The US State Department is talking with Syria to discuss US allegations that the Arab country supports terror groups and is pursuing nuclear weapons, a department official said on Friday.
A meeting with the Syrian ambassador, scheduled for this week at the State Department, will be the first such session since September and reflects US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s interest in talking directly with Syria and other countries at odds with the US, spokesman Gordon Duguid said.
“It’s her belief that direct engagement with Syria will advance US interests,” Duguid said.
Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha is to meet Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman at Feltman’s request, Duguid said. Clinton is not scheduled to participate.
“Our concerns include Syria’s support to terrorist groups and networks, Syria’s pursuit of nuclear and nonconventional weaponry, interference in Lebanon and a worsening human rights situation,” Duguid said.
The spokesman cited the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on Thursday that samples taken from a Syrian site suspected of being a secretly built nuclear reactor have revealed new traces of processed uranium.
The report noted the refusal by Damascus to allow agency inspectors to make follow-up visits to sites suspected of harboring a secret nuclear program. Syria denies hiding any such program.
The samples referred to in the report were obtained during a visit in June to the Al Kibar site bombed in 2007 by Israeli jets.
Minute traces of processed uranium from those samples were found late last year and the report reflected additional traces found after additional analysis.
Syria has suggested the traces came from Israeli ordnance used against the site, but the report said the composition of the uranium made that unlikely. Israel has denied it was the source of the uranium.
US-Syrian relations long have been tense, particularly since the US ambassador was pulled out by the George W. Bush administration in 2005 to protest Syria’s suspected role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus denied involvement, but in the uproar that followed it was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and end a 29-year military presence in the neighboring country.
The US also has criticized Syria for supporting militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and has accused Syria of not doing enough to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS