(ANSA) – ROMA, 31 AGO – ”La Nato ha prorogato la missione militare in Libia fino a fine settembre” e la missione ”concludera’ i suoi effetti quando si dichiarera’ la Libia liberata”. Lo ha detto il ministro degli Esteri Franco Frattini parlando a Radio 24. ”Ragioniamo in termini di pochissimi giorni – ha aggiunto il capo della Farnesina – se Sirte cadra’, come io mi auguro, per una resa pacifica entro qualche giorno, cioe’ entro sabato, sara’ il pilastro definitivo della caduta del regime”

(ANSA) – PARIGI, 29 AGO – “L’ambasciata di Francia a Tripoli ha riaperto oggi”, ha riferito il portavoce del ministero degli Esteri francese, Bernard Valero. “Un’equipe diplomatica guidata da Pierre Sillan, vice di Antoine Sivan, rappresentante della Francia presso il Consiglio di transizione, è arrivata stamattina nella capitale libica e si è installata nei locali dell’ambasciata”. L’equipe, ha precisato, “é incaricata di riattivare il nostro dispositivo e di stabilire la presenza della Francia nella capitale libica”.

Washington (CNN) – The Pentagon issued fresh warnings Wednesday that China’s military expansion could stir up new tensions and provoke dangerous misunderstandings

“The pace and scope of China’s sustained military investment have allowed China to pursue capabilities we believe are potentially destabilizing to regional military balances, increase the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation and may contribute to regional tensions and anxieties,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Michael Schiffer said.

“Such capabilities could increase Beijing’s options to use military force to gain diplomatic advantage, advance its interests or resolve military disputes in its favor.”

The annual survey of defense and security issues involving China has produced a litany of short-term and ongoing concerns in recent years. Past reports have focused on increased overall spending on the military; the enhanced range of ballistic and anti-ship missiles; the military’s lack of transparency and expanded power-projection capability; and increased spending on efforts to break into U.S. military computers.

A consistent theme in the reports has been the potential threat the Communist nation’s military growth poses to regional stability and to Taiwan in particular.

A classified report was presented to Congress and an 83-page version was made public.

U.S. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Congress “will review this assessment in greater detail” in the coming weeks but noted two things that stood out in the report:

“First, Beijing’s increasing assertiveness and military capabilities, particularly China’s ability to deny access to the western Pacific, is of growing concern not only to the United States but to China’s neighbors, leading to changes in the military posture of regional actors,” the California Republican said in a statement. “This has significant consequences for the security and stability of the region.

“Second, China clearly believes that it can capitalize on the global financial crisis, using the United States’ economic uncertainty as a window of opportunity to strengthen China’s economic, diplomatic, and security interests,” he said.

“Therefore, security in the Pacific could be further jeopardized if our regional allies also come to believe that the United States will sacrifice the presence and capability of the U.S. military in an attempt to control spending,” McKeon said. “This is an unacceptable outcome in such a vital region of the globe.”

The Pentagon report called for new efforts to share military information with Beijing, and it praised China for international involvement in such areas as humanitarian and disaster relief and countering pirates.

But the U.S. continues to voice its concerns about a steady Chinese military buildup, including testing of a stealth fighter jet, sea trials of an aircraft carrier it purchased and rebuilt and development of new capabilities under the seas, in space and online.

“There are very real questions, given the overall trends and trajectory in the scope and the scale of China’s military modernization efforts,” Schiffer said at the Pentagon. “I wouldn’t put it on any one particular platform or any one particular system.”

He predicted that China would continue to develop the aircraft carrier it bought from Ukraine in 1998 and its combat capability, as well as build new ships.

“We do think China is undertaking an effort to build its own indigenous aircraft carriers,” Schiffer said. “I won’t speculate on the number, but likely more than one, being developed in the future.”

The report said China’s economic development and expanding scientific and technology base “facilitated a comprehensive and ongoing military modernization program.”

And that larger, newer military could change China’s role. “China’s modernized military could be put to use in ways that increase China’s ability to gain diplomatic advantage to resolve disputes in its favor,” the report said.

U.S. support for Taiwan continues to be a source of tension between the U.S. and China. “Beijing is developing capabilities intended to deter, delay or deny possible U.S. support for the island in the event of conflict,” the report said. “The balance of cross-(Taiwan) Strait military forces and capabilities continues to shift in the Mainland’s favor.”

