NATO Secretary General speech at 60th Plenary Session of NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 24 NOV 2014 – Video

Posted on by


NATO Secretary General speech at 60th Plenary Session of NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 24 NOV 2014
Keynote address by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the 60th Plenary Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in The Hague, 24 November 2014.

By: NATO

More:

NATO Secretary General speech at 60th Plenary Session of NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 24 NOV 2014 - Video

Poroshenko: Ukrainians will vote on joining NATO years from now

Posted on by

The divisive issue of whether Ukraine should join NATO will be put to a vote years from now, after the necessary reforms have been completed, President Petro Poroshenko announced Monday.

Russia's steadfast opposition to its neighbor and longtime ally becoming a member of the Western military alliance is a major factor in the armed conflict racking eastern Ukraine as Moscow attempts to thwart what it sees as the Kiev leadership's about-face to align instead with Europe.

An Oct. 26 parliamentary election has empowered a coalition in favor of pursuing membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as soon as possible, although all parties recognize that it will take years to meet the alliance conditions for new members.

Poroshenko has taken a more go-slow approach to NATO membership in view of Moscow's aggressive action in protest of Ukrainians' ouster of Kremlin-allied President Viktor Yanukovich in February. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to seize Ukraine's Crimean peninsula days after Yanukovich was toppled by a pro-Europe rebellion and he is accused by a broad array of foreign governments of arming and instigating separatists fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine. More than 4,300 people have been killed since fighting broke out in April.

"The decision on accession to NATO lies solely in the competence of the people of Ukraine," Poroshenko said at a news conference Monday with visiting Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.

Poroshenko said Ukraine was committed to making the reforms and investments necessary to meet NATO requirements but that a referendum would be held after those milestones are reached, sometime around 2020, to determine whether or not to join what is now a 28-nation alliance.

Putin has cast NATO expansion into the former Soviet sphere of influence as aggression aimed at undermining the security of Russia, and the frequency of provocative air and sea space violations has tripled this year as Moscow takes a more hostile posture against its NATO-member neighbors.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned Monday that aerial intrusions by Russian fighter planes, numbering more than 100 so far this year, are putting commercial aircraft at risk.

"They're not turning on the transponders, they are not filing their flight plans and they're not communicating with civilian air-traffic control," Stoltenberg told reporters at an alliance gathering in The Hague. "That poses a risk on civilian air traffic."

Stoltenberg also commented on the status of Ukraine's eligibility to join NATO, saying that although it had been put on the back burner it remains available to the embattled country.

See the article here:

Poroshenko: Ukrainians will vote on joining NATO years from now

Ukrainians to Decide on Future NATO Membership in Eventual Vote

Posted on by

Ukraine will choose whether to join NATO in a referendum once the former Soviet republic moves from empty declarations and completes real policy changes needed for membership, President Petro Poroshenko said.

We have worked out an intense plan for the next six years, so that the country meets the criteria to join the EU and to join NATO, Poroshenko said in Kiev yesterday. And only then the Ukrainian people will decide on joining or not joining, in a referendum.

Ukraines government said Sept. 26 that it seeks to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the short term. Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the U.S. and European Union countries for encroaching into former communist Europe, saying they have violated agreements signed at the end of the Cold War and pose a threat to his countrys national security.

More than 4,300 people have been killed during the conflict and much of the local infrastructure has been laid to waste in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine along the Russian border. The EU and the U.S. accuse Russia of not abiding by a Sept. 5 truce signed in Minsk, Belarus. Ukraine says Russian troops and vehicles continue to cross the frontier. Russia denies its fomenting the war.

Two people died and others were injured when a shell hit a bus in Donetsk today, RIA Novosti reported, citing the citys mayor. Pro-Russian insurgents attacked 17 locations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions overnight using mortars, multiple rocket launch systems and shells, the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said in a statement on Facebook.

