• Italian politician Enrico Letta names new coalition government

    Domenico Stinellis / AP

    Italian Premier-designate Enrico Letta speaks during a press conference at the Quirinale Presidential Palace in Rome, Saturday, April 27, 2013.

    By James McKenzie and Gavin Jones, Reuters

    Italian center-left politician Enrico Letta said on Saturday he had won support of other parties to form a coalition government that will include one of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's closest allies as deputy prime minister.

    Letta met President Giorgio Napolitano after talks with Berlusconi and leaders of his center-right People of Freedom (PDL) party to confirm that he had reached an accord which would clear the way for a government to be formed.

    "I hope that this government can get to work quickly in the spirit of fervent cooperation and without any prejudice or conflict," Napolitano told reporters.

    PDL secretary Angelino Alfano will be deputy prime minister and interior minister, giving the center-right a powerful voice at the heart of the new government.

    Bank of Italy director general Fabrizio Saccomanni will take the key economy ministry portfolio and former European Commissioner Emma Bonino will be foreign minister.

    The government, which Letta said would contain a record number of women ministers, will be sworn in at 5:30 a.m. EDT on Sunday and Letta is expected to go before parliament to seek a vote of confidence on Monday.

    Letta, 46, the deputy leader of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), spent more than two hours on Saturday in talks with Berlusconi, who will not be a member of the government but is likely to play an important backstage role.

    Letta is on the right of the PD and the nephew of one of Berlusconi's closest aides.

    Agreement had been held up by wrangling over ministerial posts and policy differences, notably over Berlusconi's demand to scrap the unpopular IMU housing tax, a move that would blow an 8 billion euro hole in this year's budget plans.

    Italy, the euro zone's third largest economy, has been without an effective government for months, with the long post-election deadlock holding up any concerted effort to end a recession set to become the longest since World War Two.

    Letta received some encouragement late on Friday when the ratings agency Moody's kept its rating on Italian government debt unchanged at Baa2 because low interest rates were making it possible to buy time to implement much-needed reforms.

    Bond yields have fallen to their lowest in more than two years as investors hope for enough stability to help Italy revive its economy and gradually tackle its large public debt.

    However, Moody's also said medium-term growth prospects were weak and forecast the economy would shrink by 1.8 percent this year, compounding more than two decades of stagnation

    Letta has said his priorities will be boosting the economy and tackling unemployment, restoring confidence in Italy's discredited political institutions and trying to turn Europe away from austerity to focus more on growth and investment.


    On paper, the priorities laid out by Letta fit in well with proposals from Berlusconi's camp, which has attacked the austerity policies of outgoing prime minister Mario Monti.

    Berlusconi, in the middle of legal battles over a tax fraud conviction and charges of paying for sex with a minor, had pressed for the cabinet to include close political allies and had opposed the inclusion of technocrats.

    In the event, however, several of the big ministries were led by non-political figures.

    As well as Saccomanni at the economy ministry, Anna Maria Cancellieri, the former police official who served as interior minister under Monti took the justice portfolio, while the labor ministry went to Enrico Giovannini, head of statistics agency ISTAT.

    Monti's centrist movement Civic Choice obtained a token presence in the government, with Mario Mauro taking the defense ministry.

    Letta has had to fight strong resistance in parts of the Democratic Party to an accord with Berlusconi, its sworn enemy for almost 20 years.

    The center-left, which threw away a 10-point lead before the elections poll and now trails Berlusconi by more than five points, according to a poll by the SWG institute on Friday.

    The other main force in parliament, Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, has ruled out taking part in a government made up of the two main parties. He called the right-left coalition "an orgy worthy of the best of bunga bunga", a reference to Berlusconi's parties at his private villas.

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  • Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli coalition may not be to his liking

    Ronen Zvulun / Reuters, file

    Yair Lapid, right, stands behind Israeli President Shimon Peres, who is seated next to Benjamin Netanyahu, at a reception in Jerusalem on Feb. 5. Lapid, a relative newcomer, has been able to gain numerous concessions from the veteran Netanyahu as the latter struggled to form a coalition government.

    By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    TEL AVIV -- It is no surprise that Benjamin Netanyahu will be Israel's prime minister for the third time. The makeup of his Cabinet, however, may be jarring, especially to him.

    Two days before the deadline imposed by election rules, he overcame the final obstacles and reached a compromise with Yair Lapid, the political novice who heads the second-largest party in the Israeli Knesset.

    The agreement, which is expected to be signed Thursday, gives his coalition 68 seats out of 120 in the new parliament, which should be sworn in next week.

