Experts from the US and Russia were to meet yesterday to evaluate Moscow's proposal for a joint anti-missile base to counter a planned US missile shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The talks would also cover the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, a key European arms control accord from which Russia withdrew recently, US officials said.
"We hope that the meeting would be productive and Russia and the US can agree to some serious cooperation on missile defense against common threats," a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Missile defense certainly occupies a large part of the agenda but the CFE treaty would also be discussed," the official said.
The talks among the technical experts are the first since US President George W. Bush agreed to study the missile shield plan first raised by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit in Germany last month.
Bush had called for a joint panel of experts to look into the issue.
threat
The US insists the shield that it wants based in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at knocking out the threat from nations such as Iran and North Korea.
Russia says the plan threatens its security and has suggested that the US and NATO use the Gabala radar station in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan instead of having a shield in central Europe.
Azerbaijan borders Iran, one of the countries that Washington says it needs to protect itself against.
Bush refered to Putin's proposal as a "very constructive and bold strategic move," but insisted that "the Czech Republic and Poland need to be an integral part of this system."
impossible
Ahead of the Washington talks, Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday that Russian-US cooperation on missile shield would be impossible if the US deployed its own missile shield in Central Europe.
Putin's proposal "will be possible only if the US declines to deploy ... a missile shield on European territory, as well as strike components in space," the ministry said in a statement in Moscow.
Although Russia said earlier this month it would stop complying with the 1990 CFE treaty, which limits the deployment of conventional arms in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his US counterpart last week that talks would continue on the issue.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS