US condemns Ankara embassy bombing

The US has condemned the suicide bombing outside its Ankara embassy, calling it an "act of terror". Source: AAP

THE White House has condemned a suicide bombing outside the US embassy in Ankara as a "terrorist attack", but said it did not yet know who was behind it.

"We strongly condemn what was a suicide attack against our embassy in Ankara, which took place at the embassy's outer security perimeter," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Friday.

A Turkish security guard was killed and several other people were wounded in the explosion, which also damaged nearby buildings.

"A suicide bombing on the perimeter of an embassy is by definition an act of terror. It is a terrorist attack," said Carney.

"However, we do not know at this point who is responsible or the motivations behind the attack. The attack itself is clearly an act of terror."

He said the United States was working closely with Turkish authorities "to investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice".

The bombing at a security roadblock near the entrance to the highly-fortified embassy in an upmarket area of the capital was the latest in a series of attacks on American missions in the Muslim world.

Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to Germany, said the bomber was believed to be a member of an illegal "left wing terrorist organisation", without elaborating.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

High-level security talks begin in Germany

High-level officials have begun security talks in Germany with Syria, Mali and Iran on the agenda. Source: AAP

HIGH-LEVEL officials, diplomats, ministers and top military brass have kicked off three days of talks at the Munich Security Conference amid a US warning to Iran over stalled nuclear talks.

US Vice-President Joe Biden, who is due to attend the Munich talks on Saturday, began a three-nation European tour cautioning Iran that the opportunity for talks with the West over Tehran's contested nuclear program was not open-ended.

A day after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, freshly inaugurated Biden is due to address participants in Munich on Saturday and turn his attentions to Syria amid fears the conflict may spill over the country's borders.

He is scheduled to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Syrian opposition chief Moaz al-Khatib, and also see UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi in the southern German city, the White House said.

Outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran is stepping up support for the Syrian regime and that Russia is still arming it, heightening concerns after Damascus threatened to retaliate over a reported Israeli air raid.

"What we would like to see from other countries, including Russia, is an acknowledgment that (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad must go and that there needs to be a transition within Syria to a new government," said Ben Rhodes, a White House national security adviser.

Brahimi and al-Khatib take part in late-night talks on Syria in Munich on Friday.

NATO's plan to withdraw the bulk of its 100,000 combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 as well as developments in the Muslim and Arab world two years after the Arab Spring revolts are also set to be themes here.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo join a discussion on the euro crisis and the EU's future later on Friday, when energy issues are also a focus.

Opening the conference on Friday, German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere said he was optimistic that the US and Europe could rely on each other and must be able to do so even as both regions turn towards Asia.

"For the US, Europe may not be the best conceivable partner in the world, but it is without any doubt the best possible partner," he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is expected to attend the Munich talks as well as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the so-called P5+1 group of the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in talks on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Taliban attack on Pakistan checkpost

Suicide bombers have attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan, killing 8 people, officials say. Source: AAP

SUICIDE bombers attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan's troubled northwest, killing six soldiers and two civilians, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

"Six security personnel and two civilians were killed in the attack," a security official said of the raid which happened on Saturday around 240km south of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The attack was on a joint checkpost of the Pakistan army and a paramilitary force in the Sari Norang area of Lakki Marwat district, close to the semi-autonomous tribal belt swarming with Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants.

"The civilian casualties include a child and a woman who were killed when one of the attackers entered their home and blew up his suicide jacket," the official said.

Another security official in Peshawar said security forces killed 12 militants.

The Taliban claimed the attack but disputed 12 militants were killed, saying they had sent only four suicide bombers.

"We sent only four suicide bombers to attack this checkpost. We attacked it to avenge the killing of two of our friends in a recent drone strike," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), said by phone.

Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants are accused of plotting attacks from the tribal belt on Pakistani, Afghan and Western targets.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Suicide bomber hits US embassy in Turkey

A guard has died after a suicide bomber attacked the US embassy in the Turkish capital, police say. Source: AAP

A SUICIDE bomber suspected to be a militant from an outlawed leftwing group blew himself up at the US embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard and wounding several other people, officials say.