    Lapid may be a novice, but analysts here say he achieved major victories over the prime minister. He demanded that there be a maximum of 20 Cabinet ministers instead of the bloated 30.

    Struggling to find seats for his party members, Netanyahu fought tooth and nail against Lapid and lost. There are now likely to be 22, including Netanyahu.

    Netanyahu was determined to keep the education portfolio for his own party. Lapid insisted on having it and appears to have won.

    It didn't all go Lapid's way, but the message to the voters is clear: Lapid is the man to watch. Indeed, the former television host has already let it be known that he wants to be Israel's next prime minister.

    If Lapid, and for other reasons Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, were the winners in the Jan. 22 elections, the losers, to a large extent, were the ultra-orthodox religious parties. The Haredim, as they are known here, who form 10 percent of Israel's population and are by far the fastest-growing group, have no seat at the Cabinet table.

    That means the government has the opportunity to cut the funds devoted to ultra-orthodox institutions such as their study yeshivas and schools, which in the 2012 education budget totaled close to $1 billion.

    Large state subsidies go to their traditionally large families and fund the men who study the Torah full time. These are some of the issues that upset Lapid and his voters, and that now, as Israel's minister of finance, he would have an opportunity to change. That's why control of the education ministry was so important to him: Most yeshiva funding goes through that ministry.

    Bad blood
    This is not what Netanyahu wanted. He wanted his usual rightist/ultra-orthodox coalition. Instead, through failed brinksmanship he ended up with exactly the opposite: a coalition of his rightist party, Likud-Beitenu, with the left and center, as well as with his natural partner, another new young politician, Naftali Bennett, who leads a rightist party that coordinated every move with Yair Lapid.

    Blame the wife. That's what the analysts here say. Bennett, who was once Netanyau's chief of staff, had a major falling out with Sara Netanyahu, ending in bad blood between him and the prime minister.

    The natural coalition after the January elections was between the two rightist parties, Netanyahu's 31 seats and Bennett's 12 seats, which would have guaranteed them power if allied with the ultra-orthodox parties. Experts say Netanyahu should have drafted Bennett to the cause immediately.

    Instead Netanyahu miscalculated and, reportedly because of personal animus, tried to form the basis of a government without him.

    That drove Bennett into the arms of Lapid, where he stayed. The two new young leaders displayed a virtue rare in politics: loyalty to an ideological opponent, based on the power of their word.

    Result: Netanyahu has what he most wants, the position of prime minister. But he has the Cabinet that he least wants. A rocky term awaits him.

    NBC News' Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List,""Breaking News" and "Walking Israel."

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  • War of words erupts in Afghanistan over 2014 US troop pullout

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel responds to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's statements in which Karzai accused the U.S. and Taliban with working together.

     

    By Mike Taibbi, Correspondent, NBC News

    KABUL — In his opening statement released at the start of his first Afghanistan visit since being named defense secretary, Chuck Hagel reminded everyone, "We are still in a war." By the time his official visit ended, after a planned joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai was cancelled over "security concerns," it was clear that war’s second front, the war of words, was as volatile as ever.

    The press conference cancellation was announced hours after Karzai had gone on national television with another blast of criticism over the U.S. role here. He said the U.S. and the Taliban were "negotiating daily," and working in concert to ensure that coalition combat forces would remain in Afghanistan beyond the scheduled pullout in 2014. Karzai added that two deadly suicide attacks Saturday — one explosion in Kabul that Hagel actually heard from his safe location more than a mile away — were intended by the Taliban to show that U.S. and coalition forces would not be able to withdraw as planned.

    "Categorically false," said the commander of coalition forces, U.S. General Joseph Dunford. A Taliban spokesman also rejected all of Karzai’s assertions unequivocally.

    By Sunday night, Dunford was compelled to say the U.S. "does not have a broken relationship (with Karzai)," or a lack of trust. And Hagel told reporters that as a former politician himself he "can understand the kind of pressures national leaders are always under," and that the two countries will be able to move forward together.

    Still, the dust-up over the busted joint press conference was evidence of the stubborn distance yet to be covered — and that seems in some ways to be widening — between an emerging new Afghanistan and the U.S., its chief protector and stakeholder.

    Spokesman Jay Carney reacts to comments made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in which he accused the U.S. and Taliban with working together.

    One illustration of that distance — the cancellation on Saturday, even as Hagel began his round of briefings, of the planned handover to Afghan control of the Parwan prison at Bagram Air Base. To the Karzai government the ceremony would be welcome evidence of his administration’s authority and autonomy.  But the ceremony was spiked and delayed at least temporarily when it was learned the U.S. would insist that detainees it considered high risk or high value would not be included in the prisoner releases Karzai has said are essential if reconciliation with the Taliban is to go forward.

