Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to talk democracy with other leaders yesterday, despite his country being branded one of the world’s worst human rights abusers.
As the two-day meeting opened, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said mutual respect and diversity are the foundations of democracy.
“We need to encourage greater respect for different values, faiths and religious beliefs,” Yudhoyono said. “We should not allow irresponsible acts such as the defamation of religion to divide us.”
Dinna Wisnu, an international political analyst from Indonesia’s Paramadina Graduate School of Diplomacy, said Ahmadinejad is likely attending the event to try to find a place to fit in, and even if some Asian countries are not welcoming, the region as a whole is typically more accepting.
“Iran comes with its special agenda that has been planned as the country does not have a lot of friends in the Middle East,” she said. “They are in a difficult position. If they are not trying to make friends in other regions, Iran will be alone.”
Iran has long been criticized for its human rights record, including the continued use of stoning as a method of capital punishment. Increased Internet crackdowns and the jailing of political prisoners and journalists were also recently highlighted in a report by the UN’s human rights expert on Iran.
The country erupted into violence three years ago when pro-democracy protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the election of Ahmadinejad.
The fifth Bali Democracy Forum on the Indonesian island is being attended by 11 heads of state, including Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
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