Hossein Mousavian, a former lead Iranian nuclear negotiator has relocated to America, taking up residence at Princeton University, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
Actually, he’s apparently been at Princeton for ten months already.
Mousavian was been Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami [who preceeded the present President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad], then later then deputy head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran’s Expediency Council.
The WSJ wrote that “In September, Mr. Mousavian, 53 years old, arrived at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as a visiting scholar, where he has been writing on Tehran’s nuclear diplomacy and U.S.-Iranian relations. Neither Princeton nor the Obama administration would comment on the Iranian diplomat’s stay in the U.S., but American and European diplomats engaged in nuclear diplomacy with Iran say they are closely scrutinizing Mr. Mousavian’s work for insights into Tehran’s decision making”.
In the photo below, which was probably taken in 2003, Mousavian (on right side of photo) is seen talking to another Iranian diplomat Amir Zamaniniya (on left).
Mousavian, a former Ambassador of Iran to Germany, and to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was instrumental in what was — for those Iranian officials involved — a risky agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program in 2003 to allow for negotiations with European states, observed by the U.S. But it did not result in any diplomatic movement. There were American elections first. Then, in 2005, there were Iranian elections, and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad won — radically changing the Iranian political landscape.
The WSJ article continues: “Mr. Mousavian said in his first interview since arriving at Princeton that he wasn’t in the U.S. to rally support for Tehran’s political opposition, known as the Green Movement. He said he is focused on his academic work and recovering from an illness contracted during his imprisonment and subsequent legal battles. He said he intends to return to Tehran at some point. ‘I don’t need asylum from any country, and I would never apply for it’, he said” …
It now appears, two weeks after the Israeli naval raid on the Freedom Flotilla bound for Gaza, that the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza’s maritime space will only be strengthened, with European and American help to engage in a complicated inspection regime in the Mediterranean Sea — while Israeli military-administered sanctions against Gaza via its land crossings will be somewhat eased.
Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, told a special session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg today, concerning the situation in Gaza, that “It will not be easy to find an agreed way to lift the blockade”…
Akiva Eldar has reported in Haaretz that the new European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Affairs, Baroness Catherine Ashton of Upholland (who has replaced Javier Solana), said in an address to members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg that “she had spoken with Israelis, Palestinians and the U.S. Secretary of State about the role the Quartet of international mediators, and that of its special envoy to the region, Tony Blair. Ashton said she had told Blair personally that, ‘The Quartet [a special group set up by the U.S., EU, UN and Russia] must demonstrate that it is worth the money, that it is capable of being reinvigorated’.” Akiva Eldar’s report can be read in full here.
One of Ashton’s predecessors in her new EU role, Chris Patten, wrote in the FT this week [as we reported earlier here] that “Sensible Europeans accept that the US, the precise terms of whose engagement have become increasingly unclear in the months since President Barack Obama’s pellucid Cairo address, has the lead role in trying to mobilise activity leading to a settlement. But that does not mean Europeans should fail to tell the US where they stand. Baroness Ashton, the new high representative for Europe’s common foreign and security policy, should encourage Washington to support the EU statement or make clear where there are differences of opinion. In particular, the importance of setting a time frame for progress should be underlined. Lady Ashton will presumably now be the EU’s sole representative in the ‘quartet’ (which used to have three EU members) – the organisation joining the US, UN, Russia and the EU in support of a peace process”.
The Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki asked diplomatic representatives in Ramallah on Monday for their government’s support to — at least — discuss the Goldstone report on last winter’s war on Gaza.
Al-Maliki has been a frequent flyer in the past ten days — he’s back in Ramallah for two days from trips between UN headquarters in New York and France, then Syria, then back to New York, then Libya — since the diplomatic fiasco at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva when Palestinian support was withdrawn for an immediate discussion of the report submitted by the Fact-Finding Mission headed by South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone.
The U.S. did not “pressure” the Palestinian leadership to withdraw a resolution that was to have been submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week offering support for the conclusions contained in the Goldstone report on last winter’s war on Gaza. At least, this is what the US. State Department spokesperson, Ian Kelly, told reporters — in response to their questions — at the regular daily briefing in Washington on 5 October:
QUESTION: Can I ask about the Goldstone report? On Friday, the Palestinian Authority agreed in Geneva to go ahead and put – defer a vote for it to go to the Human – UN Human Rights Council. What role specifically did the United States play in pressuring the Palestinian Authority to make that decision?