    The Pentagon has canceled a scheduled joint press conference with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai citing security concerns. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.

    Another example of the stubborn distance between the Karzai government and its primary benefactor — Karzai’s order that U.S. and coalition special forces withdraw from the Kabul suburb of Wardak because of unconfirmed allegations of attacks and abusive tactics employed against civilians. Karzai had announced a two-week deadline for compliance with his order; it’s now two weeks later, with no evidence those special forces have retreated as ordered.

    And Karzai’s new allegation Sunday that the U.S. and the Taliban are "negotiating daily" — in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban have set up an office, and elsewhere — was denied by both parties but was a signal too that the Afghan leader feels the endgame might be played out in forums and in discussions in which he won’t be the controlling voice.

    Despite unequivocal denials by both the U.S. and a Taliban spokesman that any negotiations are taking place, Karzai did not back off his remarks when he met privately with Hagel after their press conference was called off and replaced by a mere photo op.

    "I told him it was not true ... that the U.S. unilaterally is not working with the Taliban to negotiate anything," Hagel later told reporters.

    What would Karzai’s goal be in asserting the existence of a back-channel alliance between the U.S. and the Taliban?

    "Political," a NATO official said, asking not to be identified. "I mean Karzai has always been a bit paranoid, and he’s got a control reflex that seems more apparent now, as he’s speaking to Afghans and to his legacy … but these comments about the U.S. and the Taliban might end up killing all possibilities for real negotiations. It’s difficult to see where (Karzai) is going."

    But though the Karzai/Hagel press conference was scrapped, the two sides did issue final statements of continued solidarity.

    "We talked about everything (in our private meeting)," Hagel said, "I told him that he could and should call me directly if there’s anything I can do to facilitate the resolution of any of these issues."

    Karzai’s chief spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said that both Hagel and General Dunford had been responsive to President Karzai’s views. "They understand our concerns," Faizi said. "Hagel noted that both sides should learn from their mistakes."

    Related:

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    US Ambassador: Afghanistan chapter not 'closed' yet

  • Soft-spoken preacher Mouaz al-Khatib is chosen to lead new united Syrian opposition

    EPA

    Mouaz al-Khatib has been named head of the National Coalition of Forces of the the Syrian Revolution and Opposition.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Activist preacher Mouaz al-Khatib has been elected as the first leader of a new Syrian opposition umbrella group that hopes to win international recognition and prepare for the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.

    Khatib, a former imam at the famous Umayyad mosque in Damascus, was voted as president in a poll in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Sunday.

    Riad Seif, who proposed the initiative to form the new group, and female activist Suhair al-Atassi were chosen as deputies.

    Delegates, who had struggled for days to find the unity their Western and Arab backers have long urged, said the coalition would ensure a voice for religious and ethnic minorities and for the rebels fighting on the ground, who have complained of being overlooked by exiled dissident groups.

    Analysis: US loses patience with Syria opposition group

    Khatib, an Islamist moderate who fled Syria earlier this year, is a soft-spoken preacher who reached out to minorities early in the revolt. He once made a speech in the conservative Sunni town of Douma, flanked by a prominent Christian and a well-known Alawite.

    'Famous man'
    Minorities, including Assad's Alawi sect, have largely backed the authorities during the revolt, fearing that Islamists from the Sunni majority will take over - fears fanned by Assad.

    "(Khatib) is from Damascus and is a famous man from there. I think this is a serious step against the regime, and a serious step towards freedom," said George Sabra, head of the Syrian National Council that U.S. and Qatari officials spent last week persuading to accept the creation of a more inclusive new body.

    Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels

    NBC News

    People resisting the army of President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.

    Launch slideshow

    Burhan Ghalioun, a former head of the old Syrian National Council, praised the new coalition, telling the New York Times: “I think the difference will start to show right away on the ground as the people will feel that there is a political power that represents them, and one body that unites its opposition. [Khatib] is a national figure and symbol since the beginning of the revolution.”

    The new organization has been titled the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, although Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall reported that the name was likely to change again to avoid confusion with the old body when reduced to its acronym of SNC.

    Israel drawn into Syria conflict, fires missile across border

    Khatib will automatically become the focal point for opposition activities in a rapidly developing conflict in which Washington and its allies have been concerned that a sudden collapse of Assad's rule could see anti-Western militants benefit from chaos to seize control of a large and pivotal country at the heart of the Middle East.

    The new body will seek to become the sole address for military and humanitarian aid to Syria, though the United States has made clear it will not shift from its position of no direct military intervention.

