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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Algeria Awards Cegelec Contract for First Wind Farm

December 14, 2010

By Salah Slimani

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Algeria awarded a contract to build its first wind farm to the local unit of Cegelec SA, a French electrical engineering company.

Cegelec offered to invest 23 million euros ($31 million) in the project in 20 to 25 months, state utility Sonelgaz said in a statement distributed to reporters yesterday after the tender results.

Cegelec agreed to manufacture equipment locally and operate the farm, while Algerian companies will handle engineering work, equipment fitting and transportation, the Algiers-based company said. The wind farm will cover 30 hectares (74.1 acres) in Kabertene near the southwestern city of Adrar, according to Sonelgaz.

Algeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is seeking to diversify into renewable energy and decrease reliance on fossil fuel. The North African country plans to produce 5 percent of its electricity needs from solar energy by 2017, then-Oil Minister Chakib Khelil said in May. Algeria pumped 1.25 million barrels of crude per day in November, according to Bloomberg data.

French wind turbine manufacturer Vergnet SA said in February that it won the contract, worth 24 million euros, for a 10-megawatt wind park. Sonelgaz canceled the contract, seeking a cheaper bid, the Ennahar newspaper said today, citing Mohamed Arkab, the head of Sonelgaz’s engineering, electricity and gas unit.

--With assistance from Ola Galal in Cairo. Editors: Torrey Clark, Alex Devine

Source: Bloomberg Business Week.
Link: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-14/algeria-awards-cegelec-contract-for-first-wind-farm.html.

Algeria unveils renewable energy strategy

Authorities in Algeria are taking action to harness the country's enormous potential for solar power production.

By Mohand Ouali for Magharebia in Algiers – 14/12/10

The Algerian government is undertaking an aggressive new renewable energy development plan. Over the next 20 years, Algeria hopes to produce as much electricity from renewable sources as it currently produces from its natural gas power plants.

"In a few weeks, we shall present a new renewable energy development plan to the government. This is an extremely ambitious solar, wind and geothermal energy plan," Algerian Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi announced on December 6th in Algiers. "It's a huge program and a huge challenge. The government will work alongside and assist operators in its implementation."

The main purpose of this new policy is to prepare the country for the post-petrol era. While Algeria remains a significant producer of hydrocarbons, which are currently the main source of foreign income for the country, its internal demand is constantly growing. Co-operation agreements for alternative energy have already been signed with a number of countries, including France, the United States, Brazil, Russia, China and Germany.

Another aspect covered by the new plan is safeguarding Algeria's position as a European energy supplier and future provider of "clean" energy. With protection of the environment becoming an increasingly important political issue and with the inexorable rise in oil prices, there are many incentives to develop policies which encourage the use of alternative sources of energy.

It was in line with this trend that Algeria started the construction in 2007 of a hybrid power station using both solar energy and natural gas to produce 180 megawatts of electricity, alongside plans for a solar electricity plant in the Sahara with a capacity of 150 megawatts. In the near future, Algeria is expected to manufacture its own gas turbines and it also hopes to design and build power stations using its own national companies.

"It's a necessity, and even though this strategy may have come a little late, we can catch up," Sundous Energy head Amina Benhamou said to Magharebia. She highlighted the red tape which has tied up the existing program to develop renewable energies. "We're only starting as we reach the end of the five-year period over which it was supposed to be completed."

Speaking as the head of a business, she pointed out that there was considerable demand for solar energy, but the prohibitive costs associated with this solution were putting people off.

"The State must step in with some assistance for the market to develop. We have to take the long view. Morocco and Tunisia are already well ahead of us in this area, and yet Algeria has the greatest solar potential in the region, and more resources," Benhamou said.

She also pointed out the essential nature of human resources. "We cannot move forwards unless we train people. You need to have a certain culture in this area. There's a lack of skills and qualified manpower in the field, and all that's needed is a small engineering training module lasting a few hours to change things."

"It must also be possible to feed the electricity produced from this alternative energy into the national distribution network. The law exists but is not being applied. This is no way to encourage initiatives. But fundamentally, I'm still optimistic," Benhamou concluded, citing the example of the promise from the environment and development ministry to build the Boughzoul "eco-town".

The issue of renewable energy was on the agenda of the meeting by the Council of Ministers on December 5th, where they studied a communication relating to the creation of the Algerian Institute of Renewable Energy under the presidential directives ordering the promotion of these new power sources. These directives have already resulted in the promulgation of the law on energy control in 1999 and the law on renewable energies in 2004.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gave the government the task of coming up with measures to encourage investment and capitalize on the results of scientific research, particularly in renewable energies, to benefit the economy. He also ordered the government to bring a credible national plan to develop new and renewable energies before the Council of Ministers in 2011.

On an official visit to Germany on December 8th, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to set up a joint economic commission to develop the Desertec project.

This project, to be steered by German companies, is aimed at creating a vast network of wind and solar power farms in North Africa and the Middle East over the next forty years, which should provide 15% of Europe's power needs.

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/12/14/feature-03.

AI denounces lack of access to Algeria and Tindouf camps

London - The London-based international human-rights organization Amnesty International (AI) has denounced the lack of access to Algeria, including to the Tindouf camps (southwestern Algeria), controlled by the Polisario separatists.

Malcolm Smart, director of AI's Middle East and North Africa Program, told MAP that the AI hopes to have the same access to Algeria as the one it finds in Morocco.

He noted that the Algerian government informed the organization that it cannot pay visit to the country because of its critical position over the situation in Algeria.

Smart voiced hope that the organization be able to have access to the whole Algerian territory, including Tindouf camps, to shed light on many human rights violations in Algeria.

If we are to compare Morocco and Algeria, we can clearly see differences in approaches. Morocco's approach has made it possible to make considerable accomplishments, he said, adding that they expressed these remarks to the Algerian authorities who have not accepted them.

Smart pointed out that the organization wishes to raise cases similar to that of Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud, who was kidnapped and detained by the separatists on the Algerian soil.

12/14/2010
©MAP-All right reserved

Source: Arab Maghreb Press Agency (MAP).
Link: http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/politics/ai_denounces_lack_of6665/view.

Masses attending Hamas anniversary affirm support for resistance

15-12-2010

Al Qassam website-Gaza -Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, political bureau member of Islamic Jihad, has called for halting the negotiations process with Israel after its proven failure and to resort to national unity.

Speaking to the Hamas massive rally on the anniversary of its founding in Gaza on Tuesday on behalf of the national and Islamic forces, Hindi called for forming a unified national leadership of all factions that would determine future political steps.

He said that the huge masses attending Hamas's ceremony was a clear indication of the popular support for the option of resistance.

The Jihad leader said that Hamas boosted the resistance project in Palestine.

He said that the Fatah's authority in Ramallah should give up the negotiations process after it reached a deadlock.

Hindi asked the Arabs countries not to provide a cover up for any Palestinian concession, and rather to protect Jerusalem and the Palestine cause.

Source: Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades - Information Office.
Link: http://www.qassam.ps/news-3913-Masses_attending_Hamas_anniversary_affirm_support_for_resistance.html.

Iranian lawmakers to join Gaza-bound aid convoy in Syria

ISNA - Tehran
Service: Foreign Policy

12-14-2010

TEHRAN (ISNA)-Seven Iranian lawmakers are to join Gaza-bound Asian aid convoy in Syria.

The convoy arrived in Iran on Wednesday is to pass Turkey and Syria to reach respectively Rafah border crossing and Gaza Strip, an Iranian Parliament Member Mahmoud Ahmadi-Biqash told ISNA.

Seven Iranian lawmakers are to join the convoy in Syria next 11 days since it is to travel overland to reach Egypt and receive visa.

The convoy also arrived in Iranian parliament on Monday night, welcomed by parliamentarians.

Representatives of Amal and Islamic Movements were also present.

The convoy received $150,000 fundraising from Iranians which is to be turned into goods to be sent to Gaza Strip.

Representatives from India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and Azerbaijan have joined the group.

The convoy’s route involves India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Syria, it mainly aims at breaking Gaza closure, transfer of drugs and creating a unified Asian trend.

The convoy is to visit Iranian cities of Isfahan, Qom, Tehran, Zanjan and Tabriz.

Source: Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).
Link: http://www.isna.ir/ISNA/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1674352&Lang=E.

Haniyeh: Hamas will win elections

15/12/2010

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Given fair conditions, Hamas would win another landslide victory in all Palestinian areas Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Tuesday, "Hamas will get the West Bank and Gaza with more votes than before."

Speaking during a celebration marking the 23rd anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Haniyeh referenced a decision by the Supreme Court in Ramallah, which found that the PA decision to cancel local elections in the West Bank was illegal. The court said a new date for elections must be set immanently.

The speech, attended by thousands of party supporters in the Katiba Square west of Gaza City, extolled Hamas on points in contrast to the Fatah-led government in Ramallah.

Haniyeh focused on the failure of the peace process initiated by the American government, and comments published in the Hebrew press saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would only stop settlement building in return for a recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by Abbas.