The bombing on Friday at a security roadblock near the entrance to the highly fortified embassy in an upmarket area of the capital was the latest in a series of attacks on American missions in the Muslim world, highlighting the vulnerability of the country's 70,000 diplomats.

US Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to Germany, said the attack had been "characterised by our embassy as a terrorist attack" while the mission itself issued a travel warning to its nationals in Turkey.

Turkey's Interior Minister Muammer Guler told reporters the bomber blew himself up at a staff entrance to the compound.

"We lost one of the three guards at the entrance, while the two others survived with injuries," he said, adding that a female journalist was also seriously wounded.

He said the bomber was believed to be a member of an illegal "left wing terrorist organisation", without elaborating.

Local media identified the bomber as a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKP-C), who had been jailed after a 1997 attack at a military compound in Istanbul.

Two weeks ago, Turkey carried out a major nationwide crackdown on the DHKP-C, a Marxist group blamed for several attacks since the late 1970s, including suicide bombings, but Guler did not confirm it was responsible.

DHKP-C is vehemently anti-US, anti-NATO, and anti-Turkish establishment.

However, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for what was the latest of many bloody attacks in Turkey which in the past have been blamed on Kurdish militants, leftist extremists or al-Qaeda linked groups.

"The attacks target the well-being and peace in our country," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in televised remarks. "We will stand tall and we will stand together.. we will get over these."

The force of the blast damaged nearby buildings in the Cankaya neighbourhood of the capital where many other state institutions and embassies are also located.

Police cordoned off the area, while a police helicopter hovered in the air and armed US Marines patrolled the embassy roof.

Television footage showed the wounded journalist with a blood-stained face being carried into an ambulance on a stretcher.

US ambassador Francis Ricciardone vowed to work with Turkey to fight terror, confirming the death of the Turkish security guard and saying: "The compound is secure."

The embassy warned US citizens to avoid its diplomatic missions in Turkey until further notice and to avoid potential troublespots and demonstrations.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his British counterpart William Hague condemned the Turkish bombing while German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered her sympathies to the victims.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Suicide bomber hits US embassy in Turkey

A guard has died after a suicide bomber attacked the US embassy in the Turkish capital, police say. Source: AAP

A SUICIDE bomber suspected to be a militant from an outlawed leftwing group blew himself up at the US embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard and wounding several other people, officials say.

The bombing on Friday at a security roadblock near the entrance to the highly fortified embassy in an upmarket area of the capital was the latest in a series of attacks on American missions in the Muslim world, highlighting the vulnerability of the country's 70,000 diplomats.

US Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to Germany, said the attack had been "characterised by our embassy as a terrorist attack" while the mission itself issued a travel warning to its nationals in Turkey.

Turkey's Interior Minister Muammer Guler told reporters the bomber blew himself up at a staff entrance to the compound.

"We lost one of the three guards at the entrance, while the two others survived with injuries," he said, adding that a female journalist was also seriously wounded.

He said the bomber was believed to be a member of an illegal "left wing terrorist organisation", without elaborating.

Local media identified the bomber as a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKP-C), who had been jailed after a 1997 attack at a military compound in Istanbul.

Two weeks ago, Turkey carried out a major nationwide crackdown on the DHKP-C, a Marxist group blamed for several attacks since the late 1970s, including suicide bombings, but Guler did not confirm it was responsible.

DHKP-C is vehemently anti-US, anti-NATO, and anti-Turkish establishment.

However, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for what was the latest of many bloody attacks in Turkey which in the past have been blamed on Kurdish militants, leftist extremists or al-Qaeda linked groups.

"The attacks target the well-being and peace in our country," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in televised remarks. "We will stand tall and we will stand together.. we will get over these."

The force of the blast damaged nearby buildings in the Cankaya neighbourhood of the capital where many other state institutions and embassies are also located.

Police cordoned off the area, while a police helicopter hovered in the air and armed US Marines patrolled the embassy roof.

Television footage showed the wounded journalist with a blood-stained face being carried into an ambulance on a stretcher.