Schiffer would not say whether a copy of the report had been sent to Chinese leaders. He also would not comment on whether Pakistan had given Chinese officials access to wreckage of a super-secret helicopter left behind after the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound.

By Charley Keyes, CNN Senior National Security Producer

Le “relazioni speciali” con l’Italia, la rassicurazione sui contratti e i giornalisti rapiti i temi dell’incontro

di Paola Tamborlini

ROMA – Il premier Silvio Berlusconi si presenta all’incontro di oggi con il numero uno del Cnt forte di due importanti rassicurazioni: la garanzia che il consiglio nazionale transitorio avrà “relazioni speciali” con i paesi che per primi ne hanno sostenuto la lotta – e l’Italia è stata la terza in ordine di tempo – e l’assicurazione che tutti i contratti con le imprese nostrane verranno rispettati. Ma anche con la forte preoccupazione per la sorte dei quattro giornalisti italiani sequestrati in Libia.

E saranno certamente questi i temi al centro dell’incontro, con il presidente del Cnt, Mahmud Jibril, uno degli uomini più accreditati a guidare la nuova Libia.

Le rassicurazioni sul piano economico hanno un’importanza notevole, visti i fortissimi interessi che l’Italia ha in Libia, come primo paese investitore: basti pensare che prima dell’inizio del conflitto le Pmi italiane stavano investendo per un totale di 60 milioni di dollari.

Roma ora deve consolidare la sua leadership nei rapporti economici, fortemente contesa da Parigi, il cui comportamento nella vicenda libica è stato sempre caratterizzato da fughe in avanti, che talvolta hanno anche provocato anche frizioni con Roma.

Primo paese a riconoscere il Cnt, prima ancora dell’avvio della missione Nato, la Francia è stata anche la prima tappa del tour diplomatico intrapreso da Jibril dopo la caduta di Tripoli, che proseguirà domani con l’incontro a Milano con il premier e si concluderà con Istanbul per partecipare al gruppo di contatto con la Libia.

Rimane però il primato commerciale dell’Italia, sancito anche con il trattato di amicizia da 5 miliardi di dollari, ‘congelato’ dopo lo scoppio della guerra e che ora l’Italia punta a far ripartire, forte anche delle rassicurazioni del Cnt.

E dell’ex ambasciatore libico a Roma, Hafed Gaddur, passato ora con gli insorti, secondo il quale “il rapporto con l’Italia è naturale, mentre con gli altri paesi va costruito”. Con Jibril il premier affronterà certamente anche il rapimento dei quattro inviati italiani.

Palazzo chigi ha fatto sapere che segue “di minuto in minuto” la vicenda dei reporter italiani che, secondo quanto si è appreso, sarebbero in un appartamento a Tripoli, città ormai in mano ai ribelli.

Per candidato premier Psoe si risparmierebbe un miliardo di euro

(ANSA) – MADRID, 22 AGO – Il candidato premier socialista alle politiche anticipate spagnole del 20 novembre, Alfredo Rubalcaba, ha proposto oggi, sull’esempio di quanto sollecitato da alcuni anche in Italia, l’abolizione degli esecutivi provinciali con un risparmio previsto per i contribuenti di un miliardo di euro. Tali organismi, secondo la proposta, verrebbero sostituite da ‘consigli dei sindaci’. Una parte delle competenze delle attuli istituzioni provinciali passerebbe alle Comunita’ autonome (regioni) spagnole.

(ANSA) – GINEVRA, 22 AGO – In Siria e’ salito a oltre 2.200 morti il bilancio delle repressioni contro l’opposizione condotte dal regime di Bashar al Assad da quando e’ iniziata la rivolta di piazza, lo scorso marzo: lo rende noto da Ginevra l’Alto commissario dell’Onu per i diritti umani, Navi Pillay. Il bilancio precedente parlava di un numero oscillante fra i 1.900 e i 2.000 morti.

Berlino, 22 ago. (Adnkronos/Dpa) – Un ex collaboratore di Julian Assange ha distrutto 3500 file di documenti segreti che non erano ancora stati pubblicati. E’ quanto ha rivelato lo stesso Daniel Domoscheit-Berg, che lo scorso anno ha abbandonato Wikileaks, dopo una lite con il suo fondatore, in un’intervista a Der Spiegel.