"Hamas will not recognize Israel," Haniyeh said, as long as it continues to occupy Palestinian lands. "Israel is an enemy and there is no future for occupation," he said, naming in areas in Palestinian and Syrian towns in Gaza and the Golan Heights, "from the lake to the river to the sea."

The party leader said continued talks with Israel by the Palestinian Authority were useless, and urged Fatah to abandon the attempt, which he said was standing in the way of Palestinian unity.

"We will never run from reconciliation, we are moving close just as Fatah is moving closer, and we care as much as Fatah cares," he said calling on the ruling West Bank party to help solve the issues with the Egyptian reconciliation paper.

Haniyeh said PA forces would have to cease their campaign of political arrests, saying it did not reflect well on efforts by negotiators to reach a deal on security coordination.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=342060.

UK court grants bail to WikiLeaks' Julian Assange

Tue Dec 14

LONDON (AP) – A British judge granted bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday, but he remained in custody pending a possible appeal.

Swedish authorities were given two hours to lodge an appeal and their lawyer, Gemma Lindfield, said it was likely she would.

The 39-year-old Australian has been held in a London prison for a week after surrendering to Scotland Yard due to a Swedish arrest warrant in a sex-crimes investigation. He denies wrongdoing and his lawyer says he plans to fight extradition.

At Tuesday's hearing, District Judge Howard Riddle said Assange must abide by strict bail conditions. He must wear an electronic tag, live at a registered address, report to police every evening and observe two four-hour curfews each day.

A total of 240,000 pounds ($380,000) was put up as a guarantee by several supporters.

Assange's next court appearance was set for Jan. 11.

Supporters outside City of Westminster Magistrates' Court erupted in cheers when they heard news of the judge's ruling.

Lindfield, acting on behalf of Swedish authorities, had asked the court to deny Assange bail because the allegations in Sweden were serious, Assange had only weak ties to Britain and he had enough money "to abscond."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE... AP's earlier story is below...

LONDON (AP) — A British judge granted bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday, but he was being briefly held pending possible appeal.

Swedish authorities were given two hours to lodge an appeal and their lawyer, Gemma Lindfield, said it was likely she would.

The 39-year-old Australian has been held in a London prison for a week after surrendering to Scotland Yard due to a Swedish arrest warrant in a sex-crimes investigation.

World pays tribute to Holbrooke: "The Bulldozer"

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press – Tue Dec 14

BRUSSELS – They remembered him as "The Bulldozer" — a U.S. diplomat with such a forceful persona he could drag politicians, military brass and even warlords to the negotiating table in a quest for peace.

World leaders on Tuesday praised U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke for engineering the end of the 1992-1995 Bosnia war — Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II — and for seeking to bring stability to war-torn Afghanistan.

Even Holbrooke's main opponent in the war in Bosnia, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, expressed "sadness and regret" over Holbrooke's unexpected death Monday following surgery for a tear in his aorta. Karadzic had been hoping to call Holbrooke to testify in his genocide trial.

But in Afghanistan, the Taliban rejoiced at news of his death, claiming it was caused by failures in the U.S.-led war there and Holbrooke's "grappling with a constant psychological stress" from his position as President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The protracted Afghan war and the descending trajectory of the Americans' handling of the warfare in the country had a lethal dent on Holbrooke's health," the group said on jihadi Web sites monitored by SITE Intelligence Group, a private U.S.-based group that tracks Islamic militant communications.

The Taliban statement cited other examples of American and Soviet officials falling ill during the wars in Afghanistan and "retreating into the lap of death."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who worked closely with Holbrooke called him a giant and a legend in his time.

"His drive was immense. His desire to do good in the world was fierce, and he pursued all he set out to do with a resolution and tenacity that were second to none," Ban said in a letter to Holbrooke's family.

"His legacy will be his works, an inspiration to so many around the world."

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen paid tribute to Holbrooke's legendary diplomatic skills, saying he played an essential role in the 1995 Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian war and lauding his work in Afghanistan.

As Obama's special envoy, Holbrooke realized "that we sometimes have to defend our security by facing conflicts in distant places," Fogh Rasmussen said Tuesday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari also praised Holbrooke, who died at 69, though Holbrooke's style did not play as well with Karzai as it did with Balkan leaders.

Aides said Karzai considered the American envoy ignorant of Afghan culture. Perhaps as a result, Holbrooke played a less visible role in Afghanistan, with Sen. John Kerry taking the main role in convincing Karzai to agree to a runoff election in 2009.

"We will always remember ... his efforts for promoting peace and stability in our region, with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in Islamabad.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the world should be grateful to Holbrooke for his contribution to the international strategy in Afghanistan.

"We regret with all our heart that he will not be able to witness the success of the new strategy," Westerwelle said in Brussels.

Holbrooke earned the nickname "The Bulldozer" after he bullied warring Serbs, Croats and Muslims to agree to end the Bosnian war with sometimes risky diplomatic overtures.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who served as an envoy to Bosnia in the early 1990s, said the strategy gave Holbrooke many close friends but also many enemies.

"Maybe he was modern diplomacy's proof that if you want to make an omelet, you have to beat some eggs. When he knew what he wanted and ... he was a remarkable fighter," he wrote in a blog post.

Bildt described Holbrooke as "truly a giant among diplomats of our time," and "one of the best and the brightest."

British officials also offered tribute.

"He will always be remembered for his pre-eminent role in ending the vicious war in Bosnia, where his force of personality and his negotiating skill combined to drive through the Dayton peace agreement and put a halt to the fighting," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London.

Karadzic, who is on trial for war crimes at the international tribunal in The Hague, issued a statement through his lawyer saying he had been hoping to call Holbrooke as a witness.

After his surprise arrest on a Belgrade bus in 2008, Karadzic fought to have the war crimes case against him thrown out by claiming that Holbrooke granted him immunity from prosecution in exchange for the Bosnian Serb leader dropping out of public life.

Holbrooke denied ever having cut such a deal and judges rejected the claim, saying even if it existed, the deal would not be binding on the U.N. court.

Not all Bosnians admired Holbrooke's efforts to achieve peace, arguing that the multiethnic state he set up as part of the Dayton peace process had proven too unwieldy for effective governance.

"He was instrumental in bringing peace to Bosnia. An unjust peace, but still a peace," said Haris Silajdzic, Bosnia's wartime foreign minister who participated in the Dayton negotiations.

But Sarajevo's citizens, who suffered a 3 1/2-year siege during the Bosnian war that killed thousands, were more positive about Holbrooke's legacy.

"The Dayton agreement was reached to end the war, but it is no longer good for us and the time has come to change it," said Dalila Cikusic, a Sarajevo resident. "But that has nothing to do with Holbrooke, we must do it ourselves ... as far as Richard is concerned, I only have words of praise for him."

In Kosovo, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has proposed naming a square after Holbrooke in the capital of Pristina for his role in helping the province gain independence from Serbia.

__

AP writers from Europe and Asia contributed to this report.

South Africa Launches Space Agency

Shawn Humphrey – Mon Dec 13

South Africa formally kicked off its presence in the space in the space race by opening its first space agency on December 9th. The office, the National Space Agency of South Africa (Sansa), is based in Johannesburg. Minister of Science Naledi Pandor made the announcement.

The country currently has two micro-satellites in orbit, but the agency hopes to be fully operational by April 2012. It may take that long to coordinate mothballed space facilities from the apartheid era with currently less efforts by unaffiliated experts. The current Satellite Applications Center (SAC) will continue to operate out of Hartebeeshoek.

Former facilities include the Houwteq Aerospace Facility. Houwteq is located near Grabouw in the Western Cape and was originally commissioned in the 1980's to create a low-orbit observational satellite. They're currently used by the Institute for Satellite and Software Applications.

Existing projects in South Africa include a bid to host the Square Kilometer Array, the Southern African Large Telescope, and the SumbandilaSat satellite.

According to SANSA's new website launched on the 9th, their Twitter and Facebook pages are "updated daily". However, links were not provided. Many sections of the site were still under construction at press time, including the careers, procurement, and media sections. A picture gallery featured images of the current space program, and information could be found regarding the program's mission.

SANSA's first newsletter was available for download as a PDF from the site, noting that the agency will focus on six key areas. Those areas include earth observation, space operations, space science, space engineering, human capital development and science advancement.

According to the South African Space Portal, the nation play host to a major space exhibition event next year. The 62nd International Astronautical Congress will be held October 3rd through 7th 2011 in Cape Town. This will be the first time it will be held in Africa.

The Space Portal is currently managed by the National Research Foundation, an independent government entity.

During the launch, Sansa also signed memorandums of understanding with the China Centre for Resources Satellite Data and Application (CRESDA) and with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. SANSA also signed an inter-agency agreement that encourages cooperation between the South Africans and the Algerian Space Agency, including technology and space science collaboration. The Chinese and Brazilian Memorandums note that data from a series of earth resource satellites developed by both countries will be shared with African countries.