MR. KELLY: Well, I don’t know if I would accept your characterization of pressuring. I think that we recognized that we had serious concerns with the recommendations and some of the allegations. We felt very strongly that while these investigations should be investigated and addressed, that we thought on the one hand that Israel had the kind of institutions that could address these allegations. And of course, we urged Israel to address these very serious allegations. But I think we had a broader concern that we didn’t want the report to distract us from our ultimate goal, which was to address the root causes of the tragic events of last January, and that’s the lack of a regional and lasting peace between the two parties – between the Israelis and the Palestinians. So we were concerned that we stay focused on that ultimate goal. And we are not saying that the allegations in the report – we’re not saying that they should be ignored. We simply do not want the report itself to become any kind of impediment to this ultimate goal. We appreciate the seriousness with which the Palestinians approach this very, very difficult issue, and we respect this decision to defer discussion of the report to a later date for the reasons that I just stated – that we want to make sure that we stay focused on the ultimate goal here.
QUESTION: You say you respect the Palestinians’ decision?
The Palestinian decision to “withdraw” support for a resolution they were pushing in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva remains unexplained — at least, to the Palestinian people — on Friday night.
The draft resolution would have called for support of the report submitted by South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone, who was appointed to head the Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding Mission on last winter’s Gaza. The resolution would also have referral the Goldstone report to the UN General Assembly for action. Instead, another resolution was adopted to postpone consideration of the report’s findings.
The news was leaked by Israeli media on Thursday evening. On Friday afternoon in Geneva it become official: the Human Rights Council members agreed to “postpone” consideration of the report’s conclusions until next March, 2010.
Even though Friday is the normal Palestinian weekend day off, there was no effort to explain to the Palestinian people why their leadership “withdraw” backing for an immediate vote by the UN Human Rights Council.
Nabil Amr, who was spokesman for the Fatah Sixth General Conference held in Bethlehem from 4-14 August (more or less),has just resigned his posts as Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt and to the Arab League whose headquarters in Cairo, and also as head of the Fatah satellite television channel, Filastina, that he started in recent months with a reported budget of $500,000. Amr left the Conference before it ended (it was originally scheduled to last only three days) for previously-scheduled medical treatment.
Amr was shot in the summer of 2004 by unknown gunmen while standing on the balcony of his home in Ramallah, after remarks he made in a television interview in which he criticized then-leader Yasser Arafat. As a result, his leg had to be amputated during his emergency hospitalization in Jordan, and he subsequently was treated in Germany as well.
Amr, a former journalist, was a member of Fatah’s outgoing Revolutionary Council who ran for election to the Central Committee but lost.
So far, Amr has not given any explanation for his resignations from all his current posts.
He announced his reported resignation from Cairo, according to a report by Bathlehem-based Ma’an News Agency published here, and said he was returning to Ramallah, and would make his formal farwell from the Egyptian capital later.
Mohammad Dahlan, the former head of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces in Gaza, who was successful in his campaign to win a seat on the Fatah Central Committee, has reportedly been in Cairo in recent days.
The Fatah General Conference endorsed a proposal by Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas that all candidates who win elections to seats in either the Central Committee or the Revolutionary Council would have to resign from all other jobs. But the only resignation that has been announced so far is that of Tawfik Tirawi, now elected to the Central Committee, who reportedly resigned as an adviser to Abbas. It is not clear if Tirawi also resigned as head of the Palestinian training academy for security forces in Jericho.
Abbas — who is now head of the overarching Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the elected President of the Palestinian Authority as well as the newly-appointed leader of Fatah [by acclamation, in front of the television cameras suddenly called into the otherwise closed conference proceedings] now holds a concentration of political power similar to that held previously by the late Yasser Arafat.
He has just decided to call a meeting of the PLO’s 600+member Palestine National Council, or Parliament, just over a week from now. On the agenda, apparently, is a proposal to add six new members to the PLO’s Executive Committee, boosting the number of seats from 12 to 18 — one way to compensate some of those who lost in the Fatah elections.
And, Abbas still hasn’t played his other cards remaining after the elections at the Fatah 6th Conference — he can still name three members to the Central Committee, and a dozen or two members to the Revolutionary Council, subject to the approval of the Central Committee and the accord of the Revolutionary Council.
The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that “The Cypriot Embassy in Tel Aviv issued a statement following the incident, saying ‘The Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Israel would like to inform that the “Spirit of Humanity” boat, sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement, that attempted in the early hours today to reach Gaza was given permission by the competent Authorities of the Republic of Cyprus to sail off the port of Larnaca in Cyprus on the basis of its declaration that its intended destination was the port of Port Said in Egypt’.” This JPost report is posted here.
