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7. mai 2006
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Iran's parliament threatens to pull out of the non-proliferation treaty.
Iran's parliament has threatened to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if Western pressure over its programme increases.
The threat came in a statement made a day before key UN members discuss a tough draft resolution on the issue.
Pulling out of the NPT is the ultimate threat of non-cooperation by Iran, says our Tehran correspondent.
A withdrawal would mean the country's programme could no longer be inspected by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
If that were to happen, would China and Russia still oppose sanctions in the Security Council? I'd guess the answer is yes, and that also tells us what relevance there is in the UN today.
Then again, it's unlikely sanctions could have any effect in the first place.
10:36:17 PM 
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It is no surprise that the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to the top CIA post has hit opposition, but it is slightly unexpected that it comes from what is normally Bush loyalists.
Bush was expected to nominate a new director as early as Monday to replace Porter Goss, who abruptly resigned on Friday.
But opposition to Hayden because of his military background is mounting on Capitol Hill, where he would face tough hearings in the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Despite a distinguished career at the Defense Department, Hayden would be "the wrong person, the wrong place at the wrong time," said the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.
That sounds like a principled stand, assuming it doesn't cover for other concerns.
Despite his military background, Hayden, 61, is something of a nonconformist. There is a pattern in his career of independent thinking, probably one reason he was able to thrive in the current security environment. [...]
If Hayden is nominated and confirmed as director of the CIA, succeeding Porter J. Goss, whose resignation President Bush accepted Friday, he will take over an institution that has been battered in recent years and even treated as an adversary at times by the Bush administration.
Agency insiders probably will be suspicious of Hayden, a career military man. They also will be skeptical that the mild-mannered Hayden can protect them from the bureaucratic maneuverings of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who in recent years has built up military intelligence and made it more independent of CIA oversight.
Independent thinking. Who'd want that in the CIA?
10:31:38 PM
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If true, this is a dramatic development:
A HAMAS plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence.
Hamas’s military wing, the Izza Din Al-Qassem, had planned to kill Abbas at his office in Gaza, intelligence sources said.
Abbas, who became president of the Palestinian Authority last year after the death of Yasser Arafat, was formally warned of the danger by the Israelis and cancelled a planned visit to the territory.
The murder plan is the clearest sign yet of the tensions inside the Palestinian Authority between Hamas, which swept to power after elections in January, and Abbas’s Fatah movement.
Hamas leaders, who refuse to recognise the state of Israel, suspect Abbas of obstructing their attempts to govern, which have been hampered by a financial boycott from donor nations. “Hamas considers Abbas to be a barrier to its complete control over Palestine and decided to kill him,” said a Palestinian source who was an adviser to Arafat and is a close acquaintance of Abbas.
It is understood that the attack would also have targeted Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas’s strongman in Gaza.
Somehow I don't think it boosts Abbas' credentials that the Israelis had to save him.
The Fatah used to have a quite good intelligence and security service of their own...
2:09:02 PM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.06.2006; 21:15:30.
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