The Space Weather Operations Centre of the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory (HMO) was opened on December 10th. HMO is an Earth-Space Science national research facility of the National Research Foundation. It's one of twelve warning centers for monitoring, analyzing, and modeling earth and sun interactions.

Other African countries with space agencies apart from Algeria and South Africa include Nigeria and Egypt.

China probes "slave boss" in Uighur region

The report did not say where the workers were originally from, though it said some were confused about their backgrounds.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

Chinese police are hunting a factory boss who enslaved mentally handicapped people, forcing them to work long hours without pay and beating them if they tried to escape, Chinese media reported on Tuesday.

The boss of a construction materials factory in Uighur region, hired about a dozen people, many of whom are mentally disabled, to grind rocks into powder, but did not provide clothing, pay or enough food for the workers, Chinese website tianshannet.com reported.

The report did not say where the workers were originally from, though it said some were confused about their backgrounds.

He disappeared before police raided the factory on Monday morning, and may have fled with the workers -- some of whom had been enslaved for up to four years -- to Chengdu city in Sichuan province, the report said. His wife was being held by police.

Incidents of forced labor have shocked China in the past, with slave bosses often preying on the mentally handicapped.

In 2007, more than 1,000 people were found working as slaves in brick kilns in Shanxi province, following a father's desperate search for his missing teenage son. The central government vowed to prevent similar offenses, but cases are occasionally reported by Chinese media.

Last December, Chinese human traffickers targeted mentally disabled people from the southwestern Sichuan province countryside, luring them into dangerous employment contracts and sometimes even killing them in mine accidents for compensation.

"I have not asked the boss for the money yet," one worker who had been laboring at the factory for four years was cited by tianshannet.com as saying.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=67388.

Islamic party quits Pakistan govt

An Islamic party said on Tuesday it was pulling out of Pakistan's coalition after the dismissal of one of its members as a minister.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

An Islamic party said on Tuesday it was pulling out of Pakistan's coalition after the dismissal of one of its members as a minister, but the government was not expected to fall.

"It is impossible to stay in the coalition. We are saying goodbye to the government" Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) leader Fazal-ur-Rehman told reporters after a party meeting.

The decision was taken after Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani sacked two ministers including one from JUI, Muhammad Azam Khan Swati, the minister for science and technology, for publicly trading accusations of corruption.

Rehman said two other ministers from his party would resign.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=67398.

China releases long-serving dissident from jail: group

His whereabouts of the ethnic Mongolian rights activist Hada, are not known, an exiled group said on Monday.

Monday, 13 December 2010

China has released from jail one of its longest-serving dissidents, the ethnic Mongolian rights activist Hada, but his whereabouts are not known and he is likely still being detained, an exiled group said on Monday.

Hada was tried in China's northern Inner Mongolia region in 1996 and sentenced to 15 years in jail for separatism and spying and for his support for the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, which sought greater rights for ethnic Mongolians.

He was scheduled for release from jail in Chifeng, a city in Inner Mongolia northeast of Beijing, last Friday, the same day that another Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Police detained Hada's wife and son in the run-up to the release, though they have now apparently all been reunited, the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center said in a statement, showing pictures of the reunion on its website, www.smhric.org.

"Judging from the clothes Xinna and Uiles are wearing, these pictures seem to be pretty recent and authentic," Naraa, the sister of Hada's wife, Xinna, told the group, adding she did not know where they were.

"But the three are still not set free," she said.

Uiles is Hada's son. Many ethnic Mongolians in China use only one name.

Chinese authorities often place released political prisoners under house arrest or otherwise restrict their movements and contact with the outside world. The rights group said the picture appeared to have been taken in a hotel room.

"The scene suggests that the family reunion was probably arranged by the authorities in a place obviously not their own home," it said.

Xinna has previously told Reuters that she and her husband were merely trying to protect the cultural rights of ethnic Mongolians in China, denying the government's charges.

Telephone calls to Xinna and several other activists in Inner Mongolia were not answered or met with a message saying the telephone line had been disconnected.

Police in Chifeng declined to comment. Inner Mongolia government spokesman Wen Fei said he had never heard of Hada.

"If he's out of jail how should I know where he is, and if he's in jail then I also don't know where he is," Wen said.

Decades of migration by members of China's main Han ethnic group have made Chinese Mongolians a minority in their own land, officially comprising less than 20 percent of the almost 24 million population of Inner Mongolia.

Little is known about human rights issues in Inner Mongolia, as the Mongolians lack a well-known overseas advocate like Tibet's Dalai Lama or East Turkestan's Rebiya Kadeer.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=67332.

Operation Payback Has New Target: Corporate Fax Machines

By Robert McMillan, IDG News

Dec 13, 2010

The activists behind Operation Payback have come up with a new way to annoy corporations that have severed their ties with WikiLeaks: bombard them with faxes.

In online chats, group members have posted the fax numbers for about a half-dozen corporations and are calling volunteers to fill up the fax machines, using free online fax services such as MyFax.com and FaxZero.com. They're recommending that people use anonymizing software such as the Tor Project to access these sites, so that they cannot be traced by authorities.

The latest development comes after websites belonging to Visa, MasterCard International and PayPal have been hit with distributed denial of service attacks, launched by Operation Payback in an effort to pressure the companies to resume payment processing for WikiLeaks.

"The enemy is adapting to our strategies, Gentlemen, but they are a lumbering bureaucracy. We can change faster," the group said in a note being circulated on its chat servers Monday.

Activists are encouraged to send images of Guy Fawkes or random excerpts from WikiLeaks' leaked U.S. Department of State cables to the fax numbers.

Paul Mutton, a security analyst with the Netcraft Web monitoring firm, said that it's not clear how damaging the fax campaign has been. Within hours of its launch, the online chatroom set up to coordinate the fax attacks had 73 members, he said.

The loosely organized group behind Operation Payback, called Anonymous, has tried this tactic before. In January 2008 it encouraged members to fax-bomb the Church of Scientology, another of its favorite targets.

Although Operation Payback's attacks have gained a lot of media attention, they have had little effect on their targets' core businesses. MasterCard said that some of its SecureCode transaction processing was slowed down last week, but the back-end transaction systems used by Visa and MasterCard have been unaffected by the attacks. Paypal's Paypal.com website went down on Thursday, but the company said that the servers it uses to process transactions were virtually unaffected.

Meanwhile, Operation Payback has become a top news story. "It's certainly drummed up a few news headlines," Mutton said.

The attacks aren't difficult to thwart, but they do cost money as companies have to scramble and harden their infrastructure. In the meantime, they make it hard for customers to reach the company. "Those websites are usually the first port of call for anyone who wants to use those online services," Mutton said.

The fax attacks look like they could be an annoyance, and they appear to be having some effect. Anonymous has posted a list of numbers that it says are no longer responsive. One number, the Visa fax number listed by Yahoo Finance, was disconnected Monday afternoon. A Visa spokesman did not immediately have a comment on the situation, but Visa seems to be aware of the problem. A call center operator asked for Visa's fax number on Monday said simply: "I cannot provide that information."

Source: PC World.
Link: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/213473/operation_payback_has_new_target_corporate_fax_machines.html.

Tizi Ouzou hosts Maghreb storytelling festival

2010-12-13

Performers from Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, Morocco and host Algeria gathered in Tizi-Ouzou over the week-end for the 5th Maghreb Recitation and Storytelling Festival. The four-day event ends Monday (December 13th) with a special show, "A Night of Maghreb Tales".

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2010/12/13/newsbrief-06.

Iran Plans To Build Second Spaceport

by Staff Writers
for The Tehran Times
Tehran, Iran (SPX) Dec 14, 2010

Iran plans to construct its second spaceport, Communications and Information Technology Minister Reza Taqipour said on Sunday.

"At present, there is only one space launch base in the country... but there are some geographical limitations (in regard to launching satellites and missiles)," Taqipour told the Mehr News Agency.

Thus, Iran has carried out a feasibility study on the construction of a second spaceport in order to overcome those limitations, he added.

The current launch site is located in Semnan Province, and in recent years, two spacecraft have been launched from the center.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Taqipour said there are two telemetry tracking and control centers in the country that can track and control satellites launched from Iran, but they belong to other countries.

Iran has made great progress in its space program in recent years.

The Islamic Republic successfully launched a domestically manufactured satellite carrying a capsule containing a rat, turtles, and worms in February 2010.

The launch of the Kavoshgar 3 (Explorer 3) satellite was Iran's first experiment in sending living creatures into space.

Iran also plans to send people into space within 10 years

Source: The Tehran Times

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Iran_Plans_To_Build_Second_Spaceport_999.html.

Holbrooke remembered as 'giant' of US diplomacy

WASHINGTON (AP) – Few U.S. diplomats had the breadth, depth or length of service of Richard Holbrooke, who wrote part of the Pentagon Papers, was the architect of the 1995 Bosnia peace accords and served as President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Holbrooke's unexpected death Monday at 69, following surgery for a tear in his aorta, marked the end of a storied career. He served through defining eras in U.S. diplomacy, witnessing the end of European colonialism and the Cold War and the rise of international terrorism as the greatest threat to America.

