Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by U.K. government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show, according to The Independent newspaper in the U.K. Tuesday.
The papers raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, The Independent said.
The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time, The Independent said.

Newspaper Web site: independent.co.uk

April 18, 2011 21:26 ET (01:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

"Jeder Herrscher muss verstehen, und vor allem jeder arabische Herrscher muss verstehen, dass die Reaktion der internationalen Gemeinschaft und Europas von nun an jedes Mal die Gleiche sein wird."

AverageJoe schrieb:

Donald Trump will für die Präsidentschaft kandidieren. (Endgültige Entscheidung im Juni).

Die Wehrpflicht läuft aus, jetzt sorgt sich die Bundeswehr ums künftige Personal. Rund 80 Ideen haben die Wehrplaner zu Papier gebracht, um Lücken zu schließen. Neben einem Werben um in Deutschland lebende Ausländer wird laut einem Pressebericht erwogen, Geringqualifizierte gezielt anzusprechen.

In China sind im vergangenen Jahr fast zwei Millionen Ehen geschieden worden. Dies sind deutlich mehr, als neue Ehen geschlossen wurden.

1,96 Millionen Paare hätten 2010 die Scheidung eingereicht, berichtete die Zeitung «Legal Evening News» am Sonntagabend unter Berufung auf das zuständige Ministerium. In der gleichen Zeit hätten sich 1,2 Millionen Paare das Ja-Wort gegeben.

Gesetzesreform erleichtert Scheidungen

Vor acht Jahren wurden in China im Zuge einer Gesetzesreform Eheschliessungen wie auch Scheidungen erleichtert. Seitdem stieg die Scheidungsrate stetig an.

Vor den Gesetzesänderungen im Jahr 2003 mussten Scheidungswillige in vielen Regionen Chinas laut «Legal Evening News» erst von ihrem Arbeitsplatz oder den Nachbarschaftskomitees ein schriftliches Zertifikat einholen, bevor eine Scheidung möglich war.

Angesichts der steigenden Scheidungszahlen fordern einige Parlamentarier nun eine Rückkehr zu dieser Praxis. Der Zeitung zufolge hängt die steigende Zahl der Scheidungen auch damit zusammen, dass sowohl Männer als auch Frauen mehr Geld verdienen und unabhängiger werden.

Obama schickt Vermittler

Die US-Regierung hat den früheren US-Botschafter Frank Wisner nach Ägypten geschickt, wie CNN berichtet. Er solle dort mit Offiziellen verhandeln.

Die Demonstranten haben mehrfach klar gemacht, dass sie keine Einmischung des Westens wünschen: «Wir haben die Doppelmoral der westlichen Regierungen satt», sagte eine Demonstrantin vor wenigen Minuten gegenüber al-Jazeera.

Mongolischer Präsident nimmt Anschauungsunterricht in Demokratie

Der Staatspräsident der Republik Mongolei, Tsachiagiin Elbegdordsch, hat sich in Aarau über die direkte Demokratie und den Schweizer Föderalismus informiert. Sein Land strebe nach direkter Demokratie wie in der Schweiz, sagte der Staatspräsident.

Die Mongolei wolle von den langen Erfahrungen der Schweiz lernen, sagte Staatspräsident Elbegdordsch vor Medienvertretern in Aarau. Die Mongolei solle «zum Beispiel in Asien» werden.

BEIJING (AFP)--China will eventually have a military powerful enough to compete with the U.S., state media said Friday ahead of the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The claim in a newspaper editorial followed reports that China had completed a prototype of a stealth fighter and after a top U.S. military official said Beijing was stepping up efforts to deploy a "carrier-killer" missile system.
"Whether the reported new weapons are true or not, in the long run, China will own first-class weapons that are capable of competing with the U.S. war machine," said the Global Times, known for its nationalist tone.
Gates arrives in China on Sunday to smooth over tense defense relations between the two countries--one year after Beijing cut military ties with Washington in protest against U.S. arms sales to rival Taiwan.
"Apparently, the U.S. is not ready to treat China as a major power. They cannot accept the fact that China will sooner or later possess a first-class military," the editorial said.
"They are too used to the old power structure, in which China and other developing countries have long been treated unfairly."
In an interview last week with a Japanese newspaper, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Robert Willard said China was pushing development of "carrier-killers" and aimed to project its influence beyond its regional waters.
U.S. military analysts have warned China is developing an anti-ship ballistic missile--a new version of its Dongfeng 21 missile--that could pierce the defenses of even the sturdiest U.S. naval vessels and has a range far beyond Chinese waters.
While Gates's Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie has said that China will push forward with modernization of its military thanks to a booming economy, the U.S. is facing major cuts.
Citing "dire" fiscal pressures, Gates on Thursday proposed deeper cuts than planned in U.S. military programs, scaling back ground forces for the first time since the 1990s.
Gates, in a compromise with the White House, said the $78 billion in cuts and other measures would result in a slower pace of growth in defense budgets over the next five years, despite earlier plans to keep spending at a higher rate.
China has long described its military build-up as "defensive" in nature but top armed forces officials have recently made increasingly strong statements about its quest for a powerful military.

January 07, 2011 03:54 ET (08:54 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. government is building a vast domestic spying network to collect information on Americans as part of expanding counterterrorism efforts, the Washington Post reported Monday.
The unprecedented network involves local police, state and military authorities feeding a growing database on thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, even though many have never been charged with breaking the law, the Post reported, citing numerous interviews and 1,000 documents.
The apparatus breaks new ground in the U.S.--where domestic security measures traditionally have faced legal limits--and raises questions about safeguards for privacy and civil liberties.
There was no immediate comment on the report from the Department of Homeland Security, which has built up the network with billions of dollars in grants to state governments since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The effort is driven by concerns about "homegrown" terrorism, with a spate of recent cases involving U.S. citizens or legal residents accused of plotting attacks on American soil.
The information compiled on Americans is supposed to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the program's efficacy remains unclear while rights groups worry about the effect on civil liberties, the Post wrote.
"It opens a door for all kinds of abuses," Michael German, a former FBI agent at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the paper. "How do we know there are enough controls?"
The domestic apparatus includes 4,058 federal, state and local organizations, with at least 935 created since the 2001 attacks or newly focused on counterterrorism, the paper wrote.
The FBI maintains a database of profiles on tens of thousands of Americans reported to be "acting suspiciously," and local and state police started contributing to the files two years ago.
Some 890 state and local agencies have filed 7,197 reports, but there have been no convictions yet in any of the cases, the paper said.
Under current plans, the new Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, or SAR, will ensure that a central database will one day contain files sent in by all of the country's police departments.
The network has local police working as intelligence "analysts" without the extensive training of FBI or CIA officers.
Some police departments have hired instructors with hardline views who portray the country's Islamic community as overrun with radical extremists, the paper wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security told the newspaper it was working on guidelines for local authorities seeking out terrorism experts.
The Post investigation also revealed that technologies and methods developed for use in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now being employed by law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
These include hand-held fingerprint scanners, biometric data devices and unmanned aircraft monitoring the border with Mexico and Canada.
The cost of the domestic spying network is difficult to measure, but the Department of Homeland Security has provided $31 billion in grants since 2003 to state and local governments for counterterrorism measures, including $3.8 billion handed out this year.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 20, 2010 12:32 ET (17:32 GMT)