U.N. says new Israel settlement plans "unacceptable" (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized Israel on Friday over reports that it plans to build 2,600 more housing units in East Jerusalem, saying further settlement activity was "unacceptable."

"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at continued efforts to advance planning for new Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem," Ban's press office said in a statement.

"Recent developments in this regard have been unacceptable, particularly as efforts are ongoing to resume (Israeli-Palestinian) negotiations, and run contrary to the Quartet's call on the parties to refrain from provocations," it said.

The Peace Now anti-settlement group said on Friday that Israel planned to build the housing units in a new urban settlement in East Jerusalem, angering Palestinians who want a halt to all such projects before they return to peace talks.

The "Quartet" of Middle East peace negotiators -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations -- has urged Israel and the Palestinians to avoid provocative actions and urged them to resume stalled peace negotiations.

The Peace Now group said the settlement plan was approved earlier this week by an Israeli municipal committee, which had given the go-ahead for construction on the site that lies on land seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

There was no immediate comment from the municipal committee on the report, but the Palestinians said they believed the news was accurate.

"The Secretary-General reiterates that settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the remainder of the West Bank is contrary to international law," the U.N. statement said, adding such activity "must cease."

The reports about a new settlement plan come as the Palestinians attempt to secure U.N. recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, along with full membership in the United Nations.

The Palestinian U.N. bid has infuriated Israel, which says it is an attempt to delegitimize it. Israel's ally the United States has said it was prepared to veto the Palestinian U.N. application, which is currently being assessed by a U.N. Security Council committee.

If the Palestinian application to join the United Nations comes to a vote in the full Security Council, the United States has the power to veto it due to its status as a permanent member of the 15-nation panel.

The Security Council committee is expected to report back to the full council next week about progress it has made assessing the Palestinian U.N. application.

Diplomats on the committee, which includes all council members, say privately that little progress has been made in assessing the Palestinian request to join the world body.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111015/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_un

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Sources: Would-be assassin linked Iran military unit to drug trade

The Texas suspect charged in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States claimed in recorded conversations that his Iranian handlers were actively involved in the drug trade and could arrange for large shipments of opium to be delivered to a Mexican drug cartel, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the probe.

Reuters

Manssor Arbabsiar, in a 1996 Nueces County, Texas, Sheriff's Office photograph.

The criminal complaint against Manssor Arbabsiar, released by Justice Department officials this week, makes no mention of alleged drug smuggling by the Iranian Qods Force,?an?elite covert arm of the Iranian military whose top officials allegedly coordinated and funded the plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, according to U.S. officials.

But two U.S. law enforcement sources told NBC News that Arbabsiar, in recorded conversations with an undercover drug informant, said in coded language that the same individuals who were orchestrating the bombing plot against the ambassador were involved in drug dealing. He told the informant that his?Iranian handlers could arrange to provide Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, with ?multi-ton? shipments of opium, the sources said.

The major drug deal never materialized, however, and the allegations about Qods Force drug smuggling were not pursued because U.S. officials wanted to focus on the attempt to assassinate al-Jubeir on U.S. soil, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officials said Drug Enforcement Administration director Michele Leonhart was even asked not?to appear at the press conference announcing the assassination plot charges -- a noticeable absence given that one of her agency?s informants uncovered the alleged plot. (President Barack Obama, however, later called and thanked Leonhart, said a law enforcement official.)

---

Arbabsiar?s assertions about? Qods Force?drug dealing? inject another puzzling dimension into a case that has triggered a crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations. While accusing the Qods Force of? arming terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and orchestrating? attacks against American? troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials have never publicly accused the organization of involvement in international narcotics smuggling.

If these allegations are true, ?They would be a game changer,? said Douglas Farah, a national security analyst who has closely studied Qods Force activities in Latin American and frequently testified before Congress on the issue.