Rebels fired 19 times at residential areas in the Luhansk region alone in the past 24 hours, the council said. Government forces fired 30 artillery rounds to protect their positions and civilians, it said, adding that troops near the key port city of Mariupol have all means to repel the aggressor.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and respect the wobbly truce. He also said that the military alliance would stick by a 2008 decision to let Ukraine join if it eventually meets the criteria and decides to do so, even if membership isnt being discussed now.

The open door is still open, Stoltenberg said.

We are calling on Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and to respect the Minsk agreements, and to stop fueling the conflict by supporting the separatists and use all its influence on the separatists to make sure they are respecting the cease-fire, Stoltenberg told lawmakers from NATO countries in The Hague yesterday. We are calling on Russia to stop violating international law and to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Germanys foreign minister expressed concerns that Russia is seeking to split up Ukraine by supporting separatists in the east as Putin defended his stance in the conflict.

Originally posted here:

Ukrainians to Decide on Future NATO Membership in Eventual Vote

Ukrainians to Decide on NATO Membership in Referendum

Posted on by

Ukraine will decide whether to join NATO in a referendum at the end of this decade once it moves from empty declarations and completes real policy changes needed for membership, President Petro Poroshenko said.

We have worked out an intense plan for the next six years, so that the country meets the criteria to join the EU and to join NATO, Poroshenko said in Kiev today. And only then the Ukrainian people will decide on joining or not joining, in a referendum.

Ukraines government said Sept. 26 that it seeks to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the short term. Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the U.S. and European Union countries for encroaching into former communist Europe, saying they have violated agreements signed at the end of the Cold War and pose a threat to his countrys national security.

More than 4,300 people have been killed during the conflict and much of the local infrastructure has been laid to waste in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine along the Russian border. The EU and the U.S. accuse Russia of not abiding by a Sept. 5 truce signed in Minsk, Belarus. Ukraine says Russian troops and vehicles continue to cross the frontier. Russia denies its fomenting the war.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and respect the wobbly truce. He also said that the military alliance would stick by a 2008 decision to let Ukraine join if it eventually meets the criteria and decides to do so, even if membership isnt being discussed now.

The open door is still open, Stoltenberg said.

The conflict has intensified since rebels held elections Nov. 2. Three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 24 were wounded by separatists over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters today. In Donetsk, 12 citizens were wounded by shelling over the weekend, the city council said on its website.

We are calling on Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and to respect the Minsk agreements, and to stop fueling the conflict by supporting the separatists and use all its influence on the separatists to make sure they are respecting the cease-fire, Stoltenberg told lawmakers from NATO countries in The Hague today. We are calling on Russia to stop violating international law and to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Germanys foreign minister expressed concerns that Russia is seeking to split up Ukraine by supporting separatists in the east as Putin defended his stance in the conflict.

Im taking Russia at its word that it doesnt want to destroy the unity of Ukraine, Der Spiegel magazine cited the German minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as saying in an interview. The reality, however, is speaking a different language.

Read the original:

Ukrainians to Decide on NATO Membership in Referendum

NATO says 2 international service members killed in attack in eastern Afghanistan

Posted on by

Published November 24, 2014

KABUL, Afghanistan NATO says that two of its service members have been killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan.

Following protocol, it did not confirm their nationalities. A NATO spokeswoman says the attack happened just before 9 a.m. Monday.

A spokesman for Kabul's police chief, Hashmat Stanekzai, says that a bomb attached to a bicycle detonated near a foreign military convoy in the eastern part of the capital Kabul.

He says one Afghan civilian was wounded.

Monday's deaths bring the total for this month of foreign service members killed in Afghanistan to three. The total number killed this year is 63, 46 of them Americans.

Military convoys and foreign compounds in Kabul have been specifically targeted in recent weeks by insurgent groups waging war against the Afghan government.

View post:

NATO says 2 international service members killed in attack in eastern Afghanistan

Jails scramble to abide by 48-hour rule after lawsuits

Posted on by

Near midnight on Sept. 29, 2008, Amanda Strunk and Joshua Cleveland were arrested together near a meth lab in rural LaGrange County and booked into the LaGrange County Jail.

