McLaren may not be competitive for months - The World News

McLaren may not be competitive for months

McLaren recognised on Saturday that it is likely to take them months to produce a competitive car for Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.

"We won't be as ready as we would like but we will do our best," racing director Eric Boullier told reporters after the penultimate day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya was marred by further mechanical problems.

"Reliability is still a concern clearly and I don't know how long it is going to take," added the Frenchman, whose British-based team are starting a new partnership with Honda after decades with Mercedes.

"We have some plans in place now, which have been drastically improved in both our organisations working together, and I think it is going to take a few races but we should be at least maybe by Europe ready to be more competitive."

The first race of the European season is Alonso's home Spanish Grand Prix on May 10, the fifth round of the championship.

The season opener is in Melbourne on March 15.

Danish reserve driver Kevin Magnussen was able to complete only 39 laps for McLaren on Saturday before an oil leak halted his progress, with the team deciding to stop and strip the engine.

Button had managed 100 laps on Friday, after just one timed effort on Thursday.

Magnussen, who raced for the team last year and is standing in for Alonso at the test after the Spaniard crashed last Sunday, sounded surprisingly upbeat after his first laps of 2015.

"It is very consistent, very predictable, very smooth in a way and just drivable, whereas last year’s car probably had more downforce, but it was much more sharp and on the limit and unpredictable," he said.

"There is a way to go yet with this car, but it is a completely new design and a new idea and I think it is a very good base. I think it is going to be a very good car, but maybe later in the season."

US defence chief convenes anti-IS war council in Kuwait

New Pentagon boss Ashton Carter will hold talks Monday in Kuwait with top US officers and representatives to examine the war exertion against the Islamic State jihadist bunch, authorities said.

Carter traveled to Kuwait City from Afghanistan on Sunday to seat the uncommon meeting that will see more than two dozen senior military officers and diplomats accumulate at the sprawling US Army base of Camp Arifjan, authorities said.

Carter, an accomplished Pentagon technocrat who took office a week ago, "needs it to be an open discussion paying little respect to rank," a senior US safeguard official told journalists.

The meeting was not planned to deliver another methodology however to permit Carter to better comprehend the test postured by the jihadists and the scope of endeavors went for vanquishing them, said the authority, who talked on state of secrecy.

Carter will be searching for an upgrade on all features of the battle on both the military and political front, including the Iraqi government's endeavors to enroll Sunnis into the battle against the IS fanatics, the authority said.

The discussions likewise will look at how to counter the IS gathering over the district.

Carter likely will bring up issues about "what it implies when we have gatherings swearing dependability to ISIL in Libya, in Egypt, in Afghanistan," said the authority utilizing an alternate acronym for IS and "how are we supposing about the following few years of the counter-terrorism battle," the authority said.

The meeting will incorporate the authority running the opposition to IS battle, Lieutenant General James Terry, and the heads of US Central Command, Africa Command, European charge, Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command, said Pentagon representative Rear Admiral John Kirby.

Ambassadors and regular citizen authorities because of join in incorporate John Allen, President Barack Obama's emissary to the opposition to IS coalition and the US uncommon agent to Syria, Daniel Rubinstein, he said.

Washington's ministers to Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will likewise go to the meeting.

Senior discernment authorities additionally will be available for talks that are intended to rise above bureaucratic divisions and data "stovepipes," authorities said.

Carter told correspondents before landing in Kuwait City that he had assembled the conference on the grounds that he was "attempting to survey the circumstance in Iraq, Syria, and the district all the more by and large".

The IS risk was "a provincial issue", Carter said, "and I needed to have the greater part of that ability spoke to".

On his first outing abroad as safeguard secretary in the wake of being confirmed last Tuesday, Carter came to Kuwait after a two-day visit to Afghanistan, counseling officers about the pace of a US troop withdrawal.

UN envoy to Syria this month to pursue freeze start date

The U.N. special envoy to Syria will travel to Damascus this month to pursue a start date for a proposed six-week suspension of government airstrikes and artillery shelling in the city of Aleppo, a new report says.

Staffan de Mistura this week announced the Syria government's willingness to try his plan to freeze hostilities in Syria's largest city, though it's not known whether opposition forces will agree to it.

The latest report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Syria's humanitarian crisis, released Friday, says de Mistura will send a team to Aleppo by the end of this month to assess the conditions for the freeze, "following which he expects to be able to announce when the beginning of the six weeks will come into effect."

The report says de Mistura will press the opposition to "do their part" and avoid the use of heavy weapons, including rockets and mortars, in Aleppo during the six-week period.

The proposed pause in hostilities in the northern city is meant to allow the U.N. to experiment with delivering humanitarian aid to Salaheddine, a densely populated and contested area in central Aleppo. If the test is successful, de Mistura envisions expanding the approach to other areas.

In support, Ban on Friday called for an immediate de-escalation of the conflict in Syria to give civilians relief and to allow a step toward a political solution of the four-year conflict.

A statement released by Ban's spokesman urges opposition forces to suspend their shelling of Aleppo to allow the freeze to be tested.