    Slideshow: Syria uprising

    /

    A look back at the violence that has overtaken the country

    Launch slideshow

    Officials from the United States and Qatar, the tiny Gulf emirate whose oil and gas wealth has helped fund the 20-month-old uprising, had lost faith in the SNC, which they saw as disconnected from events on the ground and riven by disputes.


    Qatar and Turkey, which has also been at the forefront of international efforts to bring down Assad, issued a call for full international backing for the new body.

    "Trust us that we will strive from now on to have this new body recognised completely by all parties... as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people," Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim told reporters after Khatib was elected in the Doha Sheraton hotel.

    Syrian rebels claim to have seized a key crossing point along the Syria-Turkey border, which could create access point for weapons and fighters to enter the country and an exit point for refugees. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Cairo.

    The Arab League is expected to allow the group to take over Syria's representation on that inter-governmental body - from which Assad was suspended. Efforts to win wider international recognition, including at the United Nations, could follow.

    Turkey's foreign minister said the formation of the National Coalition meant the opposition was no longer divided.

    "The friends of Syria... should support this agreement... There is no excuse anymore," Ahmed Davutoglu said. "All those who support the rightful struggle of the Syrian people should declare clear support for this agreement and be more active."

    Delegates said there would be specific representation for women and ethnic Kurds as well as for Christians and Alawites, but some had not yet fully signed on.

    Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

    Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

    Launch slideshow

    Under the agreement outlined in Doha, the SNC will be among groups to have seats in an assembly of 55 to 60 members under a president, two deputies and a secretary general, all of whom may be elected later on Sunday. The SNC will have up to 22 seats.

    Delegates said the coalition would try to form a 10-member transitional government in the coming weeks - along the lines of Libya's Transitional National Council, which was formed during last year's uprising and took power when Muammar Gaddafi fell.

    Rebels have been at the mercy of Assad's air force, putting them at a critical disadvantage. The conflict has cost more than 38,000 lives and threatens to spill into neighboring countries. 

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • US forces in Afghanistan ordered to keep weapons loaded at all times

    NBC's Atia Abawai explains what's behind the worsening attacks on U.S. military personnel by Afghan security and military to NBC's Andrea Mitchell.

    By NBC News and wire reports

    Updated at 2 p.m. ET: WASHINGTON – All U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan are to be required to have a fully loaded magazine in their weapons at all times in response to a spike in attacks by rogue members of the Afghan government’s forces.

    A senior military official told NBC News that the order "could save precious seconds" in responding to a so-called "green-on-blue" attack and hopefully save lives.

    The U.S. military-wide order was issued after six Marines were killed by members of the Afghan forces in two separate attacks last week. Two U.S. service members and an Afghan police officer were also killed Friday by a newly recruited Afghan village police officer, according to officials.

    U.S. military officials told NBC News that the new order did not mean personnel were required to keep a round in the chamber.

    'Guardian angel' to keep watch
    The Army has also ordered that at any gathering of U.S. military and armed Afghan security at least one soldier will be designated as a "guardian angel" to stand in a protected space with his weapon loaded to respond immediately to any threat against his fellow soldiers.

    A senior military official told NBC News that while these two measures could provide a rapid response to any attack, the reality was that as long as U.S. forces are working side-by-side with armed Afghans, any one of them "could always get the drop on you."

    A man in an Afghan police uniform shot and killed two US special forces members in the western Farah Province of Afghanistan. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.

    The attack Friday came just minutes after the village police officer -- identified as Mohammad Ismail, a man in his 30s who had joined the Afghan Local Police just five days ago -- had been given a new weapon as a present by American forces.

    He opened fire during an inauguration ceremony attended by American and Afghan national forces in the Kinisk village in the far western province of Farah, provincial police chief Agha Noor Kemtoz told The Associated Press.


    "As soon as they gave the weapon to Ismail to begin training, suddenly he took the gun and opened fire toward the U.S. soldiers," Kemtoz said.

    "Two U.S. Forces-Afghanistan service members died this morning as a result of an insider threat attack in Farah province, Afghanistan," Col. Hagen Messer, spokesman for the International Joint Command in the country, told NBC News. "Officials are investigating the incident to determine the facts and as more information becomes available it will be released as appropriate."

    Details remained sketchy, but an official in the Bala Bolok District told NBC News that an Afghan policeman was also killed in the attack.

    Analysis: What's leading Afghan troops to turn against coalition?

    Ismail was shot and killed as the coalition and Afghan forces returned fire, the police chief said.

    Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international coalition force, also confirmed that the shooter had been killed.

    The Afghan Local Police, which is different from the Afghan National Police, is a village defense force being trained by international forces, including U.S. special forces.