The Qods Force has built up a significant presence in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, where it has forged close ties with the government of anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, said Farah. The organization has also long had extremely close ties with,? and directly funded, Hezbollah -- a Mideast terror group that has long been linked to the drug trade and money laundering. But there has been no clear evidence linking the Qods Force directly to narcotics smuggling or to dealing with the Mexican cartels, said Farah.?

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment about the alleged drug discussions, saying the department was not prepared to discuss any aspect of the case that was not in the criminal complaint?released this week. ?This is not a drug case,? the spokesman said.?

The man behind the alleged plot, Arbabsiar, was an Iranian-American used car salesman with a long history of financial?troubles and brushes with the law, including criminal charges for? resisting arrest in 1987 and a 2001 arrest for driving without a proper license, according to a Texas law enforcement official. But he had never been accused of any narcotics charges, said the official.?

According to?the?criminal complaint released Tuesday, Arbabsiar first met in Mexico on May 24 of this year with a DEA informant who he believed was an operative of Los Zetas, one of Mexico?s most-violent drug cartels. The informant had previously been convicted of state-level drug charges, but avoided jail time and got the charges dismissed by agreeing to serve as a paid undercover informant for the DEA?s Houston field division, according to?U.S. officials.?

A U.S. law enforcement official said Arbabsiar came to meet the informant by pure happenstance: While living in Corpus Christi, he had developed a friendship with the informant?s aunt, the official said. .

According to the complaint, Arbabsiar asked the informant the first time he met him if he was knowledgeable about explosives, explaining that he was interested in attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia. The informant replied that he was familiar with C-4, a type of plastic explosives, it said.

Within a week, Arbabsiar flew overseas and returned to the U.S. in late June, holding additional meetings with the informant that were secretly tape-recorded on behalf of the government.?In one of these conversations, on July 14, the informant told Arbabsiar that he could arrange to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, but that it would take four men and cost $1.5 million. Arbabsiar agreed, leading U.S. officials to describe the scheme this week as a ?$1.5 million? plot.?(A key part of the criminal charges against Arbabsiar relates to two later wire transfers totaling $100,000 to?a New York bank.)?

It is not clear precisely when the discussions about Qods Force drug smuggling took place.? But one analyst said that such claims by Arbabsiar could fuel skepticism about some aspects of the U.S. charges.?

?This raises additional question marks about this case,? said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council and the author of an upcoming book on U.S.-Iranian relations. ?The Qods Force is associated with some other really nasty things, but not this. This doesn?t fit.?

But a senior U.S. law enforcement official disputed that analysis, saying that U.S. officials have received intelligence reports for some time indicating that Qods Forces officers have been working with Venezuelans -- including some officials in that country's?government -- who have been involved in shipping cocaine to West Africa. But so far, the official said, there has not been enough evidence to bring any criminal charges against Iranians who have been implicated.?

Source: http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/13/8308097-sources-would-be-assassin-linked-elite-iran-military-unit-to-drug-trade

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AP sources: US offered Cuba swap for American (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The United States offered to let a convicted Cuban spy return home in exchange for the release of an imprisoned American, but Cuba rebuffed the offer, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. also indicated it would be willing to address other Cuban grievances after Havana had released imprisoned contractor Alan Gross, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitivity of the issue.

Cuba rejected the offer, noting that the Cuban, Rene Gonzalez, already had served most of his sentence. It wanted pardons for at least some of the four other Cubans convicted with Gonzalez. U.S. officials said they would not consider pardons.

The December 2009 arrest of Gross, a Maryland native, has aggravated relations between the United States and Cuba just as the Obama administration was making tentative movements to ease decades of tension.

Gross was caught bringing prohibited communications equipment into Cuba while on a democracy program financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development. In March, he was sentenced to 15 years for crimes against the state. The United States says Gross was merely trying to help Cuba's Jewish community communicate with the rest of the world and should not have faced prosecution.

The Cuban government has long been upset about the fate of Gonzalez and four other Cubans, known as the "Wasp Network," who were convicted in 2001 of spying on U.S. military installations in South Florida. Cuban officials say the five were trying to prevent terrorist attacks on the island by monitoring Cuban exiles.

