Watch Karzai confirms holding talks with Taliban

Karzai confirms holding talks with Taliban


Karzai confirmed holding unofficial talks with the Taliban 'for quite some time'.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed holding unofficial talks with the Taliban "for quite some time," in a bid to end the nine-year war, according to an interview transcript released on Sunday.

"We have been talking to the Taliban as countryman to countryman, talk in that manner," Karzai told CNN's Larry King when asked about a Washington Post report on "secret high level talks" between the two sides.

"Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time," he said in a release of excerpts from the interview, to air in full today.

Last week the Washington Post said the secret talks were believed to involve the Afghan government and representatives authorised by the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban group based in Pakistan, and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It cited unnamed Afghan and Arab sources.
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Watches Karzai: Talks with Taliban on for 'some time'

Karzai: Talks with Taliban on for 'some time'


AP – Afghan President Hamid Karzai talks to Afghans in Argandab district of Kandahar province, south of Kabul, …
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed his government has been in informal talks with the Taliban on securing peace in war-weary Afghanistan "for quite some time" — the latest in a series of high-level acknowledgments of contacts with the insurgent group.
The comments came as Taliban fighters ambushed a military supply convoy in the east Monday and fought with Afghan forces in the south.
Unofficial discussions have been held with Taliban representatives over an extended period, Karzai told CNN's "Larry King Live" in an interview to be broadcast Monday.
"We have been talking to the Taliban as countryman to countryman," Karzai said. "Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address, but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time."
Afghan presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said it was not the first time Karzai had acknowledged talks, saying both the president and his office have repeatedly confirmed unofficial discussions.
"He has talked about it in the past as well. It's not hidden from anyone," Omar said. The president's office previously confirmed there were informal talks with different levels of Afghan Taliban over the past couple of years.
"We have said that there have been contacts in the past, initiated sometimes by the government, sometimes by the armed opposition," Omar said. He said these have been through intermediaries.
NATO's top commander in Afghanistan — Gen. David Petraeus — has also said the military coalition was aware of overtures made by Taliban insurgents at the highest levels to the Afghan government.
The drumbeat about talks comes as support for a drawn-out military push in Afghanistan is waning in the United States and with other NATO allies as the war enters its 10th year. Sending thousands more U.S. troops this summer to the country's south has yet to show significantly increased security in the Taliban heartland and violence has risen countrywide in recent months.
In the east on Monday, Taliban fighters ambushed a supply convoy guarded by Afghan military contractors as it traveled through Ghazni province on its way to Kandahar in the south, said provincial chief of police Zarawar Zahid. An hourlong gunbattle killed eight insurgents and wounded two Afghan security contractors in Qarabagh district.
Six militants died in operations by Afghan forces Sunday in southern Helmand province's Marjah and Greshk districts, the Defense Ministry said in a statement issued Monday.
The Afghan government says it hopes to make talks more structured with a "peace council" that will aim for formal talks with insurgent groups. On Sunday, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani was named chief of the council. Rabbani was one of a group of mujahedeen leaders who fought the Soviets in the 1980s. He was Afghanistan's president between 1992 and 1996, when he was ousted by the Taliban.
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Watch China and US in stand-off at climate talks

China and US in stand-off at climate talks


AFP/File – Smoke is seen rising from a chimmny in the northern port city of Tianjin where the UN Climate Change
TIANJIN, China (AFP) – UN climate talks were set to wrap up on Saturday with China and the United States locked in a stand-off, slowing down progress ahead of a major summit next month on global warming.
The major powers sparred throughout the six days of talks in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, prompting the hosts to warn on the penultimate day that the atmosphere for negotiation had deteriorated.
"I want to emphasise no compromise... on the interests of developing countries," the Chinese foreign ministry's special representative for climate change, Huang Huikang, told delegates on Friday.
"We are losing trust and confidence."
Delegates from more than 170 countries attended the latest round of the long-running United Nations negotiations that are aimed at eventually securing a binding global treaty on how to limit and cope with climate change.
World leaders failed to broker such a treaty in Copenhagen last year as developed and developing nations battled over who should carry more of the burden in cutting greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.
The Tianjin meeting was the last big gathering before an annual UN climate summit, which will be held in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.
Delegates reported that progress had been made on some specific issues in Tianjin, but many others also said that negotiations were not moving quickly enough to limit global warming below dangerous levels.
"We want to call for greater urgency in the negotiations," Dessima Williams, Grenada delegate and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, told reporters on Friday.
"We have seen some movement, we are pleased with the engagement and the atmosphere, but there's much more that needs to be done and greater urgency is needed."
Chinese delegate Huang on Friday repeated China's long-held positions that for progress to be made the United States and other rich nations must commit to making bigger cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
He said they must also give money and transfer technology to developing countries to help them cut their emissions and adapt to climate change.
"Now the key is there is a lack of substantive progress on the developed countries' side," Huang said.
The United States, meanwhile, has insisted all week that it will not provide climate funds unless the big developing countries such as China allow their greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts to be monitored and verified.
Coppied by http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101009/wl_asia_afp/unclimatewarmingwrap