Calling Holbrooke "a true giant of American foreign policy," Obama paid homage to his crisis expert as "a truly unique figure who will be remembered for his tireless diplomacy, love of country and pursuit of peace." Holbrooke deserves credit for much of the hard-won progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the president said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Holbrooke's presence would be especially missed this week as the Obama administration finishes its review of the Afghan war, expected Thursday. Mullen said Holbrooke helped write and "deeply believed in" the war strategy.

"That we have been making steady progress in this war is due in no small measure to Richard's tireless efforts and dedication," Mullen said. "I know he would want our work to continue unabated. And I know we will all feel his bully presence in the room as we do so."

Holbrooke served under every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy. He brought a lion's appetite for difficult work, from Indochina and the Pacific to Europe, Africa and, in his last incarnation, South Asia.

Supremely self-confident, brash and instantly dismissive of critics, Holbrooke entered the foreign service in the early 1960s at the height of what critics called the State Department's "pale, male and Yale" phase.

It was a time when the dictum of former Secretary of State Henry Stimson — "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail" — still rang through the corridors of Foggy Bottom, the State Department's Washington neighborhood.

At the time of his death, Holbrooke — an Ivy League graduate of Brown University, not Yale — was serving a vastly different agency. The State Department in recent years has been led by an African-American man and three women, one of them African-American.

And, quite far from Stimson's admonition, the department instructed its diplomats to seek out personal information about foreign leaders and politicians, according to leaked classified documents released by the WikiLeaks website.

Holbrooke had a forceful style that earned him nicknames such as "The Bulldozer" and "Raging Bull."

His career began with a posting in Vietnam in 1962 and included time as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam.

His sizable ego, tenacity and willingness to push hard for results won him both admiration and animosity.

"If Richard calls you and asks you for something, just say yes," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said. "If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful."

The bearish Holbrooke said he had no qualms about "negotiating with people who do immoral things."

"If you can prevent the deaths of people still alive, you're not doing a disservice to those already killed by trying to do so," he said in 1999.

Reflecting on the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke wrote in The Washington Post in March 2008: "The conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American history, surpassing even Vietnam."

Born in New York City on April 24, 1941, Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke had an interest in public service from early on. He was good friends in high school with a son of Dean Rusk and he grew close to the family of the man who would become secretary of state for Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967.

The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defense Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese.

After stints in and out of government — including as Peace Corps director in Morocco, editing positions at Foreign Policy and Newsweek magazines and adviser to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign, Holbrooke became assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs from 1977-81. He then shifted back to private life — and the financial world, at Lehman Brothers.

A lifelong Democrat, he returned to public service when Bill Clinton took the White House in 1993. Holbrooke was U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

"He could always be counted on for his imagination, dedication and forcefulness," Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday.

One of his signature achievements was brokering the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia.

Holbrooke's efforts would later lead to controversy when wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told a war crimes tribunal in 2009 that Holbrooke had promised him immunity in return for leaving politics. Holbrooke denied it.

Holbrooke left the State Department in 1996 to take a Wall Street job with Credit Suisse First Boston, but was never far from the diplomatic fray, serving as a private citizen as a special envoy to Cyprus and then the Balkans.

In 1998, he negotiated an agreement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, where they were accused of conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign.

"I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view," he said later.

When the deal fell apart, Holbrooke went to Belgrade to deliver the final ultimatum to Milosevic to leave Kosovo or face NATO airstrikes, which ultimately rained down on the capital.

Holbrooke returned to public service in 1999, becoming U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

With his long-standing ties to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Holbrooke was a strong supporter of her 2008 bid for the White House. He had been considered a favorite to become secretary of state if she had won.

"Richard Holbrooke saved lives, secured peace and restored hope for countless people around the world," Bill Clinton said in a statement. Hillary Clinton called him one of America's "fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants."

When her presidential campaign ran out of steam, Holbrooke began reaching out to Obama.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, called Holbrooke "our diplomatic wingman" and said he was "a great American and a good friend."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Holbrooke's death "a big loss for the American people." In neighboring Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari said: "His services will be long remembered. The best tribute to him is to reiterate our resolve to root out extremism and usher in peace."

Holbrooke is survived by his wife, author Kati Marton, and two sons from a previous marriage, David Holbrooke and Anthony Holbrooke.

Wild seeds seen as world crop 'insurance'

by Staff Writers
London (UPI) Dec 10, 2010

British scientists say they plan to collect wild plant relatives of essential food crops including wheat, rice and potatoes to preserve their genetic traits.

The project, coordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, aims to safeguard valuable genetic traits in wild plants that could be bred into crops to make them more hardy and versatile, the BBC reported Friday.

The plant material collected will be stored in seed banks in the long term, but will also be used in "pre-breeding trials" to find out if the wild varieties could be used to combat diseases already threatening food production.

"There is a real sense of urgency about this," said Paul Smith, head of the Millennium Seed Bank at London's Kew Gardens.

"For some of these species, we may just get this one bite of the cherry, because so many of them are already threatened (with extinction) in their natural habitats," he said.

The hope is that the wild relatives of food crops will help plant-breeders produce strains that can cope with changing climate, plant diseases and loss of viable agricultural land.

"All our crops were originally developed from wild species -- that's how farming began," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

"Climate change means we need to go back to the wild to find those relatives of our crops that can thrive in the climates of the future."

Source: Seed Daily.
Link: http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Wild_seeds_seen_as_world_crop_insurance_999.html.

Sand, snow, lightning storms wreak Mideast havoc

by Staff Writers
Cairo (AFP) Dec 12, 2010

Winds, rain, sandstorms and hail battered the southern and eastern Mediterranean on Sunday, killing at least five people, closing ports and disrupting traffic in the Suez Canal.

Drought-stricken countries across the Middle East had been praying for rain for weeks when the weather turned violent at the weekend, with at least five people killed as gale-force winds and torrential rain pounded the coastline.

Winds topped 100 kilometers (60 miles) per hour and waves reached up to 10 meters (32.8 feet) tall as cities in Lebanon and Israel suffered power cuts.

At least three people were killed in Egypt when a factory collapsed in heavy rain in the densely populated northern port city of Alexandria.

Six others were also seriously injured in the collapse, a security official said, adding that 30 people could have been working in the six-storey factory.

The official Egyptian MENA news agency reported that streets in the northern Beheira governorate were inundated and its cities and villages also experienced power cuts.

The storms, which briefly disrupted flight schedules, come after unseasonably high temperatures and a lack of rain ravaged forests across the region and left farmers struggling to survive.

A Cairo airport official said five inbound flights had to be diverted to other airports in Egypt but no decision was made to cancel any departures.

An Italian container ship was also stranded off Egypt's northwestern coast of Marsa Matruh after its engines broke down, with 21 crew on board still waiting to be rescued.

Vessel owner Stefano Messina told the Italian news agency Ansa that a tug boat was on its way from Crete to assist the ship which he said was carrying toxic materials including paint and resins.

"The cargo is safe and cannot provoke an environmental catastrophe. There are 38 containers of paint and resins," Messina was quoted as saying.

Rain and hail whipped across Lebanon as the long-awaited first snowstorm of the year fell on mountains on Sunday -- good news for the country's famed ski resorts but leaving many commuters stranded in icy conditions.

Seaside roads and ports closed on Sunday morning, hours after a 45-year-old woman was killed when a falling palm tree crashed into her car.

The Beirut government evacuated several homes on the coast in the south and placed emergency rescue teams on alert.

In Israel, the body of the Russian tourist blown into the sea on Saturday has been found, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Sunday.

Waves of up to seven meters prevented police from carrying out searches for him but "his body later washed ashore on one of the beaches nearby," Rosenfeld said. Two people were also moderately hurt by falling trees, he added.

Public television reported that 30 Israelis had been slightly injured by falling trees and other wind-blown objects on Sunday. In Tel Aviv alone, more than 120 trees were uprooted, it said.

The storm began on Saturday, a week after a devastating forest fire killed 43 people near the northern port city of Haifa which was closed on Sunday. Some flights out of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport were also disrupted.

A Moldovan freighter also went down in stormy seas some 15 kilometers from Israel's port of Ashdod on Sunday, but its 11 Ukrainian crew members were all rescued unharmed.

In the Golan Heights, an Israeli-occupied plateau which adjoins Syria, snow and rain were abundant but sandstorms were expected in the south of the country, Israel's meteorology department said.

A snowstorm lashed Damascus, disrupting traffic but also bringing some relief from drought which has gripped Syria for the past four years. UN estimates say the drought has affected around 1.3 million Syrians.

Sandstorms also hit the desert countries of Jordan and Egypt and visibility deteriorated while temperatures plummeted.

Jordan was also bracing for heavy rain and snow, which officials warned could lead to flooding.

In Egypt, the bad weather forced several ports to close and disrupted traffic in the Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

The waterway was hit by poor visibility and winds of up to 40 knots an hour, said an official at the canal, Egypt's third-largest source of foreign revenue after tourism and remittances from expatriate workers.