US ambassador Francis Ricciardone vowed to work with Turkey to fight terror, confirming the death of the Turkish security guard and saying: "The compound is secure."

The embassy warned US citizens to avoid its diplomatic missions in Turkey until further notice and to avoid potential troublespots and demonstrations.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his British counterpart William Hague condemned the Turkish bombing while German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered her sympathies to the victims.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

US condemns Ankara embassy bombing

The US has condemned the suicide bombing outside its Ankara embassy, calling it an "act of terror". Source: AAP

THE White House has condemned a suicide bombing outside the US embassy in Ankara as a "terrorist attack", but said it did not yet know who was behind it.

"We strongly condemn what was a suicide attack against our embassy in Ankara, which took place at the embassy's outer security perimeter," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Friday.

A Turkish security guard was killed and several other people were wounded in the explosion, which also damaged nearby buildings.

"A suicide bombing on the perimeter of an embassy is by definition an act of terror. It is a terrorist attack," said Carney.

"However, we do not know at this point who is responsible or the motivations behind the attack. The attack itself is clearly an act of terror."

He said the United States was working closely with Turkish authorities "to investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice".

The bombing at a security roadblock near the entrance to the highly-fortified embassy in an upmarket area of the capital was the latest in a series of attacks on American missions in the Muslim world.

Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to Germany, said the bomber was believed to be a member of an illegal "left wing terrorist organisation", without elaborating.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Taliban attack on Pakistan checkpost

Suicide bombers have attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan, killing 8 people, officials say. Source: AAP

SUICIDE bombers attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan's troubled northwest, killing six soldiers and two civilians, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

"Six security personnel and two civilians were killed in the attack," a security official said of the raid which happened on Saturday around 240km south of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The attack was on a joint checkpost of the Pakistan army and a paramilitary force in the Sari Norang area of Lakki Marwat district, close to the semi-autonomous tribal belt swarming with Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants.

"The civilian casualties include a child and a woman who were killed when one of the attackers entered their home and blew up his suicide jacket," the official said.

Another security official in Peshawar said security forces killed 12 militants.

The Taliban claimed the attack but disputed 12 militants were killed, saying they had sent only four suicide bombers.

"We sent only four suicide bombers to attack this checkpost. We attacked it to avenge the killing of two of our friends in a recent drone strike," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), said by phone.

Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants are accused of plotting attacks from the tribal belt on Pakistani, Afghan and Western targets.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

High-level security talks begin in Germany

High-level officials have begun security talks in Germany with Syria, Mali and Iran on the agenda. Source: AAP

HIGH-LEVEL officials, diplomats, ministers and top military brass have kicked off three days of talks at the Munich Security Conference amid a US warning to Iran over stalled nuclear talks.

US Vice-President Joe Biden, who is due to attend the Munich talks on Saturday, began a three-nation European tour cautioning Iran that the opportunity for talks with the West over Tehran's contested nuclear program was not open-ended.

A day after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, freshly inaugurated Biden is due to address participants in Munich on Saturday and turn his attentions to Syria amid fears the conflict may spill over the country's borders.

He is scheduled to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Syrian opposition chief Moaz al-Khatib, and also see UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi in the southern German city, the White House said.

Outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran is stepping up support for the Syrian regime and that Russia is still arming it, heightening concerns after Damascus threatened to retaliate over a reported Israeli air raid.

"What we would like to see from other countries, including Russia, is an acknowledgment that (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad must go and that there needs to be a transition within Syria to a new government," said Ben Rhodes, a White House national security adviser.

Brahimi and al-Khatib take part in late-night talks on Syria in Munich on Friday.

NATO's plan to withdraw the bulk of its 100,000 combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 as well as developments in the Muslim and Arab world two years after the Arab Spring revolts are also set to be themes here.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo join a discussion on the euro crisis and the EU's future later on Friday, when energy issues are also a focus.

Opening the conference on Friday, German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere said he was optimistic that the US and Europe could rely on each other and must be able to do so even as both regions turn towards Asia.

