Muara Teweh!

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s parliament speaker said on Thursday the U.N. Security Council had ignored the country’s constitution in voting to set up a tribunal for suspects in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close Syria ally, said the Security Council had also ignored a need for Lebanese consensus on the court, which the Council on Wednesday voted to set up in a move forecast to cause more instability in Lebanon.

“You have picked internationalization instead of the state,” Berri, a leading member of the opposition, said in a brief statement.

The tribunal has been at the heart of a deep political split between Lebanese politicians allied to Damascus and others who see it as a means to curb Syrian influence in Lebanon. » Read more after the jump →

(RIA Novosti)

Tehran is counting on the success of a meeting in Madrid between Iran’s top nuclear negotiator and the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, an Iranian diplomat said Thursday.

Ali Larijani arrived Wednesday evening in Madrid, the capital of Spain, for talks with Solana on the Iranian nuclear dossier.

“We hope for a successful completion of the meeting and that it will open the way to direct negotiations on Iran’s ‘nuclear dossier,’” said Akhmad Reza Khermand, spokesman for Iran’s embassy in Madrid.

He said Iran has rights and obligations under international law and with respect to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and that it will honor its obligations. But he said it also expects its rights to be honored. » Read more after the jump →

MOSCOW - Allegations that British intelligence had a hand in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko are baseless and orchestrated by the Kremlin, a leading Litvinenko associate told Russian radio on Thursday.

Andrei Lugovoy, the man Britain wants to put on trial for Litvinenko’s poisoning, said he believes British secret services and Boris Berezovsky, a wealthy Kremlin opponent now living in Britain, were involved in Litvinenko’s murder.

“Andrei Lugovoy’s statement is, in essence, a Kremlin statement,” Berezovsky, a multi-millionaire businessman who was a pall bearer at Litvinenko’s funeral, told Ekho Moskvy radio station in a telephone interview. » Read more after the jump →

Troops have secured the wreckage of a U.S. helicopter that crashed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, leaving one Canadian, five Americans and a Briton dead.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for shooting down the CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Helmand province, one of the most volatile regions of the country.

“There will be a full investigation,” said Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. “We will try to determine everything that happened and to fully investigate the site.”

Initial reports have suggested that the helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, a U.S. official told The Canadian Press. The five crew members were American, while the Canadian and the Briton were military passengers on the aircraft. » Read more after the jump →

Hidalgo Mining International (HMIT) announced that it will begin Phase-One of mining on its 50,000 acre coal plot in Mexico, as a direct result of finalizing an agreement with McKim & Company, an investment banking organization, to obtain $10M in capital funding.

Initial output estimates generated from Phase One mining are intended to range from 20-50K tons on a monthly basis, resulting in 250-600K annual tons of revenue-generating coal production.

HMIT will subcontract the mining and extraction of high-grade coal to begin the Phase-One mining. Upon the receipt of the remaining capital infusion from McKim & Company, HMIT will » Read more after the jump →

Hidalgo Mining International (HMIT) announced that it will begin Phase-One of mining on its 50,000 acre coal plot in Mexico, as a direct result of finalizing an agreement with McKim & Company, an investment banking organization, to obtain $10M in capital funding.

Initial output estimates generated from Phase One mining are intended to range from 20-50K tons on a monthly basis, resulting in 250-600K annual tons of revenue-generating coal production.

HMIT will subcontract the mining and extraction of high-grade coal to begin the Phase-One mining. Upon the receipt of the remaining capital infusion from McKim & Company, HMIT will » Read more after the jump →

“We’re real concerned about the potential for fraud,” said Beatriz Ibarra, who studies Hispanic finances for the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group and a tepid supporter of the draft legislation. “They’ll find a way to pay, but how?”
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Some say the measure also could lead to abuse by employers, who could offer to pay employees’ fines in return for repayment arrangements that could be difficult to satisfy, leading to what would amount to indentured servitude. But advocates and other experts say that is unlikely, because most employers probably wouldn’t find that sort of arrangement worth the cost and risk.

It is not exactly clear how much time the immigrants would have to pay the fines and fees to achieve legal status and eventually obtain a green card, which confers permanent residency. » Read more after the jump →