The authorities barred south-bound ships from entering the waterway, and north-bound traffic from the Red Sea was limited.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Sand_snow_thunderstorms_wreak_Mideast_havoc_999.html.

أميركي يهرب من إيران على حصان

14/12/2010 م

بعد فشله في المغادرة بالطرق الرسمية
أميركي يهرب من إيران على حصان

عندما قرر قنبر زادة وحيدي الأميركي من أصل إيراني والبالغ من العمر 75 عاما أن يزور أقرباءه في طهران في مايو/ أيار 2008، سافر بطريقة تقليدية وركب طائرة أقلعت من لوس أنجلوس وانتهى به المطاف في إيران.

ولكن طريق عودته إلى الولايات المتحدة لم يكن تقليديا بأي شكل من الأشكال، على الأقل بحسب ما هو معتاد في يومنا هذا.

فبعد سبعة أشهر من منعه من مغادرة إيران ومصادرة جواز سفره ورفض المحاكم الثورية الإيرانية لطلباته، قرر وحيدي أن يأخذ زمام المبادرة بيده.

هروب جرئ

وفي خطة هروب جريئة، قفز وحيدي على ظهر حصان واستأجر أدلاء ليرشدوه نحو وجهته وبدأ رحلة استمرت 14 ساعة عبر خلالها الجبال المتجمدة على الحدود الشمالية الغربية لإيران مع تركيا.

وبعد أن عبر إلى تركيا على الجهة الشرقية من الحدود، ترك حصانه واستقل حافلة إلى أنقرة التي وصلها يوم 9 يناير/ كانون الثاني 2009 واتجه فورا إلى القسم القنصلي بسفارة الولايات المتحدة وطلب المساعدة.

الدبلوماسيون الأميركيون اندهشوا من جَلَدْ وحيدي الذي وصلهم بصحة جيدة بعد أن خاض تلك الرحلة المضنية، وهو الشيخ المسن.

محنة مجهولة

محنة وحيدي التي لم يعرف أحد منا عنها شيئا، كشفتها إحدى البرقيات الصادرة من سفارة الولايات المتحدة في أنقرة، والتي سربها موقع ويكيليكس المناصر لحرية تداول المعلومات.

تروي البرقية كيف أن رحلة وحيدي إلى إيران التي غادرها إبان الثورة الإسلامية عام 1979 لزيارة قبر والديه، تحولت إلى كابوس عندما صادرت السلطات جواز سفره وهو بمطار طهران ليغادر البلاد بعد انتهاء زيارته.

ابتزاز وسياسة

تقول البرقية إن المواطن الأميركي الذي كان إيرانيا بالأمس القريب، أدرك أن هناك سببين وراء مصادرة جواز سفره ورفض السلطات إعادته، أولهما: عملية ابتزاز تقليدية عندما أُفهِمَ بكل وضوح أن دفع مبلغ 150 ألف دولار سيسهل عملية مغادرته البلاد.

الثاني -وفق البرقية- هو طلب السلطات الإيرانية منه أن يطلب من أبنائه الكف عن تنظيم حفلات لفرقتهم الموسيقية المعادية لطهران بمنطقة الخليج العربي.

غير أن رد وحيدي لم يرق للسلطات الإيرانية ولم يساهم في إنهاء محنته عندما قال للمحققين إنه من المستحيل أن يمتثل أبناؤه لأمر مثل ذلك، لأنهم ترعرعوا في مجتمع أميركي حيث لا يصغي الأبناء للآباء بل يصغون إلى ما هم مقتنعون به فقط.

وتصف البرقية الصعاب التي مرّ بها وحيدي خلال رحلته وتقول "في أوقات معينة تعين على أدلائه أن يعانقوه بقوة لبعث بعض الدفء في عروقه المتجمدة. وكفارس غير متمرس بركوب الخيل على سفوح الجبال، ونتيجة لتواصل الرحلة لساعات وساعات فقد وحيدي تركيزه وسقط عن حصانه وتدحرج جسده وسط أشجار الغابات". قال وحيدي للدبلوماسيين بالسفارة إنه في تلك اللحظات فقد أمله في الحياة، واعتقد أنه سيموت على سفوح تلك الجبال.

وتقول أيضا إن محنة وحيدي لم تنته تماما فور وصوله إلى الجانب التركي، حيث اعتبره الأتراك مهاجرا غير شرعي وأرادوا إعادته إلى إيران، إلا أن السفارة الأميركية بأنقرة تدخلت لحسم الأمر وسمح له بالعودة إلى أميركا.

المصدر: الجزيرة.
الرابط: http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/EXERES/54C5D334-A4ED-45D0-9ABF-A93595527414.htm.

الكويت تغلق مكتب قناة الجزيرة

13/12/2010 م

قررت الحكومة الكويتية إغلاق مكتب قناة الجزيرة في الكويت، وسحب التراخيص والاعتمادات الممنوحة لمراسليها.

وبررت إدارة الإعلام المرئي والمسموع الكويتية قرار الإغلاق بأنه "بسبب ما قامت به الجزيرة من نقل بعض الأحداث الأخيرة". وما قالت "إنه تدخّلٌ في الشأن الداخلي الكويتي، وعدم التزام القناة بتعليمات الوزارة"، حسب ما جاء في رسالة من إدارة الإعلام المرئي والمسموع الكويتية.

ومن جانبه قال الناطق الإعلامي باسم قناة الجزيرة، إن وزارة الإعلام الكويتية قامت يوم الجمعة الماضي بالاتصال بمدير مكتب القناة هناك وأبلغته بأنها ستغلق المكتب في حال استضافة النائب المعارض مسلّم البراك على قناة الجزيرة مباشر في ذلك اليوم.

وأضاف الناطق باسم القناة أن الجزيرة رفضت الامتثال لهذا الطلب، وطلبت من الوزارة المشاركة في البرنامج عبر ممثل لها، على قاعدة "الرأي.. والرأي الآخر".

إلا أن الحكومة الكويتية رفضت ذلك، وعمدت في حينه إلى وقف جهاز البثّ الفضائي، قبل أن تقوم اليوم باتخاذ قرارها بإغلاق المكتب.

المصدر: الجزيرة.
الرابط: http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/EXERES/A28EF332-338E-4867-90E3-AF92BA2D9C40.htm.

Residents of unofficial Kutupalong camp complain of harassment

Monday, 13 December 2010

Ukhiya, Bangladesh: Security forces from the registered Kutupalong refugee camp have been harassing residents of a neighboring unregistered camp, according to one refugee committee member who declined to be named.

Residents of the unofficial camp, which is not recognized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, say that security officers regularly visit the area to arrest them without cause, often charging them with simply visiting friends or family members outside the camp.

The refugee committee member said that one resident was arrested on December 10 for visiting a friend’s hut within the makeshift camp.

On the same day, security officers also arrested a man identified only as Shoffiullah, 65, along with two of his relatives who were visiting from Teknaf.

Another man, identified only as Yasin, 37, from the unofficial Kutupalong camp, was arrested and brought to a security outpost near the camp, said a fellow refugee, who added that police took 2,000 taka that was in Yasin’s possession at the time of his arrest.

Residents at the unofficial Kutupalong camp have accused a man identified only as Nuru, who they say is an unregistered and unlicensed doctor, of spying on refugees while pretending to administer medical treatment to residents and passing information about them to security and police officers.

When camp committee members sought to block Nuru from entering the camp, Nuru threatened to have the police intervene, they said.

Source: Kaladan Press Network.
Link: http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2947:residents-of-unofficial-kutupalong-camp-complain-of-harassment.

Jordan, Lebanon ink military cooperation agreement

Mon, 13 Dec 2010

Amman - Jordan and Lebanon on Monday signed a military cooperation agreement, according to the official Petra news agency.

The accord "specifies the legal framework for bilateral military cooperation", the agency said.

It was signed by head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian armed forces, General Mashaal al-Zaben, and the visiting commander of the Lebanese army, General Jean Kahwagi.

Kahwagi was later received by Jordan's King Abdullah II, who expressed "Jordan's full backing for efforts being exerted to bolster Lebanon's security and stability and enable it to confront all challenges", a royal court statement said.

Jordan and Egypt have replaced Syria over the past few years in training Lebanese forces, with approval from the United States and France.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/357984,ink-military-cooperation-agreement.html.

Somali govt. bans aid agencies

Wed Dec 15, 2010

The transitional government of Somalia has imposed a ban on a number of aid groups operating in the country as instability and violence is surging.

The groups which include the UN Children's Fund, the international committee of the Red Cross, the Norwegian Refugee Council and also Danish Refugee Council, were suspended since they did not turn up for a meeting called by the government about drought in the country.

The announcement was made by the deputy minister of water, energy and mining ministry, Abdurahman Yusuf Farah, on Tuesday, the AFP news agency reported.

Other international aid and humanitarian agencies have been previously prohibited by al-Shabab fighters from working in areas where they have gained control.