The two, in their 30s, became the representatives of a federal class-action lawsuit filed in 2010 that has inspired new policies and will soon result in a million-dollar settlement for them and 237 others who were jailed past 48 hours without probable cause being established, violating their Fourth Amendment rights.

An online service is needed to view this article in its entirety. You need an online service to view this article in its entirety.

Or, use your facebook account:

Individuals who have a print subscription of the South Bend Tribune can activate their digital account to gain unlimited access to SouthBendTribune.com.

You need the 10 digit phone number without dashes on the account and your ZIP code to complete this process.

Questions? Please write tosubscriberservices@sbtinfo.comor call our Subscriber Services Department at 574-235-6464.

Long distance (outside St. Joseph County, Ind.), call toll-free 1-800-220-7378.

Need an account? Create one now.

Continued here:

Jails scramble to abide by 48-hour rule after lawsuits

Press subpoenas are a bigger problem than youd think

Posted on by

The Obama administration continues to strong-arm journalists into revealing sources

Bruce Brown is is executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and has argued numerous First Amendment cases before US courts.

By now, everyone knows the feds have been handing out record numbers of subpoenas to journalists hoping to scare them into giving up their sources. The troubles of New York Times reporter James Risen, the most well-known of these besieged journalists, remain unresolved almost seven years after the Bush administration first knocked on his door with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury.

There is another recent subpoena fight that has flown under the radar but ought to be brought into fuller view. It should be a wake-up call for anyone who cares about press freedom to heed a complaint that judges have been making since the Supreme Court looked at this issue 40 years agothat journalists cant prove that their sources dry up when the reporters they leak to are stalked by process servers.

The latest subpoena fight began in the summer of 2009 when Mike Levine, then a reporter for Fox News, wrote a story about the federal government probing links between Somali Muslims in Minneapolis and Al Qaeda. Citing law enforcement sources, Levine reported about grand jury indictments in the investigation while they were still sealed. The government successfully obtained pleas from several defendants and then went on to publicly tout the victory, but the leak set off alarms.

By early in 2011, the Justice Department had subpoenaed Levine, saying that it needed to know the identity of the law enforcement sources cited in his article. Levine moved to quash the subpoena, saying he promised his sources confidentiality. And the government sought to enforce it, saying that federal laws may have been broken.

All sound familiar? Levines case is but a piece in the onslaught of press subpoenas that have defined the Obama administration. But nothing was known publicly about this specific case until last May, when Levine, now at ABC News, wrote about it on the networks website. Then last month, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, who sits in DC, unsealed the docket.

Both from Levines account and court records, we learned that in July 2011, Lamberth denied the motion to quash. We also learned that the Justice Department in the end never forced Levine to testify. In April 2012, almost three years after Levines Somali story ran, prosecutors said they were withdrawing the subpoena. They offered no explanation as to why.

Levines case is more than just another example of the administration trying to force journalists to identify their sources. It stands out in part because of a statement by Lamberth in rejecting Levines arguments. The judge looked to a passage from the 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Branzburg v. Hayes, the one and so far only time that the press and the government have clashed over the issue at the nations highest court. In the passage, Justice Byron White wrote for a narrow majority in allowing prosecutors in a drug probe to obtain evidence from reporters trying to claim they were protected from testifying by the First Amendment. White said there simply wasnt enough empirical evidence to show that subpoenaing journalists would have a chilling effect on their sources.

Link:

Press subpoenas are a bigger problem than youd think

Drawing a line between therapy and threats: In Plain English

Posted on by

Posted Mon, November 24th, 2014 3:31 pm by Amy Howe

Protesting at the funeral of a fallen soldier. Lying about your military record. Violent video games for children. Making videos about dogfighting. In the past few years, the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects all of these forms of expression, even when very unpopular or offensive. Next week the Justices will hear oral arguments to determine whether Anthony Eloniss Facebook posts, which left his ex-wife extremely scared and an FBI agent worried about her familys safety, are entitled to the same kind of protection. Lets talk about Elonis v. United States in Plain English.