De Mistura has said he wants to start with Aleppo because it has symbolic value as Syria's diverse commercial capital and because it has the country's highest number of displaced people.

The city has been carved in two since opposition fighters launched an assault in mid-2012, leaving the eastern half in rebel hands and the western half with the government. Whole neighborhoods are in rubble, and opposition fighters face a two-front war against the government and the Islamic State group.

The overall conflict in Syria has killed at least 220,000 people and sent more than 3.8 million people fleeing the country.

Unwelcome mat: White House tries to counter Netanyahu visit

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world in what has become a nasty grudge match.

There are limits. Administration officials have discarded the idea of President Barack Obama himself giving an Iran-related address to rebut the two speeches Netanyahu is to deliver during his early March visit. But other options remain on the table.

Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America's leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington, according to the officials.

The administration has already ruled out meetings between Netanyahu and Obama, saying it would be inappropriate for the two to meet so close to Israel's March 17 elections. But the White House is now doubling down on a cold-shoulder strategy, including dispatching Cabinet members out of the country and sending a lower-ranking official than normal to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the officials said.

Vice President Joe Biden will be away, his absence behind Netanyahu conspicuous in coverage of the speech to Congress. Other options were described by officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

Netanyahu's plan for a March 3 address to a joint meeting of Congress has further strained already tense ties between the U.S. and Israel. Congressional Republicans orchestrated Netanyahu's visit without consulting the White House or State Department, a move the Obama administration blasted as a break in diplomatic protocol. Some Democratic lawmakers say they will boycott the speech.

U.S. officials believe Netanyahu's trip to Washington is aimed primarily at derailing a nuclear deal with Iran, Obama's signature foreign policy objective. While Netanyahu has long been skeptical of the negotiations, his opposition has increased over what he sees as Obama's willingness to make concessions that would leave Iran on the brink of being able to build a nuclear weapon. His opposition has intensified as negotiations go into overdrive with an end-of-March deadline for a framework deal.

"I think this is a bad agreement that is dangerous for the state of Israel, and not just for it," Netanyahu said Thursday.

The difference of opinion over the deal has become unusually rancorous.

The White House and State Department have both publicly accused Israeli officials of leaking "cherry-picked" details of the negotiations to try to discredit the administration. And, in extraordinary admissions this week, the administration acknowledged that the U.S. is withholding sensitive details of the talks from Israel, its main Middle East ally, to prevent such leaks.

The rebukes have only emboldened the leader of Israel, whose country Iran has threatened to annihilate. He has a double-barrel attack on the Iran talks ready for when he arrives in Washington. Not only will he address Congress, he will also deliver similar remarks at the AIPAC conference, an event to which administrations past and present have traditionally sent top foreign policy officials.

But maybe not this year.

An AIPAC official said Friday that the group has not yet received any reply to its invitation for senior administration figures to attend the meeting that starts March 1. The official stressed that last-minute RSVPs are not unusual, but the White House has been signaling for some time that a Cabinet-level guest may not coming.

Instead, the administration is toying with the idea of sending newly installed Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken to speak to the conference, according to officials familiar with internal discussions on the matter. But it's possible Treasury Secretary Jack Lew could attend.

US, Turkey agree 'in principle' to train, equip Syrian rebels: State Dept

The United States and Turkey have agreed "in principle" on a deal to train and equip Syrian rebel forces, the State Department said Tuesday.

"As we have announced before, Turkey has agreed to be one of the regional hosts for the train-and-equip program for moderate Syrian opposition forces," department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. "We expect to conclude and sign the agreement with Turkey soon."

Saudi king, Qatar emir discuss ties, IS seen on agenda

Saudi Arabia's King Salman held talks in Riyadh Tuesday with Qatar's emir, in what an analyst sees as part of a regional effort to strengthen ties against the Islamic State (IS) group.
Qatar's Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani is the latest Gulf leader to visit Riyadh this week, after Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait.
He and the Saudi monarch discussed the enhancement of their relations, as well as international developments, the official Saudi Press Agency said.
Anwar Eshki, chairman of the Jeddah-based Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, said the visits continue efforts begun under Saudi King Abdullah, who died last month, to reconcile Egypt and Qatar amid the rising IS threat.
"I believe they are trying to push Qatar and Egypt to talk together," he said.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are the main financial backers of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government, having pledged around $12 billion (10.5 billion euros) to it since he came to power.
Diplomatic relations between Egypt and Qatar soured after the Egyptian army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and launched a crackdown on his Doha-backed Muslim Brotherhood.
That triggered a crisis between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE but the three nations have since reinstated their envoys to Doha.
The rise of IS in Libya, on Egypt's western border, has heightened concerns after the group seized parts of Iraq and Syria last year.
"The Gulf wants Egypt to be a partner, allied against the terrorists in the area," Eshki said.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, are all part of a US-led coalition against IS in Syria and Iraq.
Last year UAE warplanes went into action from Egyptian bases in an abortive attempt to prevent Tripoli's fall to Islamist-backed militia,.
On Monday, Egypt carried out its first announced military action against IS in Libya, after the militants released a video showing their beheading of Egyptian Christians.