"For the US, Europe may not be the best conceivable partner in the world, but it is without any doubt the best possible partner," he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is expected to attend the Munich talks as well as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the so-called P5+1 group of the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in talks on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Qld's beef capital counting flood cost

AS the Fitzroy River peaked on Friday in the beef capital of Australia, cattle farmers upstream were counting the cost as water levels gradually receded.

Beef cattle producers - already battling an outbreak of Bovine Johne's Disease - are now seeing their losses deepen with the second flood in just two years.

Darren Kent, a third generation Brahman producer from Rannes, 100km west of Rockhampton, was already expecting to lose $250,000 in the first three months of 2013, but that was before the floods.

Now, he faces going further into the red, as floodwaters inundating 40 per cent of his property gradually dissipate.

"You just keep going, I guess," Mr Kent told AAP on Friday.

"We reckon you don't have to be mad but it helps."

His 971 hectare property, on the junction of the Don and Dee rivers that feed into the Fitzroy, was drenched in four days with more than half the average annual rainfall, following three months of drought.

This time, unlike early 2011, his 700 cattle had little grass feed on the ground.

Mr Kent expects it will take three months to clean up from the floods.

Beef farmers at Jambin, Gracemere, Bajool and the Boyne Valley are also affected, an AgForce spokeswoman said.

Rockhampton deputy mayor Tony Williams was expecting the 8.5 metre Fitzroy River peak to flood up to 1100 backyards.

While it's shy of the 9.2 metre peak reached in early 2011 - which flooded 200 homes and businesses - the ferocity of Oswald's cyclonic winds could be more costly for the beef capital city.

"The flood was not the issue with a lot of the damage - it was the weather event we experienced prior to the flood," Mr Williams told reporters on Friday.

The floodwaters are expected to recede in the next 24 to 36 hours.

The Bruce Highway southwest of Rockhampton, which was closed in 2011, is remaining open this time despite 10cm of water over the Yeppen Crossing.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Govt moves to protect reef heritage status

THE federal government is beefing up protection of the Great Barrier Reef to prevent the United Nations from stripping it of its world heritage status.

But that's failed to please green groups, which protested in most Australian capital cities on Friday over the threats they believe the reef faces from proposed coal and gas developments.

UNESCO raised concerns about the reef last year and made a number of recommendations to the government after it sent a team to Queensland to investigate the likely impact of expanded port development and shipping along the coast.

Environment Minister Tony Burke says he's responded to UNESCO's concerns in a report presented to the world heritage committee.

Substantial progress had been made in addressing the UNESCO recommendations, including undertaking one of the most detailed strategic assessments in Australia's history, he said.

This assessment, still in its draft stage, would help determine where sustainable development could occur, what projects could proceed and what conditions they'd have to meet.

"We will not give an inch when it comes to protection of the Great Barrier Reef," the minister told reporters in Sydney.

He pledged a further $800,000 to fight the crown-of-thorns starfish, a major threat to the reef ecosystem and the $6 billion tourism industry.

A chairperson has been assigned to an independent review into developments at Queensland's Gladstone port, a major concern for UNESCO and local environment groups.

But in a scorecard published by the fight for the reef campaign on Friday, the commonwealth and Queensland governments were given the thumbs down for their efforts in managing Gladstone harbour.

The federal government was also blasted for making no progress on UNESCO recommendations relating to pollution from catchments and port developments.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) spokesman Richard Leck said Australia was still in grave danger of losing the reef's world heritage title.

The campaign to fight for the reef, formed by the Australian Marine Conservation Society and WWF, warns 45 proposed developments - including large-scale coal and gas projects - could bring thousands more ships to the reef.

The opposition's environment minister Greg Hunt reiterated the coalition's support for keeping the reef on the World Heritage List.

"If elected, we will work towards the eradication of the crown of thorns, support the protection of dugongs and turtles and provide incentives for canegrowers to reduce run-off into these pristine waters," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Australian Greens environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said they wanted to amend environmental laws to take UNESCO's recommendations into account.

The reef was granted world heritage status in 1981 but has since faced numerous threats, including coral bleaching, cyclones, runoff, crown-of-thorns starfish and commercial activity.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More