US reduces presence of staffers not deemed essential in the Middle East as tensions rise
Washington (AP): The United States is drawing down the presence of staffers who are not deemed essential to operations in the Middle East and their loved ones due to the potential for regional unrest, the State Department and military said on Wednesday.
The State Department said it has ordered the departure of all nonessential personnel from the US Embassy in Baghdad based on its latest review and a commitment "to keeping Americans safe, both at home and abroad." The embassy already had been on limited staffing, and the order will not affect a large number of personnel.
The department, however, also is authorising the departure of nonessential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait. That gives them the option of leaving those countries at government expense and with government assistance.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "has authorised the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations" across the region, US Central Command said in a statement. The command "is monitoring the developing tension in the Middle East."
Speaking at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump said, "They are being moved out, because it could be a dangerous place, and we'll see what happens. We've given notice to move out, and we'll see what happens."
Tensions in the region have been rising in recent days as talks between the US and Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear programme appear to have hit an impasse. The talks seek to limit Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions that the US has imposed on the Islamic Republic. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful.
The next round of talks — the sixth — had been tentatively scheduled for this weekend in Oman, according to two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters. However, those officials said on Wednesday that it looked increasingly unlikely that the talks would happen.
Trump, who has previously said Israel or the US could carry out airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations failed, gave a less-than-optimistic view about reaching a deal with Iran, telling the New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast that he was "getting more and more less confident about" a deal.
"They seem to be delaying, and I think that's a shame. I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them," he said in the interview recorded on Monday and released on Wednesday.
Iran's mission to the UN posted on social media that "threats of overwhelming force won't change the facts."
"Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and US militarism only fuels instability," the Iranian mission wrote.
Iranian Defence Minister Gen Aziz Nasirzadeh separately told journalists on Wednesday that he hoped talks with the US would yield results, though Tehran stood ready to respond.
"If conflict is imposed on us, the opponent's casualties will certainly be more than ours, and in that case, America must leave the region, because all its bases are within our reach," he said. "We have access to them, and we will target all of them in the host countries without hesitation."
Meanwhile, the Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency was potentially set to vote on a measure to censure Iran. That could set in motion an effort to snap back United Nations sanctions on Iran via a measure in Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that is still active until October. Trump withdrew from that agreement in his first term.
Earlier on Wednesday, a statement from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre, a Mideast-based effort overseen by the British navy, issued a warning to ships in the region that it "has been made aware of increased tensions within the region which could lead to an escalation of military activity having a direct impact on mariners."
It urged caution in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz. It did not name Iran, though those waterways have seen Iranian ship seizures and attacks in the past.
The top US military officer for the Middle East, Gen Erik Kurilla, was scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, but that testimony has now been postponed, according to the committee's website. The Pentagon has not commented on the postponement.
Meanwhile, Iraq's state-run Iraqi News Agency said in a statement attributed to an unnamed government official that the evacuation of some nonessential employees from the US Embassy in Baghdad was part of "procedures related to the US diplomatic presence in a number of Middle Eastern countries, not just Iraq" and that Iraqi officials "have not recorded any security indicators that warrant an evacuation."
"We reiterate that all security indicators and briefings support the escalating assessments of stability and the restoration of internal security," the statement said.
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Ex-bureaucrat Raj Kumar Goyal sworn in as CIC; eight new information commissioners take oath
New Delhi (PTI): After a gap of nine years, transparency watchdog Central Information Commission attained its full strength with the appointment of former IAS officer Raj Kumar Goyal and eight other information commissioners, who took the oath of office on Monday.
A three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week recommended their names for the appointment.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Goyal as the chief information commissioner (CIC) at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, her office said in a communique.
The event was attended by Vice President C P Radhakrishnan and Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, among others.
Goyal is a 1990-batch (retired) IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. He superannuated as secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice, on August 31.
He has also served as secretary (border management) in the Home Ministry and held key posts both at the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The post of CIC fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13.
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The Commission is headed by a CIC and can have a maximum of 10 information commissioners. With the new appointments, the Commission attained its full strength after a gap of over nine years, according to transparency activists.
In the presence of two incumbent Information Commissioners, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari, Goyal administered the oath of office to eight new appointees at the swearing-in ceremony.
They included former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, former IPS officer Swagat Das -- who held key posts in the Intelligence Bureau, Home Ministry and Cabinet Secretariat, among others -- Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena and ex-Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi.
Senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and former Indian Legal Service officer Sudha Rani Relangi, have also been sworn in as information commissioners.
Relangi has also worked as the director of prosecution, Central Bureau of Investigation and joint secretary and legislative counsel in the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The names of the CIC and eight information commissioners were cleared during the meeting of the Modi-led committee comprising Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