However, it is the first time that the Somali government has taken such a measure against the UN and other international organizations.

The situation is dramatically tense in the Somali capital as heavy fighting continues between al-Shabab fighters and government forces backed by African Union (AU) troops.

Al-Shabab fighters accuse the AU of invading their country and say they will continue their battle until the invading forces withdraw from the country.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Over the past two decades, up to one million people have lost their lives in the fighting between rival factions and due to famine and disease.

There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia. More than 300,000 IDPs are sheltering in Mogadishu in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155505.html.

Israel rebuffs call to join NPT

Wed Dec 15, 2010

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has dismissed Australia's call on Tel Aviv to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd recently told The Australian newspaper, "Our view has been consistent for a long period of time, and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the NPT, and that includes Israel."

"And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to IAEA inspection," Rudd said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Tuesday, however, Lieberman rejected the demand, saying that it did not matter if Tel Aviv refused to be a signatory to the pact, Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported.

Since 1958, when Tel Aviv began building its Dimona plutonium and uranium processing facility in the Negev desert, it has allegedly manufactured scores of nuclear warheads, turning into the sole owner of such weapons in the Middle East.

Former United States President Jimmy Carter has attested to the existence of the arsenal, which he has said includes between 200 to 300 nuclear warheads.

Rudd is on a tour to the region, which has already taken him to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

He has also referred to Tel Aviv's relentless settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank as an obstacle to establishment of, what he referred to as, "peace" in the Middle East.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155507.html.

Flotilla II's departure time set

Wed Dec 15, 2010

International activists are to reach Gaza next year under the banner of Freedom Flotilla II after a first such fleet came under a deadly Israeli attack.

The seaborne convoy is to sail to the beleaguered coastal sliver in spring 2011, carrying humanitarian and medical supplies, the Palestinian-run International Middle East Media Center reported on Tuesday.

Enjoying Turkish support, the first Flotilla sailed for the Gaza Strip earlier this year, similarly intending to break Tel Aviv's siege of the enclave -- in place since mid-June 2007. The fleet was carrying approximately 750 human rights activists and around 10,000 tons of construction material, medical equipment and school supplies.

Israel's military attacked the convoy in international waters on May 31, killing nine Turkish activists and injuring about 50 others. The activists were subsequently expelled and the cargoes transferred to the Israeli port of Ashdod in the south of Tel Aviv.

Organizers, however, attended a press conference in Rome on Monday, stating that the next mission is to be joined by activists from twenty, mainly European, countries.

One coordinator, Germano Monte, underlined the importance of Italy's support for the bid to ensure the safety of the human rights campaigners and prevent the previous disaster.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155516.html.

Israel, Greece talking military co-op

Tue Dec 14, 2010

Israel is holding talks with Greece on the creation of a new Mediterranean military alliance, following the breakup of Tel Aviv's strategic partnership with Ankara.

Israeli military officials have reportedly traveled to the Greek capital, Athens, to discuss the new alliance. Reports say the delegation could also discuss a possible multi-million-dollar arms sale -- including weapons systems for the Hellenic Air Force's F-16 fleet, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Tel Aviv's efforts to forge new military alliances come after Ankara cut off its military and diplomatic ties with Israel over a deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid convoy organized by Turkish human rights activists.

On May 31, Israeli navy commandos stormed the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters, killing nine Turkish activists and injuring about 50 others onboard the six-ship civilian aid fleet.

Despite widespread international condemnations and to Ankara's further wrath, Tel Aviv defended the move as an “act of self-defense.”

Turkey has repeatedly demanded a formal apology from Israel and compensation for the attack -- calls that have so far fallen on deaf ears in Tel Aviv.

The military talks between Israel and Greece come months after Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli prime minister to visit Greece in August.

While Turkey has closed its skies to Israeli warplanes, Tel Aviv has turned to Greece as a new partner.

Israel has held four rounds of drills in Greece over the past year, with the most recent ones in October and November seeing the deployment of squadrons of fighter jets and attack helicopters.

Israel -- whose international image has been seriously tarnished following its Flotilla attack and the deadly war it waged on Gaza at the turn of 2009 -- is expected to keep up its efforts to boost military cooperation with Greece and is also likely to hold maneuvers in neighboring Bulgaria in early 2011.

Last week, the Israeli army also held joint war games with the Italian Air Force in the Negev desert on the heels of another round of joint drills in Sardinia.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155378.html.

Israel, Egypt sign natural gas deal

Mon Dec 13, 2010

An Israeli firm has signed a multi-billion-dollar agreement with Egypt's East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) company to buy Egyptian natural gas for the next 20 years.

Based on the contract, EMG will provide Leisrael 1.4 billion cubic meters of gas annually for 20 years, one of the shareholders in EMG said on Monday.

The gas delivery will begin in the first or second quarter of 2011. The 4.2-billion-dollar contract's value is estimated to reach USD 10 billion over time.

The new deal is in addition to an agreement EMG signed in 2008 with US-Israeli consortium Yam Thetis to sell 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas through 2015, fertilizer and specialty chemical maker Israel Chemicals (ICL) said.

EMG is a joint company owned by Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem, Egypt Natural Gas Co, Thailand's PTT, Israel's Merhav Group, Ampal-American Israel Corp (AMPL.O) and American businessman Sam Zell.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155313.html.

Book by Gaza victim being published

Tue Dec 14, 2010

A UK publisher has started a campaign to attract funds for the publication of the photos and writings of a UK journalist who died at the hands of the Israeli military.

An Israeli sniper killed human rights campaigner and photojournalist Thomas Peter Hurndall with a headshot in April 2003 in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. The victim was targeted while rushing to safety Palestinian children who had been too frightened by Israeli fire to move.

Independent publisher Trolley Books launched the eight-week-long fundraising initiative in late November, offering interested people the chance to buy the work, entitled The Only House Left Standing -- the Middle East Journals of Tom Hurndall in advance, the British Journal of Photography reported.

The book will feature the deceased's photographs and personal writings from his diaries and poems.

Following his injury, Hurndall's treatment was delayed for two hours at the border, reads his obituary published in the British daily The Guardian. He died in 2004, having spent nine months in a vegetative state.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155370.html.

'Israeli occupation supported by West'

Tue Dec 14, 2010

Iranian Deputy Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Abu Torabi Fard says Israel continues to survive with the support of the West.

“The regime (in Tel Aviv) has [also] reinforced its occupation of the [Palestinian] territories with the backing of European countries,” IRNA quoted Abu Torabi as saying during a meeting with activists of Asia's first humanitarian aid convoy to Palestine in Tehran on Monday.

The Asian People's Solidarity for Palestine convoy, which is traveling through Iran before heading to Turkey, arrived in the Iranian capital on Sunday and was greeted by the city's people and officials.

Abu Torabi also said that even “the Israeli authorities are aware of the fact that the regime would certainly collapse with the first defeat.”

He stated that the “symbolic” move of the international aid convoy carrying relief materials for the besieged Gaza Strip “demonstrates that Muslims and free-thinking people are always fighting cruelty and oppression.”

The convoy began its journey from New Delhi earlier this month and entered Iran thorough the southeastern city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan province on December 9.

Earlier in the day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed the international effort to break the siege of Gaza, saying, "Today the path to humanity's historic aspiration passes through Palestine."

He also condemned Israel for committing genocide in Palestine.

The Iranian president added that in all corners of the world, people with “pure hearts and freedom-seeking thoughts” strive for the liberation of Palestine.

The Gaza aid convoy will pass through a number of other countries, including Turkey and Egypt, before entering Gaza via the Rafah crossing on December 27, which is the second anniversary of the beginning of the Israeli war against the people of Gaza.

The Israeli war took the lives of more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, one of the most densely-populated regions in the world.

Israel imposed the siege on the coastal enclave in June 2007.

Some 1.5 million Gazans are being denied their basic rights, including freedom of movement and the right to appropriate living conditions, work, health, and education. The poverty rate in the Gaza Strip is 80 percent and the unemployment rate stands at 60 percent.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155371.html.

'Iran-Arab ties on right course'

Tue Dec 14, 2010

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss has lauded Iran's efforts to expand relations with Arab countries, saying Iran-Arab ties are on the right track.

Al-Hoss also praised Iran's stance on the Palestine issue, saying, “Palestine is the subject that draws together Iran and Arabs,” IRNA quoted him as saying at a meeting with the Iranian ambassador to Beirut, Ghazanfar Rokn-Abadi, in the Lebanese capital on Monday.

The former Lebanese premier commended the Islamic Republic for its support of Muslims and endorsed Iran's policies.

Last October, Al-Hoss highlighted Iran's role in the global balance of power and noted that it is in the interests of Arab countries to have good relations with Iran.

“Iran is very mindful of good relations, strong relations, with Arabs because this will give Iran space in the international arena with the Arabs on their side,” he said in an interview with Press TV on October 12.

He also stated out that Iran is “backing Lebanon with nothing in return.”

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155368.html.

