call for an increase in combat troops and the creation of a special Afghanistan tsar to coordinate policy toward the country. "There will be a surge for Afghanistan. It will be moving combat troops in and applying the lessons from Iraq and the strategy that was... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-mccain-congratulate-generals-on-senate/81664/ Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The Democratic and Republican contenders for the presidency congratulated General David Petraeus after the full Senate confirmed his nomination 95 to 2 to take the reins of the military sphere that includes Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, known as Central Command. While both Senator Obama and Senator McCain were on the stump and missed the vote, the campaigns of the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees for the presidency were supportive of the general who will command the... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/tel-aviv-us-vessels-first-targets-as-iran-tests/81601/ Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Iran's long-range missile test yesterday will result in the country's further diplomatic isolation, the White House is saying. Both Europe and America are condemning Iran's action, calling it provocative and in violation of three U.N. Security Council resolutions passed to pressure the Islamic Republic to end its enrichment of uranium. The firing of nine Shahab-3 missiles over the Strait of Hormuz capable of hitting Israeli and American bases in the Middle East appeared to be... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraq-timeline-spills-into-us-presidential-campaign/81510/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The negotiations between Iraq and America over the status of American forces in the country are spilling over into the presidential contest. This week Prime Minister al-Maliki raised the prospect that the agreement between his government and the Bush administration may include the timelines for withdrawal favored by Democrats since President Bush sent 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in early 2007. Yesterday, the McCain campaign's national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/russia-threatens-military-response-to-us-missile/81448/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 18:03:03 EST WASHINGTON -- Echoing the bygone Cold War relationship between America and the Soviet Union, Russia's foreign ministry is threatening a military response if America moves forward with installing a missile defense system in the Czech Republic. A statement from the foreign ministry in Moscow said Russia would be "forced to react not with diplomatic methods but with military-technical methods" if the proposed interceptor missiles are installed near Russia's borders. That statement was in response... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/bomb-in-kabul-may-ignite-india-pakistan-tensions/81421/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — India-Pakistan relations could be one casualty of a bomb blast outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul yesterday that killed 41 people and injured more than 140. While a Taliban spokesman denied responsibility for the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced that it would send investigators to Pakistan and Afghanistan to probe the incident. The State Department said it is offering Afghanistan and... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-said-to-back-away-from-2005-n-korea/80997/ Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — Korean-American human rights groups are claiming that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is backing away from a 2005 ultimatum to Pyongyang. In an interview yesterday, the executive director of the Korean Church Coalition for North Korean Freedom, Sam Kim, said he traveled to Congress in early June to remind Illinois legislators of a 2005 letter signed by Senator Obama, among others, that called on the North Korean regime to provide details about the case of the... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/arts/forging-a-conservative-future-grand-new-party/80990/ Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST In "Grand New Party" (Doubleday, 256 pages, $23.95), Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam have written a subversive book on public policy and the future of American conservatism. The book is subversive because, in the end, the authors urge the Republican Party to give up on its dream of drowning the federal government in a bathtub. But in doing this, the two young, idiosyncratic conservative writers, both editors at the Atlantic, make a fairly persuasive case that the old Goldwater-Reagan rhetoric of... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/bush-deal-on-n-korea-meets-skepticism-from/80859/ Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — President Bush's nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea is meeting strong skepticism on Capitol Hill and from the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president, Senator McCain. As Mr. Bush was explaining his decision in a Rose Garden speech, the McCain campaign released a statement warning that America may be rewarding Pyongyang for empty promises. "If we are unable to fully verify the declaration submitted today and if I am not satisfied with the verification mechanisms... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/mandela-anc-step-up-pressure-on-mugabe/80736/ Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — President Mugabe may be losing his last friend in Africa. The African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, released a statement contradicting the country's president, Thabo Mbeki, who has been the last regional leader to defend Mr. Mugabe, who has drawn the scorn of capitals worldwide. The statement the ANC issued yesterday criticized the Zimbabwe dictator's handling of the March 29 presidential elections and his party's violent crackdown on the political opposition led... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/mccain-and-obama-call-for-mugabes-ouster/80651/ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The Democratic and Republican presumptive presidential nominees are calling for the end of President Mugabe's 28 years of rule in Zimbabwe if he moves forward, as expected, with a runoff election after driving his opposition out of the contest amid a wave of state-sponsored violence. RELATED: Elizabeth Strips Honorary Knighthood From Mugabe | Zimbabwe Opposition Pleads for U.N. Peacekeepers | Zimbabwe by Gunpoint | African Leaders Turn Against Zimbabwe's President. Senator Obama... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/irans-nightmare-scenarios-mulled/80568/ Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — An attack on the U.S. 5th Fleet, exploding Saudi oil refineries, and a Hezbollah operation against a soft target in the Americas, Asia, or Europe. These are scenarios America's intelligence analysts are now poring over as Israel signals its preparedness to deal with Iran's race for the A-bomb. The disclosure Friday in the New York Times of Israel's aerial training mission earlier this month over the Greek Mediterranean prompted America's intelligence chiefs to task analysts with... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/new-sanctions-for-zimbabwe-likely-as-opposition/80475/ Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The decision yesterday of Zimbabwe's opposition leader to withdraw from Friday's presidential runoff election will trigger new sanctions against President Mugabe's regime. The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said his government would pursue "very strongly" a round of sanctions at the U.N. Security Council. "I think that is important. It's also important that African leaders continue to make clear that a government which violates the constitution in Zimbabwe ... cannot be held as the... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/congressman-asks-terrorist-screening-of-gaza/80407/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman is pressing the State Department to screen three Palestinian Arab recipients of Fulbright grants to determine their links to terrorism after learning of their affiliation with a Hamas-sponsored university. The three winners of American taxpayer-funded Fulbright grants to study in America — Fidaa Abed, Osama Dawoud, and Zohair Abu Shaban — have studied or taught at the Islamic University of Gaza. An Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, reported in 2007 that... ELI LAKE http://www.nysun.com/foreign/israel-may-be-training-for-strikes-at-iran-sites/80417/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON — The window for diplomatic solutions to Iran's enrichment of uranium may be closing. Earlier this month, Israel conducted training missions over the Mediterranean Sea and Greek territory, the New York Times reported on its Web site last night. The tests were conducted at the same distance required of Israeli jets to fly to Iran, and included helicopters in case any jets were downed and pilots had to be rescued, according to the Times. The military training missions come as Israeli...