Eloniss legal troubles date back to 2010, when his wife left him, taking their two young children with her. He began to post lyrics from popular songs on Facebook, and he soon moved on to post his own, sometimes violent, rap lyrics. As part of his posts, Elonis included disclaimers about how his lyrics were merely fictitious, and that he was just exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech. He also sometimes included links to the Wikipedia entry on the First Amendment and even the text of the First Amendment itself.

In the fall of 2010, Eloniss Facebook posts included several that discussed harming his ex-wife. One post was a take-off on a comedy routine available on YouTube: Elonis asked his Facebook friends whether they knew that it was illegal for him to say that he wanted to kill his ex-wife, and he added that it would be incredibly illegal to suggest that someone could kill his ex-wife by firing a mortar launcher from the cornfield behind her house. A day later, Elonis put up a post about shooting a kindergarten class.

These posts earned Elonis a visit from an FBI agent. After the visit, he posted about that encounter too, suggesting in rap lyrics that he had strapped a bomb to his body and would have detonated it if he had been arrested. This post was apparently the last straw for the FBI: a few weeks later, Elonis was arrested and charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 875(c), which makes it a crime to communicate threats in interstate commerce for example, over the Internet.

Elonis claimed that the charges against him should be dismissed because you can only violate the law if you intend to harm someone. And he didnt have any plans to hurt his ex-wife, the FBI agent, or anyone else: his rap lyrics and venting about his problems on Facebook just made him feel better. But if he can be convicted without any intent to hurt anyone, he added, that would violate the First Amendment. A federal trial court rejected both of his arguments. Instead, it instructed the jury, it could find Elonis guilty if the average person, looking at a statement objectively, would believe that it was intended to be a threat. The jury convicted Elonis, and he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

As Elonis emphasized in his Facebook posts, the First Amendment protects a right to free speech. But that right is not unlimited; the classic example is that you cant shout Fire! in a crowded movie theater when there is actually no fire, because the resulting chaos could lead to injuries or even death. The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment also does not protect true threats, but it has not specifically said how courts should decide what is (or is not) a true threat. This case could give it that opportunity.

In his briefs at the Supreme Court, Elonis argues that a threat by its very nature requires an intent to cause fear. Because the whole point of a crime, he says, is that the defendant meant to do something wrong, the Court has interpreted criminal laws as requiring a wrongful intent even when they did not explicitly do so. Making it a crime to threaten someone even if you didnt intend to hurt them, he contends, would cause people not to speak at all, because they would be worried about whether they could go to jail based on a jurys possible misinterpretation of their comments. This is particularly true, he concludes, when you are talking about alleged threats on social media and email, where nuance and tone matter so much and its so easy to misconstrue what someone says.

The federal government counters that, as the trial court in this case instructed the jury, courts should determine whether something is a true threat by looking at whether an average person would interpret the statement as reflecting a serious intent to harm someone. The government emphasizes that courts and juries can and should look at the context in which the alleged threat was made, and at the reactions of the people who heard the alleged threat, but they should not consider whether the defendant himself actually intended to carry out the threat. This, the government explains, is because even if Elonis didnt intend to harm his ex-wife or the FBI agent, they were still afraid and their lives were still disrupted: the First Amendment doesnt protect him even if he knew that he didnt mean to carry out the threats.

We dont generally think of the Justices of the Supreme Court as especially savvy about technology. They did acquit themselves well last Term, in a case involving whether police need a warrant to search someones cellphone after they arrest him. But that may have been easier because they all have cellphones. It is far less likely that any of these nine intensely private public figures are on Facebook or any other form of social media, so it will be interesting to watch them grapple with these issues.

More:

Drawing a line between therapy and threats: In Plain English