SIx In The Morning

On Sunday

Will China mediate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?


By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News
BEIJING – An official visit to Beijing by Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week has prompted speculation that China may finally be ready to claim its place as a world power by trying to negotiate an end to one of world's most caustic conflicts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Chinese President Xi Jinping within days of each other in Beijing – the two Middle Eastern leaders having arrived in the country within hours of each other. "China's hosting of the two emphasized its active involvement in Mideast affairs and highlighted its role as a responsible power," declared an editorial by China's state news agency, Xinhua.

Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda's president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence

Chris McGreal in Kigali The Observer, Sunday 19 May 2013
Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man. In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region's main city, Goma.

Ah, Mr Fogle, we've been expecting you:
The case of the hapless wig-wearing American diplomat expelled from Moscow is not as simple as it first seemed

DAVID RANDALL SUNDAY 19 MAY 2013
In the long and sinuous history of international espionage, the one thing you can absolutely rely on is that very little is as it first appears. And so it is with Ryan Christopher Fogle, third secretary in the political department of the US Embassy in Moscow, comedy wig owner, and, apparently, a man who thinks it wise to hang around near park entrances at midnight with €100,000 (£85,000) in cash about his person. Caught in the act of trying to subvert a Russian intelligence agent, he is then marched off to the sort of bare office where once the KGB went about their business, and is filmed looking forlorn as a Russian official berates him for his stupidity. Beside him is laid out the almost childish equipment he took with him on his mission.

Robert Fisk: 'Syrian war could go on for two, three years'
President Bashar al-Assad's troops in Syria are gaining ground. British Middle East reporter Robert Fisk met some of them when he visited the front lines earlier this month, and told DW about he saw.

SYRIA
DW: Mr. Fisk, you've just returned from Syria. What were your impressions? Robert Fisk: What you find is that there are large areas which have been destroyed, large areas which are largely depopulated, and large areas which are not only undamaged, but in which life more or less continues. This applies not only to the center of Damascus, it applies mostly to the city of Latakia, where there's a large Alawite community, and the same applies to Tartus. So you do find certain areas of Syria where the government is still firmly in control and where some semblance of life goes on. You can go out to lunch; you can shop; you can go to your office.

What does genocide conviction of Ríos Montt mean to Guatemalans abroad?
Many in the Guatemalan diaspora celebrated the historic conviction of ex-dictator Ríos Montt. But some say one conviction alone can't resolve the aftermath of the 36-year-long bloody conflict.

By Kara Andrade, Guest blogger
From Texas last week, I tuned in to the trial of Guatemala's former-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt as he was sentenced to 80 years in prison and heaved a tearful sigh of relief. His sentence – the maximum in Guatemala – came 12 years after the case was initially filed with the Inter-American Court in Spain. And it was long-awaited: Mr. Ríos Montt's 18 months as Guatemala’s dictator, is considered the bloodiest of the country’s entire civil war. His trial was the first time any domestic court has tried someone on genocide in the world.

In South Korea, high-profile defector is accused of spying for the North — by his sister


By Chico Harlan, Sunday, May 19, 6:57 AM
SEOUL — Earlier this year, one of the most prominent North Korean defectors, Yoo Woo-sung, walked out of his apartment building here and found four South Korean government vehicles waiting for him. Authorities hauled Yoo away and arrested him on charges of espionage. They had learned of his alleged crime, court documents show, thanks to testimony from his sister, who said Yoo had been sent on a mission by North Korea’s secret police to infiltrate the defector community and pass back information about the people he met.