Turkey will not attend Iran-P5+1 talks

Mon Dec 13, 2010

The Turkish ambassador to Tehran says Turkey will only host talks between Iran and the six major world powers and will not participate in the negotiations.

“Since Iran was interested in talks being held in Turkey, and the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, the US, and Germany) had a positive view toward this matter, Turkey accepted Iran's proposal,” Ambassador Umit Yardim said on Monday.

Last week, Iran and the P5+1 group wrapped up two days of multifaceted talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

At the comprehensive talks, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili represented Iran and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton represented the P5+1 group.

Both sides agreed to hold the next round of talks in Istanbul in late January.

“As you know, Turkey is sensitive toward Iran's nuclear issue after signing the Tehran declaration, because this matter is also related to regional issues,” ISNA quoted Yardim as saying.

The foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey, and Brazil signed a declaration in Tehran on May 17, according to which Iran would ship 1200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey to be exchanged for 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel rods to power the Tehran research reactor, which produces radioisotopes for cancer treatment.

The nuclear declaration gives Iran a guarantee since the low-enriched uranium is to be stored in Turkey and would be returned if Iran does not receive the 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel within one year.

However, the US and its allies snubbed the declaration and used their influence on the UN Security Council to press for the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran over the country's civilian nuclear program, which they claim is cover for a nuclear weapons program.

Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected the accusations, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has the right to use nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes and to enrich uranium to produce fuel.

And the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155327.html.

Iran MP slams UK for jailing students

Mon Dec 13, 2010

An Iranian lawmaker has criticized the British government for jailing the country's youth who are protesting the coalition government's decision to raise university tuition fees.

Tens of thousands of students and activists have taken to the streets in nationwide protests against the UK government's plan.

The students are being thrown into jails for protesting the plan to cut the country's higher-education budget, Vali Esmaeili, who represents Iran's northeastern border city of Germi in the Majlis, said on Monday.

"Currently, hundreds of students, who only have simple union demands and are protesting plans for a three-fold hike in university fees and other higher education institutions, are in detention," the Iranian legislator added.

A total of 36 people have so far been arrested in connection with demonstrations in central London on Thursday, which marked the fourth national protest over the budget cuts.

In addition to those already in detention, another British student was arrested on Monday over involvement in tuition fee protests in London.

Twenty-one-year-old Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David, was arrested at his home in Sussex on "suspicion of violent disorder" but was released on bail hours later.

Meanwhile, London is bracing itself for more protests as students gather to demonstrate against cutting the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) -- a weekly grant of up to GBP 30 which is often the decisive factor for poor students in deciding to further their high school education.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155333.html.

European court rules ban of pro-Kurdish party in Turkey unjustified

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Strasbourg/Istanbul - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that the closure of a pro-Kurdish political party by Turkey's high court violated the right to freedom of assembly and association.

The People's Democracy Party (HADEP) was shut down in 2003 by Turkey's Constitutional Court on the grounds that it was a "center of illegal activities" in support of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Some members of the PKK - which is deemed a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States - were also banned from politics for five years for "spreading separatist propaganda."

In a statement released in Strasbourg, the ECHR said the Turkish court's dissolution of HADEP had interfered with the right to freedom of association.

It further stated that the party's activities, though at times strongly critical of the Turkish government policies towards Kurds, did not amount to inciting armed resistance or acts of violence.

Two earlier pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey were also closed down by the Turkish high court prior to HADEP's founding, in 1994. And HADEP's successor, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), was banned in December 2009, also for alleged PKK ties.

"Turkey is a graveyard of political parties. There's a pattern of closing parties that are perceived to be pro-Kurdish or Islamist," Emma Sinclair-Webb, a Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch, told the German Press Agency dpa.

About two dozen political parties have been closed down by Turkish courts since 1962. The ruling Justice and Development Party, which has Islamist roots, narrowly avoided being shut down in 2009 on grounds it was engaged in "anti-secularist activity."

Speaking about Tuesday's ECHR decision, Sinclair-Webb said, "The ECHR has made its point many times on this issue. It highlights again the urgent need for complete reform of the Turkish constitution."

The ECHR ruling comes in the wake of recent European Union enlargement reports which have noted that Turkey needs to make greater progress on judicial reform and freedom of expression.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358149,pro-kurdish-party-turkey-unjustified.html.

Chavez seeks special powers to deal with rain emergency

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday requested broad special powers to legislate by decree for a period of one year, in order to deal with an emergency caused by recent heavy rains.

The request was to be evaluated by the country's National Assembly, although it was all but certain that it would be granted, since Chavez supporters have a very large majority in the legislature. The chamber's decision was to be made Thursday.

Chavez argued that the government has to deal with more than 120,000 people who lost their homes due to rain in recent weeks and who are currently staying in shelters.

He argued that he will need, among other measures, an increase in the rate of the Value Added Tax (VAT), currently at 12 per cent, in order to create a fund for the mass construction of homes. Infrastructure also suffered serious damage, as did crops.

This is the fourth time Chavez has requested special powers since he came to power in 1999. His past requests were all granted.

The opposition has accused the left-wing populist Chavez of seeking only to take power away from a new incoming legislature. New legislators are to take office on January 5, with around 41 per cent of the seats held by the opposition.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358171,powers-deal-rain-emergency.html.

Rio's Sambadrome to be made larger for Olympics

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, the world- famous venue of the city's trademark Carnival parades, is to be made larger to seat an additional 15,000 people for the 2016 Olympics.

The Sambadrome - designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1988 - opened in 1984 with a capacity for 60,000 spectators.

Once the changes are made it is set to host Olympic archery events and the start of the marathon in Rio 2016.

"This is a present for Rio," Mayor Eduardo Paes said as he unveiled the plans Tuesday.

Paes said enlarging the compound would cost about 18 million dollars, with the work likely to begin after the 2011 Carnival. The 15,000 new seats were to be built in a former soft drinks manufacturing facility and would be paid for by the company that owns the factory.

"The city of Rio is moving forward to launch all it promised the International Olympic Committee for the Games. And that without spending a cent of public money," Paes said.

The mayor noted that the changes would include increased access for the handicapped, a security room and spaces for doctors.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358168,sambadrome-be-larger-olympics.html.

Poles build 9.5-meter snowman

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Warsaw - A group of Poles in southwestern Poland, have built a giant snow man measuring some 9.5 meters out of some 200 cubic meters of snow.

Several Poles in the town of Trzebnica worked for some six days on the winking snow man, who sports a road safety cone for a nose and a giant red scarf.

The snowman was completed on Friday. Its builders say they may auction their creation off in January for charity to benefit sick children.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358152,poles-build-95-metre-snowman.html.

Holbrooke deputy to assume special envoy status

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Washington - The US State Department has named Frank Ruggiero, a career civil servant, as the acting special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan following the sudden death of veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

Ruggiero had been Holbrooke's deputy since July and had previously held senior positions in the State Department.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Tuesday that there will be a continuity of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan despite the death of Holbrooke, a towering figure in international diplomacy.

"It is a profound loss for us, but we will continue to pursue the policies that his fingerprints are all over," Crowley said.

Holbrooke collapsed at the State Department Friday and was rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with an aortic tear. He never recovered, dying Monday at the age of 69.

The Obama administration is expected this week to complete a review of the new strategy for Afghanistan outlined in December 2009. While that strategy included a massive troop buildup, it also expanded the civilian aspect of the mission under Holbrooke.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358180,assume-special-envoy-status.html.

Possible ice volcano found on Saturn moon

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Washington - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted what could be an ice volcano on Saturn's moon Titan, scientists said Tuesday.

The images were analyzed by the US Geological Society, which noted the similarity of an area of the moon known as Sotra Facula to volcanoes on Earth. The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Ice volcanoes, also called cryovolcanoes, have long been believed to exist in icy parts of the solar system, but the new evidence is the best yet that they exist. The images of two peaks more than 900 meters high are likely ice volcanoes, which spew water and icy particles to the surface instead of hot lava, scientists said.

"This is the very best evidence, by far, for volcanic topography anywhere documented on an icy satellite," scientist Jeffrey Kargel said.

A previous feature discovered on the moon had initially been believed to be an ice volcano, but that theory was later discounted.

The existence of ice volcanoes would explain other features of the Earth-like moon, such as the high levels of methane in its atmosphere.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358186,volcano-found-saturn-moon.html.

Philippines joins fight against wildlife trafficking

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Manila - The Philippines on Tuesday launched a campaign to stop wildlife trafficking as part of a regional effort prevent illegal trade of protected and endangered species.

Banners and streamers printed with "Wildlife Trafficking Stops Here," were unfurled at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport, while leaflets and brochures containing information about endangered and protected species were distributed to travelers.

Mundita Lim, chief of the Philippines Animal and Wildlife Bureau, said seminars would be given to airport personnel to train them to better detect and prevent wildlife trafficking.

Manop Lauprasert, an official of the Association of South-East Asian Nations' Wildlife Enforcement Network, said the campaign is part of a regional effort to combat wildlife trafficking.

"Illegal wildlife trade is a profitable but environmentally destructive crime that threatens species," he said.

