US to exhaust all options to release journalists

US President Barack Obama says he would do everything within his power and would use all possible leverages to release two American journalists jailed in North Korea.

The White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters early on Monday that "The [US] president [Barack Obama] is deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," said AFP.

North Korea, following a five-day trial, sentenced Laura Ling and Euna Lee to twelve years of hard labor on Monday after they were convicted of 'committing hostilities against the Korean nation'.

The two were also convicted of illegally entering the country.

Earlier, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said that the US government's "thoughts are with the families of the two detained journalists at this difficult time."

"We once again urge North Korea to grant the immediate release of the two American citizen journalists on humanitarian grounds," Kelly added.

The two reporters, both in their thirties, were working for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current Affairs TV when detained.

The US State Department last week did not rule out the possibility that Gore might travel to Pyongyang to personally intervene and help releasing the two journalists.

North Korea has in the past freed captured Americans but only after personal interventions.

Obama Rejects Isolated Dialogue with Iran

Obama Rejects Isolated Dialogue with Iran
US President Barack Obama on Friday underlined his commitment to engage Iran, but meantime said such an engagement should take place alongside other considerations, including US-Russia nuclear arms cut.
"I've said publicly that I'm committed to engaging in serious dialogue and negotiations with Iran. That can't be done in isolation, it has to be done in conjunction with the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) or the E3+3 process," Obama said in a joint press briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Obama further said he would raise the specter of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East when he begins negotiations with Iranian government officials.

Meantime, Obama drew a veiled parallel between Tehran's uranium enrichment and the nuclear stockpiles of Washington and Moscow, saying that he has plans to visit Moscow and rally support for a joint effort to reduce the nuclear stockpiles in Russia and the US.

"Our concern is not just Iran, but a broader effort to strengthen nonproliferation so that the threat of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced in our lifetime," said the US president.

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Meantime, Analysts say Russia and the US have an estimated number of around 6,000 warheads that are either deployed or in reserve. Moscow and Washington have reportedly agreed to reduce their stockpiles to about 1,500 warheads apiece, down from the 2,200 allowed under an interim 2002 treaty.

Obama has tabled a motion that seeks a future strategic arms control treaty with Russia that will see an 80 percent reduction in the US nuclear stockpile.

Obama changes tone on Iran nuclear issue

US President Barack Obama has admitted Washington's past mistakes toward Tehran, saying Iran has right to peaceful nuclear technology.

In a keynote Thursday speech at Cairo University, Obama said "any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Tehran has repeatedly argued that as an NPT-signatory, it has the right to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes.

This is while Israel -- believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East -- has so far refused to sign the treaty.

"No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons," Obama said.

In a reference to Israel, Obama said he understood protests "that some countries have weapons that others do not", adding that there should not be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The US president acknowledged that it will be hard to "overcome decades of mistrust" but said he is committed to moving forward in relations with the Islamic Republic with mutual respect and without preconditions.

Since taking office as the US president in January, Obama talked of a policy change toward Iran, saying the US would extend a hand of peace to Iran if it "unclenched its fist".

Iran was invited to an international conference on Afghanistan in March. Washington has also backed Tehran's participation in a G8 meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan later this month.

Tehran demands that Washington manifest a 'genuine' change in action rather than a change in tone by withdrawing its allegations against the country and lifting anti-Iran sanctions which were extended for another year by the Obama administration.

N. Korean boat entered our territorial waters: South

A North Korean navy patrol boat has allegedly crossed into the South's territorial waters amid growing fears of a military confrontation between the two Koreas.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that a boat had crossed the Yellow Sea border which was the scene of bloody clashes in 1999 and 2002.

The boat stayed almost one hour in the South's waters and reportedly retreated to its own side after three warnings from the South Korean side.

This is while the South has deployed high-speed patrol boats armed with missiles near the disputed sea border with the North.

The boat was said to have been chasing Chinese boats that were operating illegally in the rich crab-fishing zone.

However, a South Korean spokesman said Seoul did not rule out the possibility that the act of intrusion had been pre-planned with the aim of further raising tensions in the peninsula.

Last week, Pyongyang staged its second nuclear test and fired a number of short-range missiles, drawing global condemnation and resulting in a UN Security Council debate over the imposition of additional sanctions against the country.

North Korea, however, seems determined to proceed with the test-fires as it has declared a "no-sail" zone off its west coast and has banned ships from entering the area until the end of next month.

South Korean and American troops in the volatile peninsula have been on high alert since May 25 when the North conducted a nuclear test and launched several short-range missiles.

Pyongyang has accused US President Barack Obama of pursuing the same policies of his predecessor.

North Korea has renounced the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953 and warned that it will launch strikes on the South in the event that its ships are inspected by international forces looking for nuclear material.

US senator rejects Cheney torture claim as 'lie'

A US senator says claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney that enhanced interrogation techniques -- torture -- saved countless American lives are wrong.

The powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, said an investigation into detainee abuse charges over the use of the tactics "gives the lie to Mr. Cheney's claims," CNN reported.

In April, President Barack Obama released classified CIA memos that showed Bush administration lawyers authorized the use of techniques such as waterboarding, which stimulates drowning, against enemy combatants.

Later, Obama banned the use of the techniques.

Levin noted that the two CIA documents that Cheney wants released "say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of abusive techniques."

"I hope that the documents are declassified, so that people can judge for themselves what fact is, and what is fiction," he added.

Cheney had asked the Obama administration to declassify the documents to make more "honest debate" on the Bush administration's decision to use the methods on suspected terrorists, but his request was rejected by the CIA.

Cheney argued that those techniques provided valuable intelligence that saved American lives, but critics say they amounted to the illegal torture of prisoners in US custody.