Mes: septiembre 2019

(AP) UNITED NATIONS – Former Algerian foreign affairs minister Lakhdar Brahimi is a strong candidate to replace Kofi Annan as peace envoy to Syria, diplomats said Thursday. Diplomats who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly said that Brahimi was a strong possibility, while other contenders are ex-Spanish foreign affairs minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and Spain’s Javier Solana, a former NATO chief and European Union foreign policy head. Annan, a former U.N. secretary-general, announced his resignation last week as joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, ending a frustrating six-month effort that failed to achieve even a temporary cease-fire. He leaves at the end of the month. Clashes rage in rebel bastions of Syria’s AleppoVideo: Amid defections, Syria names new PM Divisions within the Security Council prevented a united approach to stop the fighting in in Syria, Annan said when he announced his resignation. Russia and China have twice used their veto power to block strong Western- and Arab-backed action against President Bashar Assad’s regime. While he singled out the regime for blame for the escalating violence, Annan also said the opposition’s increasingly militant tactics contributed to dooming his six-point peace plan, which included a cease-fire and a Syrian-led political process to end the crisis. Annan did succeed in getting the Syrian government and its allies to at least agree to the plan. Brahimi, 78, served as Algeria’s...

(CBS/AP) LONDON – Computer security firm Kaspersky says it has discovered a new batch of malicious software linked to the infrastructure-wrecking Stuxnet virus. In a statement Thursday the Moscow-based company said it had found a virus dubbed “Gauss” which it said was aimed at stealing financial information from its mainly Middle Eastern victims. Kaspersky Lab ZAO said that the newly-discovered virus shared similarities in terms of structure and operation with Flame, a program aimed at vacuuming information from target computers. Flame in turn shared similarities with Stuxnet, a program experts believe was designed to sabotage Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Both pieces of malicious software have been attributed to the U.S. and Israeli governments. Kaspersky’s statement said that all three viruses likely came from the same “factory” or “factories.” In a “60 Minutes” broadcast in March, correspondent Steve Kroft reported that Stuxnet was first detected and isolated by a tiny company in Belarus after one of its clients in Iran complained about a software glitch in June of 2010. Within a month, a copy of the computer bug was being analyzed within a tight knit community of computer security experts, and it appeared to be the first salvo in a new era of warfare. In June, a new virus called “Flame”, was unleashed. It was a massive, data-slurping cyberweapon circulating in the Middle East, and computers in Iran appear to...

(AP) BEIRUT – Syrian troops fired tank shells and artillery Sunday at neighborhoods in Aleppo as rebels tried to repel a government ground assault against their positions in Syria’s largest city, activists said. The bombardment was part of a government counter-offensive to retake control of districts that had fallen into rebel hands last week at the beginning of their bid to capture Aleppo, 파주출장안마 the nation’s commercial hub. Activists said the shelling was most intense in the southwestern neighborhoods of Salaheddine and parts of Saif al-Dawla, some of the first areas seized by the rebels when they started the push last week after being routed in a similar attack against the capital Damascus. The battle for control of Aleppo, once a bastion of support for President Bashar Assad’s regime, is critical for both the regime and the opposition. Its fall would be a major blow to the regime’s morale and a realization of the opposition’s crucial and strategic goal to establish a stronghold in northern Syria. More in After the Arab Spring The government pledged to continue fighting and said security agents were hunting down armed groups in several areas of Aleppo including Saleheddine, inflicting heavy losses upon the “terrorists” — the term authorities use to describe Syrian rebels. SANA quoted an Aleppo official as saying that troops would continue until the city is “purged” of armed groups and...