Biodun.BBC: Nikki Haley

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Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Russia says U.S. plans to strike Damascus, pledges military response

March 14, 2018 09H:44 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Maria Ogryzlo and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Moscow

MOSCOW - Russia said on Tuesday it had information that the United States planned to bomb the government quarter in Damascus on an invented pretext, and said it would respond militarily if it felt Russian lives were threatened by such an attack.

Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, arrives for the opening ceremony of the International Army Games 2017 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Russia, July 29, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Valery Gerasimov, head of Russia’s General Staff, said Moscow had information that rebels in the enclave of eastern Ghouta were planning to fake a chemical weapons attack against civilians and blame it on the Syrian army.

He said the United States intended to use the fake attack as a pretext to bomb the government quarter in nearby Damascus where he said Russian military advisers, Russian military police and Russian ceasefire monitors were based.

“In the event of a threat to the lives of our servicemen, Russia’s armed forces will take retaliatory measures against the missiles and launchers used,” Gerasimov said in a statement.

He did not say when the alleged attack would take place or provide detailed evidence to back his assertions.

Russia has previously accused rebels in Syria of preparing to use toxic agents in eastern Ghouta so they could later accuse Damascus of employing chemical weapons.

Damascus denies Western allegations that government forces have used chemical weapons.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned on Monday that Washington “remains prepared to act if we must,” if the U.N. Security Council failed to act on Syria, as the Syrian army’s onslaught in eastern Ghouta continued unabated.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Kabul in shock after deadly ambulance bomb blast

January 28, 2018 07H:24 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Kabul

KABUL - Kabul reacted in despair and fear on Sunday, a day after a suicide bomb in the center of the city killed and wounded more than 250 people in the worst attack seen in the Afghan capital in months.

A man reacts after hearing his son was killed during a car bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan January 27, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

With security officials warning that more attacks were possible after an ambulance packed with explosives blew up in a crowded city street on Saturday, there was a mix of helpless anger at the seemingly endless wave of attacks.

“How are we to live? Where should we go?” asked shopkeeper Mohammad Hanif, who was in his shop near the site of the explosion when it went off.

“We have no security, we don’t have no proper government, what should we do?” he said.

At least 95 people were killed and 158 wounded in the blast, which was claimed by the Taliban, a week after they claimed a deadly attack on the city’s Intercontinental Hotel.

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It was the worst attack seen in the Afghan capital since a truck bomb near the German embassy killed 150 people in May.

“People were running everywhere to escape, there were wounded people lying on the ground, people with wounds to their arms, legs, heads,” Hanif said.

After a deadly week in which an office of the aid group Save the Children in the eastern city of Jalalabad was also attacked, President Ashraf Ghani’s Western-backed government has faced growing pressure to improve security.

People carry an injured man to a hospital after a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan January 27, 2018.REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

Despite a major tightening in checks following the May 31 attack, the ambulance was able to get through the checkpoints, apparently without difficulty.

“People don’t have work, there’s no life for people in Afghanistan, people have to look for a life somewhere else, there’s nowhere,” said shopkeeper Sameem.

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The attack, described as “an atrocity” by the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, drew universal condemnation from allies and neighboring countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who last year sent more American troops to Afghanistan and ordered an increase in air strikes and other assistance to Afghan forces, said the attack “renews our resolve and that of our Afghan partners”.

U.S. officials have said that the new strategy is putting pressure on the Taliban.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

US dismisses North-South Korea talks as 'band-aid'

03 January 2018 - 09H03 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Biodun Iginla, France24, New York (United Nations). In transit to Ventimiglia, Italy.

© AFP/File | Responding to Seoul's offer of high-level talks with Pyongyang, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley told reporters: "We won't take any of the talks seriously if they don't do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea"

UNITED NATIONS (UNITED STATES) -

The US envoy to the United Nations Tuesday dismissed as a "band-aid" the prospect of talks between North and South Korea, warning that Washington would never accept a nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

Responding to Seoul's offer of high-level talks with Pyongyang, Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters: "We won't take any of the talks seriously if they don't do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea."

"We consider this to be a very reckless regime. We don't think we need a band-aid and we don't think we need to smile and take a picture.

"We think we need to have them stop nuclear weapons and they need to stop it now," she said, warning: "We will never accept a nuclear North Korea."

North Korea's race to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear warhead has prompted stepped up UN sanctions -- and raised fears of a nuclear conflict.

South Korea extended the offer of talks, to take place January 9, after the North's leader Kim Jong-Un called for better relations and said his country might attend the Winter Olympics.

President Donald Trump held up the development as proof the campaign of pressure was having a "big impact."

And when asked to comment on the prospect of direct Korean talks -- and whether such a development could upset its strategy on the crisis -- the White House said its policy remained unchanged.

"The United States is committed and will still continue to put maximum pressure on North Korea to change and make sure that it denuclearizes the peninsula," Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters.

"Our goals are the same and we share that with South Korea."

Washington has spearheaded the international push to sanction North Korea at the United Nations, which last year slapped three rafts of economic sanctions on the regime, targeting its oil, coal, iron, fisheries and textile sectors.

Responding to reports that Pyongyang may be preparing another missile test, Haley warned any such move would expose Kim's regime to further sanctions.

"I hope that does not happen. But if it does, we must bring even more measures to bear on the North Korean regime.

Biodun Iginla, BBC News