UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called the British ambassador to a meeting yesterday after his spokesman said he wanted a fuller explanation of alleged British bugging of his office.
The meeting, set on Wednesday, falls a week after Clare Short, Britain's former international development secretary, disclosed that British intelligence agents spied on Annan ahead of the US-led invasion of Iraq last March.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard responded at the time by saying the bugging, if true, violated international law and should immediately be stopped.
Eckhard later added, "I think it's probably safe to say that he would like a fuller explanation," when asked if Annan was waiting for the British government to contact him to offer an explanation or assurances there would be no more spying.
Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry had telephoned Annan, on behalf of Prime Minister Tony Blair, immediately after the bugging allegations became public. But diplomatic sources said their initial conversation had not directly addressed the bugging issue.
The world body was clearly startled by Short's claims as she was a high-ranking official at the time the alleged bugging took place. Short resigned from the government after the war.
Short told BBC radio she had read some of the transcripts of the bugging of Annan's office, on the 38th floor of the UN complex in Manhattan facing the East River.
"In the case of Kofi's office, it was being done for some time," she said.
A British translator had earlier leaked a top-secret US document to the media seeking London's help in bugging UN Security Council members in the run-up to the Iraq war.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not