The Washington Post reported that underneath the plaza outside Israel’s Habima national theater, Israel has put the finishing touches on a new gathering place that it hopes will never host a crowd: the country’s most advanced public underground bomb shelter. The shelter, four stories underground and with space for 1,600 people, is usually a parking lot. It is also part of Tel Aviv’s elaborate civil defense infrastructure. City officials have been beefing up shelters and emergency services in recent months at a time of rising tensions with Iran and militant groups in the Gaza Strip.Recent talk of conflict with Iran has given the safety measures extra relevance. Officials say the timing is coincidental. Israel is under constant threat from hostile groups on its northern and southern frontiers. Security forces run frequent safety drills, cities are equipped with public air-raid shelters, and new apartments must have bombproof rooms.
The same agency reported that Western spy agencies for years have kept watch on a craggy peak in northwest Iran that houses one of the world’s most unusual nuclear sites. Known as Fordow, the facility is built into mountain bunkers designed to withstand an aerial attack. Iran’s civil defense chief has declared the site “impregnable.” But impregnable it is not, say U.S. military planners, who are increasingly confident about their ability to deliver a serious blow against Fordow should the president ever order an attack. U.S. officials say they have no imminent plan to bombard the site, and they have cautioned that an American attack — or one by its closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel — risks devastating consequences such as soaring oil prices, Iranian retaliation and dramatically heightened tension in a fragile region.
The New York Times published the article “Russia: Putin Warns of Dirty Tricks.” It says that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that his enemies were planning dirty tricks, including ballot stuffing and even murder, to tarnish the presidential election on Sunday that Mr. Putin is widely expected to win. His aides hope a big victory will take the sting out of an urban protest movement that casts Mr. Putin as an authoritarian leader and the political system as corrupt and controlled by the Kremlin. Speaking to his campaign staff in Moscow, Mr. Putin, a former president, said his opponents would try to declare the vote invalid and said unnamed enemies abroad might try to kill opposition figures to stoke unrest. “Sorry for the phrase, but they will whack someone and then blame the authorities for it,” he said. “These sort of people are ready to do anything. I am not exaggerating.”
The same agency reported that Georgia will no longer require visas for Russian visitors as it tries to attract more foreign investment, President Mikheil Saakashvili said Tuesday in a rare gesture of good will between the two countries, former Soviet republics that fought a brief war in 2008. Russia has refused to have any contact with Mr. Saakashvili since its military crushed an assault by Georgian forces on the Russian-backed rebel region of South Ossetia. Mr. Saakashvili said Tbilisi now wanted to abolish visas to send a signal to Russian business executives and tourists that Georgia would welcome them. “We want to give peace a chance,” he said in Parliament during an annual address to the nation.
The Turkish information agency reported that Turkey is ready to share the pain of Armenians as they prepare to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1915 killings, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said following a French court’s rejection of a “genocide” denial bill. “We want to share the pain of those who are ready to share it with us,” Davutoğlu was quoted as saying by Anatolia news agency in an interview with state-run television TRT Haber late Feb. 28, Agence France-Presse reported. Davutoğlu’s remarks came after France’s Constitutional Council struck down a government-backed law criminalizing denials of the 1915 events as genocide on the grounds that it contradicts the French constitution and violated freedom of expression; the council’s rejection was quickly welcomed by Turkey. Historical problems between Turkey and Armenia can be solved between the two states, President Abdullah Gül told reports yesterday following the council’s decision.