"Thousands of wild animals and plants flow through hotspots, such as airports, everyday," he added. "We need partnerships - between government agencies - and between governments and [the] private sector to confront this menace effectively."

The campaign started at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport in March 2009 and has since expanded to other airports in Laos and Vietnam.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358064,joins-fight-wildlife-trafficking.html.

Afghan president remembers 'veteran and seasoned diplomat' Holbrooke

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Kabul - President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that he was saddened by the death of Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, a "veteran and seasoned diplomat."

Expressing his condolences to the American people, Holbrooke's family and friends, Karzai said in a statement Holbrooke "had served greatly the government and the people of the United States."

Holbrooke, 69, died Monday after undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured artery.

The deceased diplomat had testy relations with Karzai, strained since a heated meeting to discuss last year's fraud-tainted presidential elections.

Karzai called Holbrooke's wife on Sunday to pass on his best wishes.

Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Kabul, called Holbrooke "a champion for the people of Afghanistan."

"Our efforts in Afghanistan lost a powerful advocate today," Eikenberry said in the statement issued by the US embassy, calling Holbrooke a partner of those who try to foster peace.

"In Afghanistan, we will all take time in coming days to mourn his loss, pray for his family, celebrate his life and carry on the work that he devoted himself to so fiercely," Eikenberry said Monday.

US General David H Petraeus, the top commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the death of the "diplomatic wingman" was a tragic loss for the region.

Holbrooke was a true titan in the diplomatic arena and a central figure in the effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Petraeus said.

Holbrooke was appointed special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan after US President Barack Obama took office in early 2009.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358054,veteran-seasoned-diplomat-holbrooke.html.

Pakistan pays tribute to Holbrooke

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Islamabad - Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday expressed sorrow over the death of US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, saying his sudden demise had left a huge vacuum.

Zardari in a press statement described Holbrooke as a friend of Pakistan and "an accomplished and experienced diplomat who quickly gained the confidence of his interlocutors."

"The best tribute to him is to reiterate resolve to root out extremism and usher in peace and stability," Zardari added.

In a separate message, Qureshi said Holbrooke played an important role in expanding Pakistan-US relations

"He helped lay the solid foundation for a broad-based relationship based on mutual respect, trust and interest," Qureshi said. "He will also be long remembered for his untiring efforts towards promoting peace and stability in our region."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358051,pakistan-pays-tribute-holbrooke.html.

Saudi woman arrested for disguising as a man to escape husband

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - A Saudi Arabian woman who ran away from her husband and disguised herself as a man to remain hidden has been arrested, the Okaz daily reported Tuesday.

The woman in her twenties hid out by living with four men in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, drove a car and prayed in male congregations in mosques.

In conservative Saudi Arabia women can only live with men who are close relatives and they are not allowed to drive.

Religious police and vice squads frequently detain unrelated men and women found sitting together in public.

The four men were also detained for hosting her - though they denied knowing her true identity.

Officials say that the woman claimed to be a man "from the (United Arab) Emirates who had no identity papers after fleeing his family over death threats provoked by disputes".

She is also accused of having stolen money from her husband before fleeing their house.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358072,a-man-escape-husband.html.

EU considering sanctions on uncooperative Bosnian politicians

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Brussels - Bosnian politicians seen as disrupting the political process in the country could be faced with European Union sanctions, ministers from the bloc are poised to warn on Tuesday, according to draft papers seen by the German Press Agency dpa.

Bosnia is currently under the authority of an international special representative, who has the right, in extreme cases, to overrule and sanction national politicians.

That system is expected to end because it is seen as incompatible with EU membership. For the first time, EU ministers are expected to signal their readiness to replace it with targeted sanctions on uncooperative politicians.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton is intending "to put forward a proposal to enable the Council (of EU states) to impose restrictive measures on people whose actions threaten the Dayton/Paris Peace Agreement," reads a draft from a meeting of EU affairs ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

The 1995 agreement put an end to more than three and a half years of bloody civil war, and fixed Bosnia's borders. But the leader of Bosnia's Serbs, Milorad Dodik, often challenges that set-up, threatening to secede from the federal state.

Because of arguments over its institutional set-up, and related power struggles between its Muslim, Serb and Croat politicians, Bosnia has been mired in political deadlock for years, turning it into a laggard on the EU path.

Ministers are expected to reiterate calls for the country to "urgently address" the stalemate.

Turning to other EU hopefuls, Croatia is expected to be told that conclusion of its accession talks "is within reach," but also urged to step up the fight against corruption, guarantee the rights of minorities and refugees, and pursue war crimes suspects.

Montenegro is set for a green-light on its application for official EU candidacy status, a step that is expected to be formalized by EU leaders meeting on Thursday and Friday.

Other Balkan nations are expected to be reminded of the EU's "unequivocal commitment" to integrate them into the bloc, but only once entry conditions are met.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358078,sanctions-uncooperative-bosnian-politicians.html.

EU ministers: Talks with Turkey have reached 'more demanding stage'

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Brussels - European Union ministers are poised to acknowledge that accession talks with Turkey "have reached a more demanding stage," draft papers showed on Tuesday, in recognition of the blockages that are preventing the negotiations from advancing.

Countries which apply for EU membership have to bring their laws into line with EU rules in 35 areas, or "chapters." Since Turkey began accession talks in October 2005, it has opened talks on 13 chapters, adding at least one to the list every six months.

But diplomats say the current semester will end in December with no progress, because the foreseen opening of a chapter on competition law was postponed because Turkey had not made enough technical progress on the so-called "benchmarks" needed to open it.

EU ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday are expected to reassure Turkey it had made "good progress" on the dossier and that "as soon as all the benchmarks are met (they) will revert to this chapter ... in view of its opening," according to the draft papers.

However, bigger political obstacles lie in Turkey's EU path.

Eight chapters have been frozen by the EU because of Turkey's long-simmering conflict with Cyprus, with the island nation having informally blocked another six. On top of that, France is preventing advances on another handful out of opposition to Turkey's EU entry.

Diplomats say that leaves only three chapters to be opened - meaning that negotiations risk grinding to a complete halt once those dossiers are dealt with.

In their draft, ministers expressed "deep regret" that Turkey is holding out against Cyprus, and warn that "in the absence of progress on this issue," EU blockages will remain in place.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358076,turkey-more-demanding-stage.html.

Spain may extend state of emergency over air controllers

Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Madrid - The Spanish government was Tuesday considering the possibility of extending the state of emergency which has been in place since December 4 when striking air traffic controllers were forced to return to work.

The wildcat strike paralyzed Spanish airports and left some 600,000 passengers stranded. The government reacted by declaring a state of emergency, effectively placing the air traffic controllers under military law and threatening to jail them unless they returned to their posts.

The state of emergency is to remain in force until December 18. But the government is considering extending it to make sure the air controllers would not stage new work stoppages and block air traffic during the Christmas holiday period.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has called a cabinet meeting to discuss the eventual measure, which would have to be given the green light by parliament within 48 hours.

Infrastructure Minister Jose Blanco called on parliament to support a "permanent" normalization of the air traffic, without saying how exactly that would be done.

Blanco was expected to defend the extension of the state of emergency.

The Justice and Defense Ministries, however, were reportedly opposed to the preventative use of an emergency measure which had been adopted for the first time since Spain became a democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358080,state-emergency-air-controllers.html.

PROFILE: Salehi: Iran's new diplomatic chief

Mon, 13 Dec 2010

Tehran - Ali-Akbar Salehi, the man appointed Iran's acting foreign minister after the dismissal of Manouchehr Mottaki, is expected to eventually become the country's top diplomat.

Born in 1949 in the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala, Salehi came to Iran at the age of nine and after completing high school, he attended the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, graduating in mechanical engineering.

Fluent in Arabic, Salehi continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he gained a doctorate in nuclear engineering and learned to speak English fluently.

Back in Iran, he mainly lectured at the technical university inf Tehran before being appointed envoy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna - a post he held from 1997-2005.

After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, he was tipped to become foreign minister, but it was Mottaki who got the job.

Salehi continued his academic career until 2008 when Ahmadinejad appointed him vice president and head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.

Ideologically Salehi is not on the same wavelength as the president and does not follow Ahmadinejad's harsh rhetoric. He is widely known as a technocrat and a stickler for detail.

Unlike his predecessor Mottaki, Salehi is not a man of long speeches but said to get directly to the point in talks with international officials.

With regards to the nuclear dispute, Salehi is considered a better person to turn to by the West as he is one of the architects of the nuclear talks that have taken place with world powers in recent years.

Unlike Mottaki, he is not familiar not only with the political but also the technical aspects of the dispute, due to his time at the IAEA and as atomic chief.

He is said to be in favor of a resolving the dispute, although he also stresses the right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology and not making concessions in the nuclear talks.

No major changes are expected under Salehi on other international issues, as the basic framework of Iran's foreign policy is determined by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad and the foreign ministry basically implements the relevant decisions.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/357975,irans-new-diplomatic-chief.html.