A Cypriot diplomat in the region said that “They signed and they said they were going to Port Said. With that destination, they were covered by international law all the way”.
Of course, the Free Gaza activists always said publicly that their destination was Gaza, and they were determined to go to Gaza.
This is a story about an American diplomat in Algiers — apparently the CIA bureau chief, and surprisingly a convert to Islam (unusually tolerant for the CIA, no?) — whose name is Andrew Warren, who apparently had a very bad habit of putting rather common drugs (xanax and valium) into women’s drinks, that caused violent nausea almost immediately, then a kind of paralyis … Then, this guy videotaped his “conquests” of his drugged victims — and some 33 tapes were found in his official residence and shipped to the U.S.A. as evidence for use in his trial.
The Egyptian blogger, Zenobia, is one of those following this case on her site — covering the Egyptian angle in particular. One of her recent posts is here. Zenobia writes that Egyptian officials, at least, suspect that Warren was trying to recruit his victims as agents.
Zenobia has a particularly interesting post, here.
In this post, she embds a Youtube video (also viewable here of an ABC television news report on this case:
An affadavit sworn by a U.S. Department of State diplomatic security officer to obtain a court order for a search warrant, described the extraordinary and sensational charges — that while on duty in Algiers, Warren offered and prepared in his home alcholic drinks to two women of Algerian origin, and he then raped them. This affadavit is posted online here.
In this affadavit, which was posted on the ABC news website, Victim One (Vi) said that she was invited to a party by U.S. Embassay employees at Warren’s home. She stated that Warren mixed for her, out of her sight, several drinks of cola and whisky. Toward the end of the evening, after the last drink that Warren prepared, “she suddenly felt nauseated and felt an immediate need to vomit. and violent onset of nausea as nothing like the physiological effects of alcohol that she had experienced while consuming alcohol on previous occasions. V1 physically held her hand over her mouth in order to avoid vomiting on the floor of the residence. V1 ran to a bathroom where she vomited into a toilet. While V1 was vomiting, Witness #1 (“W1”), a female, was trying to assist V1 in the bathroom. V1 remembered Warren standing in the bathroom doorway while she was sick, saying that V1 should stay the night at his house. After this memory, V1 could not remember anything that happened the rest of the evening. W1 stated that all of the other individuals at the party left the house around this time, and that only V1, W1 and Warren stayed the night in the residence” … and so on.
Victim Two (V2) had known Warren in Egypt, then visited him in Algiers in February 2008 after he was transferred there. She testified that Warren invited him to his new home (which, according to the affadavit, is “within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States”), and prepared apple martinis for both of them, then a second drink for her, and that “While drinking the second apple martini, V2 suddenly felt faint and felt the immediate needed to vomit. V2 described the sudden and violent onset of the illness as nothing like the physiological effects of alcohol related sickness that she had experienced when she consumed alcohol on previous occasions. V2 stated she immediately began to pass in and out of consciousness. V2’s recollections of the ensuing events are characterized as passing in and out of consciousness, due to the debilitating effects of the illness. After nearly fainting and experiencing the immediate need to vomit, V2’s next recollection was being located in Warren’s upstairs bathroom, on the floor. V2 could see and hear, but she could not move” … and so on,
The affadavit adds that “V2 told her husband and her psychologist about the
incident on February 17, 2008, but did not inform anyone at the United States Embassy
until she next returned to Algeria in September 2008. On October 9, 2008, Warren flew from Algeria to the United States, for a meeting scheduled on October 10, 2008. On October 9, 2008, Warren checked into Hilton Washington Hotel, Room 7212, located at 1919 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC. This hotel is located in the District of Columbia. On October 10, 2008, I met with Warren at his place of employment in Northern Virginia to inform him of the allegations leveled against him by V1 and V2. During this meeting, Warren agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Warren admitted during this meeting that he had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse with V1 and V2 at his residence in Algiers, Algeria. Warren informed me that his personal lap top computer was in his hotel room located at the Washington Hilton Hotel and that photographs of V1 and V2 were probably on his personal lap top computer. Following this meeting, Warren voluntarily surrendered his cell phone and digital camera, which were located in his rental car, to me for forensic analysis. That analysis uncovered multiple photographs of V1 and V2, along with various other women. He declined consent to the seizure or search of his personal computer”.
