Berlusconi leaves Afghanistan [ 436 ]

Berlusconi seeking Afghan exit for Italian troops

From Hada Messia CNN

ROME, Italy (CNN) -18-09-09-

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said it would be "best" for the country's troops to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible after six were killed in a car bombing in Kabul.

A recent car bomb targeting allied troops killed six Italian soldiers in Kabul.

Berlusconi, speaking to reporters Thursday, gave no timeline for a withdrawal and said any pullout would have to be coordinated with Italy's allies.

"There is no idea," Berlusconi said about a possible date for leaving Afghanistan. "It is an international problem. It is not a problem that a country present there can take on its own. Doing so could betray the accord and trust of the other countries present."

However, the 500 troops Italy sent to Afghanistan this summer will be home by Christmas, Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said Friday. The troops were sent ahead of the Afghan presidential election August 20.

The rest of the nation's 2,800 troops in Afghanistan will withdraw only when NATO calls for it, La Russa said.

Ten Afghan civilians were killed along with the paratroopers Thursday and about 50 people were wounded, NATO said.

Italian newspapers labeled the soldiers' death a "slaughter," with at least four major papers using that word in their headlines Friday. "The slaughter of the Italians shakes Italy," declared the national newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The soldiers' pictures were shown in newspapers and on television.

The deaths were the highest single-day death toll for Italy in the Afghan mission. They bring to 21 the number of Italian troops killed there since the start of the mission, though not all the deaths were due to hostilities.

Most of Italy's troops in Afghanistan are based in the western province of Herat.

"We are all convinced that the best thing for all of them is to leave soon, to no longer have a presence there," Berlusconi said in Brussels, Belgium. "I've spoken with [U.S. President Barack] Obama during the G-8 and we are preparing a plan which could be enacted as soon as our training of the Afghan forces is carried out successfully."

Meanwhile, military officials said Friday that two service members with the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan were killed after being struck by a roadside bomb.

One was identified as a U.S. service member. The other victim's nationality was not released.

The U.S. service member died Thursday when his patrol was struck in southern Afghanistan, said the International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF. No other details were immediately available.

"He gave his life to bring much needed security and stability to Afghanistan, and in this crucial role, he contributed splendidly," said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, ISAF spokesman. "We will not forget his immense sacrifice."

The other victim also died in fighting in southern Afghanistan, Tremblay said.

US-Russia trade barriers[ 435 ]

Russia's Putin urges US to scrap trade barriers

By SERGEI VENYAVSKY - Associated Press Writer

SOCHI, Russia -Friday, Sep. 18, 2009-

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday praised President Barack Obama's decision to scrap plans for a missile defense system in Europe and urged the U.S. to also cancel Cold War-era restrictions on trade with Russia.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the Western alliance and Russia should consider linking their defensive missile systems.

He said NATO and Russia have a shared interest in combatting the proliferation of intercontinental ballistic missile technology in East Asia and the Middle East.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, left, seen during his meeting on the Olympics 2014 preparations in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, southern Russia, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009. Putin is in Sochi to take part in a ceremony of placing a capsule at the construction site of a new railway terminal in Adler and to hold a meeting on the Olympics 2014 preparations.

- RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool /AP Photo

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"If North Korea stays nuclear and if Iran becomes nuclear, some of their neighbors might feel compelled to follow their example," Fogh Rasmussen said.

Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had pushed to base elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying it would help defend against a missile attack from Iran. But the Kremlin strenuously objected, fearing that the system would compromise Russia strategic nuclear capabilities or be used to eavesdrop on Russian military forces.

Russian leaders in the past threatened to deploy short-range missiles to the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad near Poland if the U.S. moved ahead with the missile defense plan.

On Friday, the Interfax news quoted an unnamed Russian military-diplomatic source as saying that such retaliatory measures would now be frozen and, possibly, fully canceled in response to Obama's decision to scrap the missile defense shield.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday praised the U.S. decision to dump the missile defense plan as a "responsible move."

