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Turkey, US officials in first operational meeting on Syria
Jets cross into
iraq: officials
US Navy SEAL commando pens
book on Osama raid
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Assange lawyer claims vital info in rape case
India-US relationship retreated under Obama: Romney aide
Curiosity spots ‘UFO’ on Mars horizon
Mob lynches one, hurts two in Sindh
Pakistan summons US diplomat to protest drone strikes
British media warned over Harry’s naked pics
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Turkey, US officials in first operational meeting on Syria Ankara, August 23 The officials are also due to discuss contingency plans in the case of potential threats including a chemical attack by the regime in Damascus which Washington has called a "red line". Turkish foreign ministry deputy under-secretary Halit Cevik and US ambassador Elisabeth Jones are leading the delegations made up of intelligence agents, military officials and diplomats at the meeting in Ankara, a foreign ministry source told AFP. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had announced their plans for such a mechanism to hasten the end of President Bashar al-Assad's regime on August 11. Today's meeting come just days after US President Barack Obama warned Syria that any movement or usage of its chemical weapons would be a "red line" that would change his perspective on how to respond to the conflict. A chemical attack would also trigger a refugee influx to neighbouring countries including Turkey which is already hosting more than 70,000 Syrians. On Monday, Davutoglu said Turkey can handle no more than 100,000 Syrian refugees and has proposed setting up a UN buffer zone inside Syria to shelter them. The exodus of refugees to Turkey has intensified recently as a result of a Syrian army offensive and fighting in the northern city of Aleppo between regime forces and rebels. The growing flow of refugees has raised fears of a repeat of the 1991 Gulf War, when half a million Iraqi Kurds massed along the common border. The threat of armed groups including the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Al-Qaeda which could exploit a power vacuum in Syria is also expected to figure high on the agenda of the Ankara meeting. — AFP
Jets cross into iraq: officials Fallujah (Iraq): Syrian
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US Navy SEAL commando pens book on Osama raid Washington, August 23 The author, who uses a pseudonym, "was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader's hideout and was present at his death," The Washington Post quoted a statement from Dutton, the New York-based publisher. The book, 'No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden', will be released on September 11. If what the author says is true, the book would pull off the secrecy maintained by members of the team of Navy SEALs involved in the raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It could also raise legal and political issues for the Obama administration, which has carried out an aggressive crackdown on leaks even while it has also been accused of offering access to journalists and moviemakers to exploit the success of the bin Laden operation, the Post said. It added that the Pentagon and CIA officials appeared to be caught off-guard by Dutton's announcement of the forthcoming book. Officials indicated yesterday that neither the author nor the publisher had cleared the book's contents with the Defence Department or the CIA.
— PTI
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Assange lawyer claims vital info in rape case
Melbourne, August 23 The veteran international lawyer, who ran a case against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, was critical of Australian authorities for failing to provide consular assistance to Assange, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Garzon said Australian government's response to requests for assistance had been "entirely negative". —
PTI
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India-US relationship retreated under Obama: Romney aide
Washington, August 23 "The relationship between India and the US is mutually beneficial and there is a need to forge new areas of cooperation," a top foreign policy adviser to Romney said yesterday. "I worked in the Bush Administration both 41 and 43. Especially in 43 (George W Bush) we were very proud of the partnership we were able to forge between the United States and India. I think it was mutually beneficial as these things should be both economically, diplomatically and in military and security sphere as well," Mitchell B Reiss, a senior foreign policy adviser to Romney told a group of foreign journalists during a conference call. "I think that what I have seen under the current administration is little bit of retreat, little bit of backsliding from the promise that was starting to be to realise the momentum under the Bush Administration," Reiss said.
— PTI
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Curiosity spots ‘UFO’ on Mars horizon
London, August 23 While the images are certainly a curiosity, NASA and photography experts insist they are nothing more than blemishes on the images, picked up by the camera lens sitting on the rover at a distance of 350 million miles away. NASA has not commented on any of the strange sightings so far, but alien hunters have suggested that these are alien ships monitoring humans' baby steps into the universe, the 'Daily Mail' reported. A YouTube user spotted the anomalies on the NASA images, publicly available on the space agency's website, and applied a series of filters to try to shed light on the mystery. "Four objects caught by Mars Curiosity, very difficult to make out on original image so I have used a few filters to highlight," the paper quoted him as saying. —
PTI
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Mob lynches one, hurts two in Sindh
A mob in Tando Adam city in Sindh lynched one person and severely wounded two others on suspicion of “illicit activity”. All three persons were targeted in Jatia Mohla of Tando Adam town. A big crowd pulled out the house owner and the couple. People mercilessly beat the three in the presence of some policemen, resulting in the owner’s death. Human rights bodies have condemned the increasing tendency of mob justice.
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Pakistan summons US diplomat to protest drone strikes Islamabad, August 23 A series of US drone attacks bombed North Waziristan over the past few days in three separate attacks, killing at least 14 people. "A senior US diplomat was called to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was informed that the drone strikes were unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty," the foreign ministry said, reported Xinhua. Islamabad says the drone strikes are counterproductive in the war on terror and spark anti-American sentiments. But Washington insists that the attacks are the key to eliminate Al Qaeda remnants and Taliban. — IANS
US drone kills kashmiri militant Islamabad: Kashmiri militant ‘Engineer’ Ahsan Aziz was among those killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan tribal region last week, his father said. Abdul Aziz, a former militant ‘commander’, was quoted by Geo News as saying his son Ahsan Aziz was killed along with his wife in a US drone strike in North Waziristan Agency on August 18. — PTI
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British media warned over Harry’s naked pics
London, August 23 Another picture shows the Prince "bear-hugging" a naked woman from behind, apparently attempting to assist her with her next shot. The pictures, initially published by the US celebrity website TMZ.com, were taken by a fellow reveller while the Prince was reportedly playing "strip billiards" at a party in his VIP suite at the Wynn hotel. — The Independent
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Turkish and US officials today began their first "operational planning" meeting aimed at bringing about the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime.
Melbourne, August 23
