The US stood firm yesterday in the controversy over secret CIA prisons in Europe, challenging allies to make "hard choices" to fight terrorism and maintaining that intelligence gathered by the CIA has saved European as well as US lives.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, leaving on a European tour, made no mention of the reported prisons but vigorously defended moving terror suspects around or interrogation and denied using torture "under any circumstances."
"It is up to those governments and their citizens to decide if they wish to work with us to prevent terrorist attacks against their own country or other countries, and decide how much sensitive information they can make public," Rice said.
"So now, before the next attack, we should all consider the hard choices that democratic governments must face," she said in a statement read at Andrews Air Force base near Washington.
Information gathered by US intelligence agencies from a ``very small number of extremely dangerous detainees,'' the secretary said, has helped prevent terrorist attacks and saved lives ``in Europe as well as in the United States and other countries.''
Offensive posture
According to the Washington Post, Rice's posture on the trip to Berlin, Bucharest, Kiev and Brussels for a NATO meeting, will be a firm, offensive one.
"After weeks of being pummeled in the European media over reports about clandestine prisoner transfers and secret detention centers, administration officials have concluded that they need to put European governments on notice that they should back off and begin to emphasize the benefits of intelligence cooperation to their citizens," the paper reported on Saturday.
"Administration officials have been careful to neither confirm nor deny the existence of the prison system, first disclosed by the Washington Post on Nov. 2, and Rice has no plans to acknowledge it," the paper said.
The paper said that while her position, being drawn up by administration officials, had not been released yet, "`the key point will be `We're all in this together and you need to look at yourselves as much as us,'" one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The EU this week sent Washington a request for clarification on the reports of the prisons and transport flights in Europe that some media have suggested might violate international laws.
Illegal flights
Meanwhile, a report by US legal experts said that the British government is guilty of breaking international law if it allowed secret CIA "rendition" flights of terror suspects to land at UK airports.
Merely giving permission for the flights to refuel while en route to the Middle East to collect a prisoner would constitute a legal breach, according to the opinion commissioned by an all-party group of British members of parliament, which met in the Westminster parliament for the first time yesterday.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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