Gonzalez was released this month after 13 years in prison but a judge has ordered him to serve three years' probation in the United States before returning to Cuba.

U.S. officials offered to press a Miami federal court to allow Gonzalez to finish the parole in Cuba, in exchange for Gross' release. Under the U.S. proposal, Gonzalez, a dual U.S.-Cuban citizen, would have renounced his U.S. ties.

The Gross-Gonzalez swap was raised by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, as well as by senior U.S. officials in a series of meetings with Cuban officials. Richardson traveled to Cuba last month seeking Gross' release. He also told Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez that the U.S. would be willing to consider other areas of interest to Cuba.

Among them was removing Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism; reducing spending on Cuban democracy promotion programs like the one that led to the hiring of Gross; authorizing U.S. companies to help Cuba clean up oil spills from planned offshore drilling; improving postal exchanges; ending a program that makes it easier for Cuban medical personnel to move to the United States; and licensing the French company Pernod Ricard to sell Havana Club rum in the United States.

A U.S. official stressed that the offer was only to discuss those issues after Gross was released, with no guarantees that U.S. policies would change.

In a hearing Friday at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the State Department's third-ranking diplomat, Wendy Sherman, confirmed that U.S. and Cuban officials had recently met to discuss Gross, but she refused to elaborate on the talks.

Some lawmakers expressed outrage about the negotiations and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio also threatened to block the nomination of a senior U.S. diplomat over the issue.

"Until Secretary Clinton answers for this, the nomination of Roberta Jacobson to be the next assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere will be in question," he said.

Richardson's initiative blew up after the Cuban government refused to allow him to see Gross and he referred to the imprisoned American as a hostage in an interview. A person briefed on the trip said tensions also spiked when Richardson mentioned that the United States had a plane waiting to make an exchange, if Cuba agreed, a suggestion the Cubans found presumptuous.

Richardson was not immediately reachable for comment Thursday.

U.S. and Cuban officials also discussed the swap on the sidelines of last month's U.N. General Assembly session, but Rodriguez, the foreign minister, rejected the offer, pushing for the additional pardons.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon noted that Gonzalez has served most of his sentence, while Gross has not.

Gonzalez's Miami-based attorney, Phil Horowitz, said neither he nor his client had been approached by U.S. or Cuban officials or anyone working on behalf of either government about a possible swap.

"There is no linkage between the two, and there never has been," he said. "How could you link Alan Gross to a guy who spent 13 years in prison?"

Horowitz said he plans to file a request soon with the Miami court to allow Gonzalez to complete his probation in Cuba.

Peter Kahn, a lawyer for the Gross family, said the family supports the State Department's efforts to win Gross' release.

"They continue to be increasingly concerned about Alan's mental and physical health, as well as their own ability to endure this very difficult situation much longer," he said.

____

Associated Press writers Curt Anderson in Miami and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Follow Desmond Butler at http://twitter.com/desmondbutler

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111014/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_cuba_imprisoned_american

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Greek deficit widens in first 9 months of years (AP)

ATHENS, Greece ? Greece's central government deficit continued to grow in the first nine months of the year despite a series of austerity measures designed to raise revenues, figures from the country's finance ministry showed Wednesday.

The central government deficit stood at euro19.2 billion ($26.1 billion) for January to September from euro16.65 billion in the same period last year. The 15.1 percent increase was slightly lower than the government forecast of a rise to euro19.24 billion.

The ministry blamed the revenue shortfall on a deeper than anticipated recession, but said shortfalls were likely to be made up over the next three months as recent tax rises, such as a controversial property levy, kick in.

The figures issued Wednesday relate to the state budget deficit, which excludes spending in some areas, and is not the criteria used for the EU's assessment of Greece's financial reforms.

The country has been dependent since May last year on a euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout package from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. International debt inspectors from the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, known collectively as the troika, completed a review of Greece's reforms on Tuesday, and said the next euro8 billion loan installment was likely to be paid out in early November. Athens has said it will run out of funds to pay salaries and pensions in mid-November without the bailout money.