Watches Afghan leaders, Taliban reportedly in high-level talks to end war

Afghan leaders, Taliban reportedly in high-level talks to end war


WASHINGTON — Taliban representatives and the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have begun secret, high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war, according to Afghan and Arab sources.


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The talks follow inconclusive meetings, hosted by Saudi Arabia, that ended more than a year ago. While emphasizing the preliminary nature of the current discussions, the sources said that for the first time they believe that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar.

“They are very, very serious about finding a way out,’’ one source close to the talks said of the Taliban.

Although Omar’s representatives have long publicly insisted that negotiations were impossible until all foreign troops withdraw, a position seemingly buoyed by the Taliban’s resilience on the battlefield, sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of US and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.

The leadership knows “that they are going to be sidelined,’’ the source said. “They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control. . . . All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position.’’

A half-dozen sources directly involved in or on the margins of the talks agreed to discuss them on the condition of anonymity. All emphasized the preliminary nature of the talks.

The United States’ European partners in Afghanistan, with different histories and under far stronger domestic pressure to withdraw their troops, have always been more amenable to a negotiated settlement.

“What it really boils down to is the Americans both supporting and in some cases maybe even participating in talking with the enemy,’’ a European official said.

“If you strip everything away, that’s the deal here. For so long, politically, it’s been a deal breaker in the United States, and with some people it still is.’
Coppied by http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/10/06/afghan_leaders_taliban_reportedly_in_high_level_talks_to_end_war/

Watch Afghan leaders, Taliban reportedly in high-level talks to end war

Afghan leaders, Taliban reportedly in high-level talks to end war


WASHINGTON — Taliban representatives and the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have begun secret, high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war, according to Afghan and Arab sources.

The talks follow inconclusive meetings, hosted by Saudi Arabia, that ended more than a year ago. While emphasizing the preliminary nature of the current discussions, the sources said that for the first time they believe that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar.

“They are very, very serious about finding a way out,’’ one source close to the talks said of the Taliban.

Although Omar’s representatives have long publicly insisted that negotiations were impossible until all foreign troops withdraw, a position seemingly buoyed by the Taliban’s resilience on the battlefield, sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of US and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.

The leadership knows “that they are going to be sidelined,’’ the source said. “They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control. . . . All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position.’’

A half-dozen sources directly involved in or on the margins of the talks agreed to discuss them on the condition of anonymity. All emphasized the preliminary nature of the talks.

The United States’ European partners in Afghanistan, with different histories and under far stronger domestic pressure to withdraw their troops, have always been more amenable to a negotiated settlement.

“What it really boils down to is the Americans both supporting and in some cases maybe even participating in talking with the enemy,’’ a European official said.

“If you strip everything away, that’s the deal here. For so long, politically, it’s been a deal breaker in the United States, and with some people it still is.’’
Coppied by http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/10/06/afghan_leaders_taliban_reportedly_in_high_level_talks_to_end_war/

Israel and Palestinians agree to direct peace talks

We are enjoy Israel and Palestinians agree to direct peace talks

Israel and the Palestinians have accepted an invitation by the United States and other powers to restart direct talks on September 2 in a modest step toward forging a deal within 12 months to create a Palestinian state and peacefully end one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with President Barack Obama on September 1, before formally resuming direct negotiations the following day at the State Department in Washington.