While praising Obama's decision on missile defense, Putin challenged Washington to also cancel all existing restrictions on trade with Russia and give the go-ahed to World Trade Organization membership for Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

"I very much hope that this right and brave decision will be followed up by the full cancellation of all restrictions on cooperation with Russia and high technology transfer to Russia as well as a boost to expand the WTO to embrace Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan," Putin said at an investment forum in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Putin stressed that the Cold War-era trade restrictions hurt American business as much as Russia. He lashed out at the U.S. administration for using the so-called "CoCom lists" to discriminate against Russia.

CoCom, or Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, was established during the Cold War to tightly control technology exports to the Soviet Union and its allies.

"Formally these lists have been thrown out, but in reality a large part of them are in still in place," Putin said, urging American panelists at the Sochi investment forum to push their government to lift the restrictions.

"This hurts Russia's cooperation with its partners, first of all with the United States," he added. "This also hurts American business because it hampers development of their business contacts in Russia."

Russia has spent years trying to get the U.S. to scrap a handful of restrictive laws on bilateral trade, including the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a key Cold War-era legislation that has been a key irritant in relations between Moscow and Washington.

Associated Press Writers Nataliya Vasilyeva and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

EU position for next week's G20 summit [ 434 ]

EU agrees on bonus claw-back call

European leaders have signalled their desire to crack down on bonuses (BBC)Thursday, 17 September 2009 21:57 UK European Union leaders have agreed to seek a global deal for bankers' bonuses to be clawed back if profits fall. The leaders meeting in Brussels approved the clause as part of a common EU position for next week's G20 summit in Pittsburgh in the US. They want the threat of sanctions to be used to force banks to link bonuses to long-term performance. There is concern the current system may encourage short-term risk-taking, which helped trigger the banking crisis. Speaking ahead of the meeting, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was broad backing for bonus restrictions. 'Appalled' "I believe that people have been appalled by the suggestion in some institutions and their practices that they simply want to return to the policies of the past," Mr Brown said. The president... supports a robust approach to executive compensation but has been reluctant to sort of set individual compensation levels Mike Froman, US international economic affairs advisor Bonus reform country by country "There is no support in any part of the world for failing to take the action that is necessary and I believe that we will be able to agree on a structure for how bonuses should be examined in the future." But the US and UK have rejected calls for mandatory caps on bonuses. "The G20 should commit to agreeing to binding rules for financial institutions on variable remunerations backed up by the threat of sanctions at the national level," said the agreed statement. The EU leaders will also urge the G20 nations to maintain stimulus spending that has prompted some signs of global recovery. Deadlock French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has led the charge against high levels of banker pay, has threatened to walk out of the conference if no stringent compensation rules are passed. "The bonus bubble burst tonight," said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the EU presidency. "We have agreed to say that enough is enough and we need to move away from the current culture of compensation based on short-term performance." But US President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he is against being over-prescriptive on pay. "The president has been pretty clear that he supports a robust approach to executive compensation but has been reluctant to sort of set individual compensation levels," said Mike Froman, deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs. Mr Froman said the G20 was most likely to agree a "set of principles" on bonuses. The UK, Germany, France and Italy are the only official members of the EU in the G20 - which brings together developed and emerging economies. The EU itself is the 20th member, though Spain and the Netherlands will sit in on the talks.

Russia praises Obama [ 433 ]

Medvedev praises Obama's move on Europe missile shield

More on this topic

• Video: 1

  Czech Republic rethinks U.S. radar

• Video: 2
  

  Russia and the United States - ABM talks. Video

MOSCOW, September 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that Russia valued U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to scrap plans for a missile shield in Central Europe.

Obama announced earlier Thursday that Washington was dropping its previous plans to deploy elements of a missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland because the Iran threat is perceived in a different way.

The Bush administration sought to deploy a radar station in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland as defense against potential strikes from Iran. Russia has consistently opposed the plans as a threat to its security and the strategic balance of forces in Europe.

Medvedev said that Russia "noted President Obama's announcement on the adjustment of the U.S.'s approach to the issue of missile defense."