Tra i file distrutti anche documenti dell’amministrazione americana relativi alla famosa ‘no fly list’, la lista segreta dove vengono inseriti inomi delle persone a cui non viene permesso di imbarcarsi su voli di linea occidentali.

I documenti sono stati distrutti in questi giorni, provocando la reazione furiosa di Assange che, in un messaggio pubblicato sul suo sito Twitter, ha parlato della distruzione di dati “insostituibili che comprendono anche informazioni di grande interesse per il pubblico”.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) – Veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker was formally sworn in as the new United States ambassador to Afghanistan on Monday, just as the first U.S. soldiers began departing the country after nearly 10 years of war.

“There will be no rush for the exits,” Crocker said during a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, according to a statement from that office. “The way we do this in the months ahead will have consequences far beyond Afghanistan and far into the future.”

Crocker replaces Karl Eikenberry, whose two years in Afghanistan endured strained relations with both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and, at times, high-ranking U.S. military leaders.

A former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Crocker is a considered a seasoned diplomat who previously retired from the foreign service in 2009 after having served in Pakistan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Syria.

During his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Crocker acknowledged that problems such as corruption stand as impediments to success in Afghanistan.

“We wrestled with the same thing in Iraq, and you don’t get positive change overnight,” he told the senators. “If Iraq was hard — and it was hard — Afghanistan in many respects is harder.”

His new post nearly coincides with the departure of General David Petraeus, considered the principal author of U.S.-led “surges” in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Petraeus — the former commander of all NATO troops in Afghanistan — formally handed over command to Marine Corps Gen. John Allen last week.

Allen, who has assumed control of the largest-ever NATO force in the region, told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee in May that the drawdown, to be completed by the end of 2014, is more aggressive than he had anticipated.

“We served together in Iraq, and I can testify that no finer officer has ever worn a U.S. uniform,” Crocker said of his new military counterpart.

About 150,000 International Security Assistance Force members are currently deployed in Afghanistan, which includes fewer than 100,000 from the United States. Ten thousand American soldiers are scheduled to leave the country by the year’s end

“Let’s make one point clear,” said the new U.S. ambassador. “We have no interest in permanent bases in Afghanistan.”

The ceremony comes as seven areas are being handed over to national security forces in what is the first part of a security transition to Afghan control.

“We will stay as long as we need to and not one day more,” Crocker said.

Meanwhile, during a separate event at the ISAF headquarters in Kabul, Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobsen hailed Afghan special forces and NATO troops in what he described as “one of the largest operations in some time” against militants, which left at least 30 Haqqani insurgents dead last week.

The Haqqani network is an insurgent group loosely affiliated with the Taliban, which is believed to be based in Pakistan’s semi-lawless frontier territories.

But as NATO and Afghan forces ratchet up attacks on insurgent groups along the country’s restive southern and eastern provinces — which border Pakistan — it is unclear how those attacks affect negotiation and reconciliation efforts.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates last month acknowledged preliminary talks with Taliban leadership were underway.

“Unfortunately this is a big problem,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahed, who served as the Taliban representative for the United Nations beginning in 1997.

Mujahed is currently apart of the 70-member High Peace Council, which was created last year in an effort to foster dialogue with the Taliban.

“The world community and NATO, from one side, they are supporting the process of reconciliation and peace with the armed opposition,” he told CNN. “From the other side they are putting military pressure upon them.”

In recent weeks, the Taliban has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks and high-level assassinations, including the president’s adviser and his half-brother, an influential power-broker in the country’s south.

“Afghanistan is still a country at war,” said Jacobsen. “There is an insurgency out there that is brutal, that is ruthless (and) that is killing regardless.”

Meanwhile, one ISAF service member died Monday following an insurgent attack in western Afghanistan, the military reported.

By David Ariosto

Londra, 27 lug. (Adnkronos/Dpa) – Londra intende espellere tutti i diplomatici libici che ancora si trovano in territorio britannico. L’annuncio e’ arrivato dal Foreign Office: “Possiamo confermare che l’incaricato d’affari libico e’ stato convocato dal Forein Office ed e’ stato informato che sia lui sia i restanti diplomatici libici nel Regno Unito verranno espulsi”, ha affermato un portavoce. La decisione coinvolgera’ otto rappresentanti del governo di Gheddafi che ancora si trovano nell’ambasciata di Londra.