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"There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead," Clinton said in a statement.

Clinton added that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah also were invited to the talks, which will mark the first direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in 20 months.

"I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region," Clinton said.

Clinton's announcement was echoed by the Quartet of Mideast peace mediators -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- which issued its own invitation to the talks and underscored that a deal could be reached within a year.

Netanyahu quickly accepted the U.S. invitation and said reaching a deal would be possible but difficult.

"We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel's national security interests, foremost of which is security," a statement from his office said.

After a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian leadership announced its acceptance of the invitation for face-to-face peace talks with Israel.

But Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, warned that the Palestinians would pull out of the new talks if the Israelis allow a return to settlement building on lands that the Palestinians seek for a future state.

Israel's 10-month moratorium on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank is due to end on September 26.

The invitation to the talks "contains the elements needed to provide for a peace agreement," Palestinian leaders said.

"It can be done in less than a year," Erekat said. "The most important thing now is to see to it that the Israeli government refrains from settlement activities, incursions, fait accomplis policies."

The two sides are coming together for talks after decades of hostility, mutual suspicion and a string of failed peace efforts.

The Quartet statement was aimed at the Palestinians, who believe that the group's repeated calls for Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and accept a Palestinian state within the borders of land occupied since the 1967 Middle East war are a guarantee of the parameters for the talks.

Clinton's invitation was aimed at Netanyahu, agreeing with his demand that the talks should take place "without preconditions" and giving little sense of any terms that the Israeli leader fears could box him in.
Coppied by http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-and-palestinians-agree-to-direct-peace-talks-2058419.html

Tech industry holds closed door talks on open internet

Net neutrality supporters have hit out at secretive negotiations and deals
Watches now enjoy Tech industry holds closed door talks on open internet
Net neutrality supporters have hit out at secretive negotiations and deals
An industry body representing some of the biggest names in technology has hosted a closed-door meeting to discuss the future of the open internet.

Public advocacy groups said such back-room dealings were detrimental.

The meeting follows the publication of a controversial plan by Google and Verizon that could allow net providers certain types of internet traffic to be given priority over others.

Consumer bodies called those proposals an "internet killer".

Last week a crowd of about 100 people marched to Google's headquarters in California to present boxes that they said contained 300,000 signatures upholding the values of net neutrality, a founding principle of the net that states that all web data is treated equally no matter where it comes from.

The Google/Verizon plan suggests loopholes for mobile traffic and for some specialised content.

Protestors urged the search giant to honour its famed "don't do evil" motto.

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The Google/Verizon scheme was announced after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) halted its own private sessions with internet companies and broadband providers to thrash out a consensus on the thorny subject of net neutrality.

An agreement is central to the government's ambitions to provide high speed net access to every American by 2020.

Premium net

The Google/Verizon scheme was announced after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) halted its own private sessions with internet companies and broadband providers to thrash out a consensus on the thorny subject of net neutrality.

An agreement is central to the government's ambitions to provide high speed net access to every American by 2020.


The government says 100 million Americans do not have broadband
Some internet service providers have said that the rise in internet traffic is putting an ever growing burden on the infrastructure of the net.

As a result, they say, they should be able to charge more for heavy internet traffic or users or to carry traffic for bandwidth intensive services such as web video.

Some critics have said net neutrality could stifle innovation.

On the other side of the debate, campaigners say net neutrality is a central tenant of the internet and guarantees free and open access to all.

They argue that watering down the concept of net neutrality would pave the way for a two tiered internet, where the ability to pay would determine what services people could access.

'Openness principles'

Amid the present impasse, this latest meeting conducted by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) in Washington was held to try and find a way forward.


Young and old took part in last weeks protest at the Googleplex
'Openness principles'

Amid the present impasse, this latest meeting conducted by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) in Washington was held to try and find a way forward.


Young and old took part in last weeks protest at the Googleplex
It was said to involve representatives from Verizon, AT&T, Skype, Microsoft, Cisco and the Communications Workers of America.

In a statement to BBC News, the Council's president Dean Garfield said that "great progress has been made to develop internet openness principles in recent weeks" but more needed to be done "to ensure cross-sector support and to preserve internet access, innovation and investment.