The diplomatic security agent added, in the report, that “Through the toxicology expert, I learned that drugs which are commonly used to facilitate sexual assault are prescribed sleeping medications, muscle relaxants, anxiety pills, Xanax, and Valium, which are then converted from pill form to powdered form … These drugs are rapidly absorbed and metabolized by the body. Detectable levels remain in the urine for 8 to 12 hours and in the blood for 4 to 8 hours. Symptoms of these drugs appear within 15 to 30 minutes of ingestion, and the effects persist for 3 to 6 hours … [and that] information on how to obtain and use the above-described substances to facilitate sexual assaults can be found on the Internet”.
The diplomatic security agent then adds, in his affadavit in support of a search warrent, that “Searching computer systems requires the use of precise, scientific procedures
which are designed to maintain the integrity of the evidence and to recover
‘hidden’, erased, compressed, encrypted or password-protected data. Computer
hardware and storage devices may contain ‘booby traps’ that destroy or alter data
if certain procedures are not scrupulously followed. Since computer data is
particularly vulnerable to inadvertent or intentional modification or destruction, a
controlled environment, such as a law enforcement laboratory, is essential to
conducting a complete and accurate analysis of the equipment and storage devices
from which the data will be extracted … Computer users can attempt to conceal data within computer equipment and storage devices through a number of methods, including the use of innocuous or misleading filenames and extensions. For example, files with the extension ‘.jpg’ often are image files; however, a user can easily change the extension to ‘.txt’ to conceal the image and make it appear that the file contains text. Computer userscan also attempt to conceal data by using encryption, which means that a password or device, such as a ‘dongle’ or ‘keycard’, is necessary to decrypt the data into readable form. In addition, computer users can conceal data within
another seemingly unrelated and innocuous file in a process called ‘steganography’. For example, by using steganography a computer user can conceal text in an image file which cannot be viewed when the image file is opened. Therefore, a substantial amount of time is necessary to extract and sort through data that is concealed or encrypted to determine whether it is evidence,contraband or instrumentalities of a crime”.
Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune are among the media which have covered these accusations.
Newsweek reported at the end of January that “Andrew Warren is a 6-foot-4 African-American schooled in the martial arts. Steeped in Middle Eastern history, he is a convert to Islam who speaks six Arabic dialects … Though the CIA won’t confirm it, numerous U.S. government officials acknowledged to NEWSWEEK the revelation, first reported by ABC News correspondent Brian Ross, that Warren was serving in Algiers as CIA station chief … Speaking anonymously in order to be candid, one of Warren’s former instructors at the ‘Farm’, where spies are trained, told NEWSWEEK that Warren was ‘a loose cannon’ whose confidence ‘bordered on narcissism’.” This article can be read in full here.
Six months after the charges were formulated (and many months after the alleged events). this 41-year-old ex-CIA agent was indicted just hours ago on 30 June in Washington DC for sexual assault, as reported by the Washington Post, here
After the indictment, the Washington Post adds, Warren “was released on personal recognizance after a brief appearance yesterday in the District’s federal court. The sexual-abuse charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison”.
On top of all the unanswered questions in this case, there are these: Is it normal to indict someone six months after the accusations are formalized? Is it normal to release someone “on personal recognizance” who is facing life in prison?
It was billed as a meeting with “Israel’s human rights community”. Then, a notice was sent by email that journalists would be allowed a brief Q + A period at the end. Then, it became a “public meeting” — former President Carter’s only public appearance in Israel.
Though the stars of the Israeli human rights community were there, sitting politely in suits and dresses, President Carter in the end didn’t say anything to them, really. Unfortunately, he spoke not a word about their work, about how they are only a few, who often stand up alone against the massive tide of Israeli public and official opinion, about how they are challenge the state to live up to its national and international obligations, and how they inform the world about endless and growing problems as they continue to uphold the rights of Palestinians living under the belligerent Israeli military occupation.
Instead it became a very weak press conference.
And not one of the Israel human rights leaders there said a word.
But, from Carter himself, we learned that he was meeting Quartet Special Middle East Envoy Tony Blair in the afternoon (Blair then headed down to Gaza, for his first visit in over a year, and well after the normal Erez crossing checkpoint hours — Blair was clearly given VIP treatment). Carter announced that he was going to Gaza himself on Tuesday, for a graduation ceremony in UNRWA schools. Carter — who went to Damascus and back at the end of last week, where he met with the Hamas “Politburo” — said he’ll meet a second time with Noam Shalit, the father of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized and has been held captive since late June 2006, presumably somewhere in Gaza. In Gaza, he is scheduled to meet the Hamas leadership.