    It was not immediately clear to which branch of the U.S. military the dead Americans belonged.

    Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

    Hoshang Hashimi / AP

    More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

    Launch slideshow

    The killings in the country's far west marked the sixth time in two weeks that a member of the Afghan security forces, or someone wearing their uniform, opened fire on international forces.

    28 attacks this year
    Such attacks — virtually unheard of just a few years ago — have recently escalated, killing at least 36 foreign troops so far this year and raising questions about the strategy to train national police and soldiers to take over security and fight insurgents after most foreign troops leave the country by the end of 2014.

    The NATO-led coalition has said such attacks are anomalies stemming from personal disputes, but the supreme leader of the Taliban boasted on Thursday night that the insurgents are infiltrating the quickly expanding Afghan forces.  

    So far in 2012, there have been 28 attacks reported on foreign troops by Afghans they are training, compared to 11 attacks in 2011, according to an Associated Press count, and five attacks in each of the previous two years.

    Six such attacks have come in the past two weeks alone, with six American troops killed last Friday in two separate shootings in Helmand province in the south and another American killed a few days previously on a U.S. base in Paktia province in the east.

    The trend raises questions about potential resentment by Afghans after more than a decade of international presence and it also renews concern that insurgents may be infiltrating the Afghan army and police, despite intensified screening.

    Insurgent infiltration or recruitment was behind only about 10 percent of this year's reported attacks on coalition forces by Afghan allies, Graybeal said earlier this week, citing investigations into attacks before those of the past week.

    Graybeal insisted the deadly violence is relatively small scale compared to the nearly 340,000 Afghan security forces now being trained.

    Dozens have been killed following a rash of deadly suicide  bombings in Afghanistan.  NBC's Atia Abawi reports. 

    The international coalition has said that Afghan forces are increasingly able to lead operations and already have started to assume responsibility for security in areas of the country that are home to 75 percent of the Afghan population.

    However, the Taliban have been quick to seize on the increasing number of attacks as a sign of Afghan rejection of foreign forces and the insurgents' own successful recruitment.

    Complete World news coverage on NBCNews.com

    Message from Omar
    The group's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said Thursday night that the insurgents "have cleverly infiltrated in the ranks of the enemy" and were successfully killing a rising number of U.S.-led coalition forces.

    All seven Americans aboard the helicopter were killed, including two Navy SEALs. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

    In an email to media organizations, Omar said the plan to transfer responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014 is a "deceiving drama" that the international community has orchestrated to hide its defeat.

    Seven American troops killed in Afghan chopper crash

    The Taliban leader's message came the same day that a U.S. military helicopter crashed during a firefight with insurgents in a remote area of southern Afghanistan, killing seven Americans and four Afghans in one of the deadliest air disasters of a war now in its second decade.

    The Taliban claimed they gunned down the Black Hawk.

    NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube, Atia Abawi and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • New Greece government agreed, says socialist party leader

    AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis

    Greece's newly sworn-in Prime Minister Antonis Samaras gestures to supporters after taking over from caretaker Prime Minister Panayiotis Pikramenos at Maximos Mansion in Athens.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    ATHENS - A conservative-led Greek government has been agreed and will form a team to "renegotiate" the international bailout deal that would save the country from bankruptcy, the leader of one of the coalition parties said Wednesday.

    Socialist PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos said his party would enter a three-way alliance with the larger conservative New Democracy and that cabinet posts would be decided by Wednesday evening.

    He said the key issue would be to form a team to renegotiate the $164.79 billion bailout deal from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

    Greece avoids 'Drachmageddon' but Europe debt crisis remains

    "Greece has a government and this is the message that the outgoing finance minister [George] Zanias will take to the Eurogroup," Venizelos told reporters.

    Reuters said Antonis Samaras would meet President Karolos Papoulias later on Wednesday to announce the coalition deal, after which he expected to be sworn in as prime minister.

    Greece appeared to have avoided crashing out of the euro currency zone early Monday after political parties in favor of an international bailout deal won a slim election majority – but the region's debt crisis showed no sign of abating. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    The opposition radical leftist bloc SYRIZA came second in the election and strongly opposes the bailout. A graph illustrating the results was published on the BBC website.

    A Greek exit from the euro joint currency zone is still viewed as a possibility, despite a narrow majority for parties who are broadly in favor of a bailout, despite the inevitable tough austerity measures.

    The Daily Telegraph reported that although public sector wages and pensions have been cut by 25-30 per cent since the country’s economic crisis took hold, thousands of redundancies have not taken place as promised, a privatization program has barely got off the ground and tax evasion remains endemic.

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