"This new effort will build on that work to arrive at something that can achieve both public and private sector support and strike the balance of encouraging continued innovation and investment in the internet."

In a recent interview with the BBC Mr Garfield said he believed the way forward was through a private sector initiative.

"All the other solutions are ones that will take a fairly long time to effectuate. Private sector leadership is important here, " said Mr Garfield at the time.

Google did not attend but said that it was "an important issue and we support any attempt to move the ball forward".

Illegitimate negotiations

From the perspective of net neutrality supporters, news of another "set of secret negotiations" is worrying.


The FCC said America is ranked 15th in the world for high speed net access
"Industry talks that don't have any public process or consumer interest are not likely to result in good policy making that promotes the public interest," Aparna Sridhar, policy counsel for Free Press told BBC News.

"Developing meaningful open internet rules is a job that is best done at the FCC with full public input from a diverse variety of stakeholders and not limited corporate closed door meetings."

That was a view backed by another advocacy group, Media Access Project.

"These 'negotiations' are illegitimate," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, the project's senior vice president.

"They do not involve representatives of people who use the internet for free expression and commerce and they lack representation from the infant businesses that depend on an open internet to build the future Ciscos, Microsofts and Skypes."

Ms Sridhar of Free Press said the present confusion and ensuing rancour has been exacerbated by the FCC.

"Unfortunately there is a bit of a vacuum right now because the Commission hasn't acted so various industry players are taking advantage and stepping in to fill that vacuum."
Coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11032409

Says condition are not rep yet NEWS AMERICAS Colombia rejects Farc talks offer

Watches this NEWS AMERICAS Colombia rejects Farc talks offer

The Colombian goverment has rejected an offer for talks from the country's most powerful rebel group.

In a videotaped message released before the appointment of president Juan Manuel Santos, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) leader Alfonso Cano offered to open peace talks with the new government.

"Colombia will never talk with terrorists, that is a lesson we have already learned," Rodrigo Rivera, the defence minister, told local media on Sunday.

"There is no dialogue with those who turn to terrorism."

In a separate interview with local radio, Rivera said that government forces knew where Cano is hiding.

He is "fleeing from the security forces. He has no rest... we are not going to let up," he said.

Conditions

After taking office, Santos said he would not close the door to talks, but they would have to be "based on the unalterable premise that (the guerrillas) give up arms, kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking, and intimidation".

The Farc has an estimated 8,000 fighters. Another leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army, is believed to have some 2,000 fighters.

Colombia has been beset for years by violence involving leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary death squads, and powerful drug cartels.

Santos said on Friday that he did not believe the conditions were ripe for talks with the Farc, and ordered Rivera to press ahead with an offensive against them.

As defence minister, Rivera is in charge of both the armed forces and the national police.
coppied by http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/20108160342081386.html

Baa sayes is hope that Union and BAA set for talks to avert airports strike

BAA says it hopes that an agreement can be concluded quickly
We are enjoy now this Union and BAA set for talks to avert airports strike
Talks are due to begin later in an attempt to avert a strike that could close six UK airports later this month.

The talks between BAA and the Unite union - backed by the conciliation service Acas - are set to take place at an undisclosed location.

Security staff, engineers, and firefighters have voted to strike over a 1.5% pay offer.

Strikes could close Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, BAA has warned.

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BAA said it hoped to "quickly conclude an agreement, in the interests of the travelling public, our airlines and our staff".

The two sides will begin efforts to reach a settlement on the same day that members of Unite are scheduled to meet to discuss strike tactics.

If Unite decides to announce strike dates after that meeting, walkouts could begin in the week beginning 23 August, as it has to give the company seven days' notice.

Some analysts have suggested that Unite may target the August Bank Holiday weekend starting on 28 August for the maximum impact, but the union's leaders have refused to confirm that.

If strikes do take place, the six airports would have to close because essential workers such as firefighters and security staff are due to take part.

BAA has said it regrets "the uncertainty this vote has already caused our passengers and airline customers".

On a turnout of about 50%, Unite members voted by three to one in favour of strike action.

The union describes BAA's offer of a pay rise worth up to 1.5% as "measly".

But BAA says it is a fair proposal after a year in which it has seen a decline in passengers due to the impacts of recession and volcanic ash.
Coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10982663