In order to qualify for the funds, Greece has had to push through a series of austerity measures, including salary and pension cuts in the public sector, and repeated tax hikes. The government is also pushing through plans to suspend 30,000 civil servants on partial pay by the end of the year.

Unions have been outraged, with workers staging near-daily strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins at government buildings. Both the Finance and Interior Ministry buildings were under occupation by protesters Wednesday and Finance Ministry employees have called a 10-day strike from Oct. 17.

Museums and archaeological sites shut down Wednesday for two days as Culture Ministry employees walked off the job, with contract workers at the country's most famous monument, the Acropolis, saying they had not been paid for five months.

No public transport will operate in the Greek capital on Thursday and Friday. Ferries will stop running early next week after the seamen's' federation declared the start of 48-hour rolling strikes as of Monday.

"The Greek people really can't take any more. They're reaching their limit," said Nikos Karagelis, a financial advisor for companies and businesses. "I know that wherever the troika has been, it's left scorched earth behind it, and wherever people tried on their own with proper governments they accomplished a lot more."

Mounds of garbage lie uncollected on Athens streets as municipal workers blockade landfill sites. Lawyers, tax collection and customs officers, state hospital workers, teachers and bank workers have all also declared work stoppages or strikes in the coming days. Greece's two largest unions have declared a nationwide general strike for Oct. 19.

Prime Minister George Papandreou was chairing a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, discussing a series of reforms, including plans to open up the taxi sector to more competition.

Papandreou's office said the premier discussed the Greek situation by telephone Tuesday night with IMF chief Christine Lagarde.

The two are said to have discussed the upcoming European Union summit on Oct. 23 and the G-20 meeting in early November, as well as the eurozone's rescue fund for financially troubled countries and issues related to the Greek crisis.

____

Theodora Tongas in Athens contributed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111012/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_greece_financial_crisis

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Enshrine Your Business With Direct Marketing Advertising ...

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 | Articles

Enshrine Your Business With Direct Marketing Advertising

Any company would always need a proper advertising and marketing for it to market its products effectively. This certainly calls for proven marketing methods and techniques, which would help one to make use of standard processes of marketing a product in a seamless way. To facilitate this in a more proper way, the concept of direct marketing advertising has emerged into the world, which can help the business making companies to easily deal with the customers without the need for specific team of members to concentrate on marketing.

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Source: http://www.timersnet.info/enshrine-your-business-with-direct-marketing-advertising.html

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The Advantages of Hiring a PPC Advertising Agency and How They ...

PPC (Pay per Click) advertising can immensely help in growing your business on the Internet. Yet, a number of businesspersons may still doubt the advantages of PPC campaigns and the benefits of hiring PPC advertising services. However, it has been proven time and again that online marketing campaigns like PPC advertising campaigns are best managed by professional PPC service providers.

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The advantages of hiring a PPC advertising agency to market your website online are many. Most of the time, most of the clients perceive the cost of PPC advertising to be very high. But this is just a matter of perception. If you consider the entire budget a person is planning to spend on online advertising and the percentage paid to the agency, you would realize that it is much lower than what a company may have spent on traditional media advertising.

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The benefits of PPC advertising services greatly outweigh the perceived costs. The amount of business you?ll get once you run a PPC campaign balances out the costs involved and turns out to be highly profitable. Therefore, the cost difference projected in the minds of businesspersons is just a matter of perception, which is far from reality. Those who are planning to advertise their products and services online should be aware of this and embrace PPC services.

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Also, running PPC advertising campaigns in-house may turn out to be costlier than you imagined. This is because your in-house staff may not be proficient in running PPC advertising campaigns. Only PPC experts can bring you all the benefits that you want from such a campaign so that it helps in the growth and development of your business.

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Source: http://www.articlemayhem.com/Art/441987/95/The-Advantages-of-Hiring-a-PPC-Advertising-Agency-and-How-They-Can-Help-with-Business-Growth.html

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