Tag Archives: NATO
27 May 2012
Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) agreed at the recent summit in Chicago on the security transition for Afghanistan, starting in 2013.
President Obama stated at the summit that NATO member states are ‘unified behind a plan to responsibly wind down the war in Afghanistan’. The plan of withdrawing 130.000 NATO troops by 2014 is ‘irreversible’. He however also stated that Afghanistan will not be abandoned, at least some troops will stay after 2014.
France will withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan already at the end of this year.
Source: New York Times | NATO Agrees on Afghan Security Transition in 2013
21 May 2012
In the lead-up to the 2012 summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Russian Foreign Ministry has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to look into all cases of NATO airstrikes in Libya that resulted in civilian deaths.
“We welcome the decision of ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to consider alleged violations of international humanitarian law,” Foreign Ministry human rights spokesman Konstantin Dolgov said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website. “We presume that the ICC will consider all cases of NATO bombing that caused civilian casualties … An impartial international investigation into the effects of NATO airstrikes during Operation United Defender in Libya is necessary to prevent such tragedies in the future,” the statement continued.
NATO carried out airstrikes last year under UN Security Council resolution 1970, which was passed to protect Libyan civilians from the retaliation by the Gaddafi regime.
Source: UPI | Russia wants ICC to examine NATO bombings
Source: RAPSI | Russia calls on ICC to consider NATO air campaign in Libya
16 April 2012
A confidential NATO assessment concluded that the NATO allies struggled to share crucial target information, lacked specialized planners and analysts, and overly relied on the United States for reconnaissance and refueling aircraft.
Source: New York Times | NATO Sees Flaws in Air Campaign Against Qaddafi
30 March 2012
This week, a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe released a draft resolution and report on the fateful voyage of what has been dubbed the ‘left to die’ boat – a story that was first picked up by The Guardian. The tragedy involved a boat carrying 72 Sub-Saharan migrants who fled from the conflict in Libya in March 2011, but ran into trouble and, despite a distress call by satellite from the ship’s Ghanaian “captain” to an Eritrean priest living in Italy who alerted the Rome Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (Rome MRCC), eventually washed up on the shores of Libya 15 days later. By then, only 11 people were still alive. (more…)
29 March 2012
The European rapporteur charged with investigating the case of 63 African migrants who were “left to die” in the Mediterranean last year has warned those responsible could end up in court. On Wednesday, the Guardian revealed the findings of a damning official report into the fateful voyage, which saw the sub-Saharan refugees drifting in the sea for two weeks while dying of thirst and starvation, even though their boat had been located by European authorities and emergency distress calls had been issued to all other ships in the area. The report blamed a collective set of “human, institutional and legal” failures for the inaction, labelling it a “dark day for Europe” and concluding that large loss of life could have been avoided if the various agencies in the area – NATO, its warships, the Italian coastguard and individual European states – had fulfilled their basic obligations.
Source: The Guardian | Migrant boat disaster: those responsible 'could face legal action'