Friday, Dec 05th
Last update09:00:43 AM GMT
International Glance
The Air Force general responsible for U.S. military operations in most of Latin America said Tuesday that he does not believe Venezuela, despite ongoing arms purchases and close ties to Iran, poses a national security threat to the United States.
Gen. Douglas Fraser also said he would like to see more counterdrug cooperation from Venezuela, from which most northbound cocaine smuggling flights continue to originate, according to U.S. and Colombian officials.
A number of current and former US intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel is the top threat for CIA’s Near East Division which undertakes Washington’s espionage activities across the Middle East, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
The report comes on the heels of a new revelation by the White House that the houses of several CIA agents in Israel have been recently broken into.
The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.
The incident, described to the Associated Press by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.
Sweden’s security services on Thursday flatly denied that a Swedish man released from the prison camps here in 2004 was responsible for a suicide bombing of a busload of Israeli tourists at a Bulgarian port city.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been blaming Iran for the suicide attack Wednesday at the airport in the Black Sea coast holiday spot of Burgas, Bulgaria, that killed at least seven people.
Israeli officials have taken the highly controversial step of creating the first university in a settlement in the West Bank. A higher education council for the occupied territory decided in favour of the upgrade for the college in Ariel, after it was recommended by Israel's education minister.
It is being seen as a significant victory for the settler movement. However many Israeli academics and the Palestinians have condemned the move.
Erica Masters was asleep when Columbia County Code Compliance Officer Jimmy Vowell entered her Martinez, Georgia, home without permission to serve a violation notice for her overgrown lawn.
After knocking on the woman's door a few times, Vowell let himself and made his way into her bedroom, which was captured on surveillance video.
A panel formed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has concluded that Israel is entitled to settle the West Bank with Jews. The committee, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy, claims that Israel’s control over the West Bank cannot be seen as “occupation” since no country has recognized sovereignty over the territory.
Therefore, the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prevents the transfer of a civilian population by an occupying force into the occupied territory, does not apply to the West Bank. Justice Levy recommends that the Israeli government end the temporary status of the settlements and register the settlers’ control over the territory.
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