"We value the responsible approach of the U.S. president to our agreement. I am ready to continue our dialogue," Medvedev said.

The Russian and U.S. leaders had discussed the issue during Obama's visit to Moscow in July and during their first meeting in London at the start of April.

"We also agreed and fixed in our joint statements that Russia and the U.S. will strive for joint work to assess missile proliferation risks in the world," Medvedev said. "Today's statement by Washington shows that good conditions have been established for such work. Of course, specific consultations of experts are to be held, and our country is ready for them."

Medvedev said that his meeting with Obama in New York scheduled for September 23 will be a good opportunity to exchange opinions on strategic stability issues, including missile defense.

Obama will scrap the missile defense shield[432]

U.S. scraps missile defense shield plans

• VIDEO

WASHINGTON (CNN) -September 17, 2009 -- Updated 1349 GMT (2149 HKT)-

The Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday.

The U.S. has been testing the ability of ground-based interceptor missiles to hit long-range ballistic missiles.

The comment followed similar statements from officials in Poland and the Czech Republic -- where key elements of the system were to be located -- but was the first confirmation from an American official.

Vice President Joe Biden earlier refused to confirm to CNN that the George W. Bush-era plan was being shelved.

But he did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran -- a key concern for the United States -- was not a threat.

"I think we are fully capable and secure dealing with any present or future potential Iranian threat," he told CNN's Chris Lawrence in Baghdad, where he is on a brief trip.

"The whole purpose of this exercise we are undertaking is to diminish the prospect of the Iranians destabilizing that region in the world. I am less concerned -- much less concerned -- about the Iranian potential. They have no potential at this moment, they have no capacity to launch a missile at the United States of America," he said.

Biden said he is "deeply" involved in the review of the missile defense program.

The Bush administration had cited the perceived nuclear threat from Iran as one of the key reasons it wanted to install the missile shield in eastern Europe.

The U.S. reversal is likely to please Russia, which had fiercely opposed the plans.

A U.S. delegation held high-level meetings Thursday in both Poland and the Czech Republic to discuss the missile defense system. While the outcome of the meetings wasn't clear, officials in both countries confirmed the system would be scrapped.

Czech Prime minister Jan Fischer said in a statement that U.S. President Barack Obama told him in a Wednesday phone call that the United States was shelving its plans. Fischer did not say what reason Obama gave him for reconsidering.

A spokeswoman at the Polish Ministry of Defense also said the program had been suspended.

"This is catastrophic for Poland," said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named in line with ministry policy.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. James E. Cartwright, who is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to hold a news conference Thursday morning. The Defense Department has not announced what will be discussed, but Cartwright is the point man for the missile defense shield program.

Poland and the Czech Republic had based much of their future security policy on getting the missile defenses from the United States. The countries share deep concerns of a future military threat from the east -- namely, Russia -- and may now look for other defense assurances from their NATO allies.

"At the NATO summit in April, we adopted a resolution focusing on building a defense system against real, existing threats, i.e. short-range and medium-range missiles," Fischer said. "We expect that the United States will continue cooperating with the Czech Republic on concluding the relevant agreements on our mutual (research and development) and military collaboration, including the financing of specific projects."

By contrast, Russia may view the move as a diplomatic victory after complaining about the program consistently for years.

There was no comment Thursday morning from Russian officials. But the issue has been a sore point in relations between Washington and Moscow, with Russia believing the shield would ultimately erode its own strategic nuclear deterrent.

With the program scrapped, it opens the way for Russia to join with the United States in taking a harder line on Iran, CNN Correspondent Matthew Chance reported from Moscow.

The United States proposed the plans under then-President George W. Bush, but since taking over this year, the Obama administration has been reviewing whether to move ahead with them.

The missile shield issue came up in July during a meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow. Obama maintained that Russia had nothing to fear from such a system, which would be designed to intercept a solitary missile from Iran or North Korea, as opposed to "a mighty Russian arsenal."

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux in Washington and Per Nyberg in London, England, contributed to this report.