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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Spain evicts illegal migrants from tiny island

September 04, 2012

MADRID (AP) — Spanish authorities say police have evicted more than 80 illegal migrants that had occupied a tiny island off Africa's Mediterranean coast.

Abdelmalik El Barkani, the Interior Ministry's representative on Spain's North African enclave of Melilla, said the eviction, which began in the early hours of Tuesday morning, had been "peaceful." El Barkani said 73 people were handed over to Moroccan authorities, while two women and eight children were taken to Spain to receive hospital care.

Many migrants from Africa try dangerous crossings to reach Spanish territory illegally in the hope of gaining work and forging a better life.

Arab-Muslim to join 'Green Lantern' comic series

September 04, 2012

DETROIT (AP) — When DC Comics decided to blow up its fabled universe and create a brave, diverse future, Geoff Johns drew from the past for a new character: his own background as an Arab-American.

The company's chief creative officer and writer of the relaunched "Green Lantern" series dreamed up Simon Baz, DC's most prominent Arab-American superhero and the first to wear a Green Lantern ring. The character and creator share Lebanese ancestry and hail from the Detroit area, which boasts one of the largest and oldest Arab communities in the United States.

"I thought a lot about it — I thought back to what was familiar to me," Johns, 39, told The Associated Press by phone last week from Los Angeles, where he now lives. "This is such a personal story." Baz's story begins in a standalone "zero issue" available Wednesday that's part of a companywide effort to fill in the gaps or tell the origins of a character or team. Johns has no plans for Baz to fade into the background — the character in February is bound for the Justice League of America, one of DC's premier super team books, to fight alongside Green Arrow, Catwoman and Hawkman.

Johns said he took economic as well as ethnic cues for the character from his native Detroit area, with Baz resorting to stealing cars after being laid off from his automotive engineering job. He steals the wrong car, which inadvertently steers him into a terrorism probe and, eventually, an unexpected call to join the universe's galactic police force.

The olive-skinned, burly Baz hails from Dearborn, the hometown of Henry Ford and the capital of Arab America, in the U.S. state of Michigan. His story begins at 10 years old, when he and the rest of his Muslim family watch their television in horror as airplanes fly into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Events unfold from there as U.S. Arabs and Muslims find themselves falling under intense suspicion and ostracism in the days, months and years following the attacks.

"Obviously, it's affecting everybody," said Johns, who grew up in nearby suburbs in a Lebanese Christian household and got into comics when he discovered his uncle's old collection in his Arabic grandmother's attic. "One of the things I really wanted to show was its effect on Simon and his family in a very negative way."

Baz is not the first Arab or Muslim character to grace — or menace, as has historically been the case — the comic world. Marvel Comics has Dust, a young Afghan woman whose mutant ability to manipulate sand and dust has been part of the popular X-Men books. DC Comics in late 2010 introduced Nightrunner, a young Muslim hero of Algerian descent reared in Paris. He is part of the global network of crime fighters set up by Batman alter-ego Bruce Wayne.

Frank Miller, whose dark and moody take on Batman in "The Dark Knight Returns" in 1986 energized the character, took a different tack in his recent book, "Holy Terror," which tells the story of The Fixer and his efforts to stamp out Islamic terrorists. The graphic novel initially took root as a look at Batman's efforts to fight terrorism, which grew out of Miller's experiences of being in New York on 9/11.

A broader mission to bring Islamic heroes and principles to the comic world comes from Naif Al-Mutawa, creator of "The 99." The U.S. educated psychologist from Kuwait has been gaining followers across the globe since the 2006 debut of the comic book that spawned a TV series. "The 99" is named after the number of qualities the Quran attributes to God: strength, courage, wisdom and mercy among them.

The series gained a wide audience in 2010, when it worked with DC on a six-issue crossover that teamed the "The 99" with The Justice League of America. Johns, who also has written stories starring Superman, The Flash and Teen Titans, said going diverse only works if there's a good story, and he believes he found that with Baz. But don't mistake him for a hero in the beginning: Baz disappoints both devout Muslims — his forearm tattoo that reads "courage" in Arabic is considered "haram," or religiously forbidden — and broader society by turning to a life of crime.

"He's not a perfect character. He's obviously made some mistakes in his life, but that makes him more compelling and relatable," Johns said. "Hopefully (it's) a compelling character regardless of culture or ethnic background. ... But I think it's great to have an Arab American superhero. This was opportunity and a chance to really go for it."

Of course, Johns hopes Green Lantern fans accept Baz, who joins other humans who have been "chosen," including Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner. The overall relaunch has been good for DC, which has seen a solid gain in sales and critical reception — as well as some expected grumbling — since coming out with the "New 52" last year.

Johns also sees the debut of Baz as a chance to reconnect with people in his home state: He's scheduled to visit Dearborn this weekend for events related to the release that include a signing Saturday at a comic book store and a free presentation Sunday on his career and characters at the Arab American National Museum. He worked with museum staff to make sure he got certain details right about his character and the Arab-Muslim community.

"It doesn't completely define the character but it shapes the character," he said. "My biggest hope is that people embrace it and understand what we're trying to do."

Associated Press Writer Matt Moore contributed to this report from Philadelphia.

Lufthansa flight attendants strike at 3 airports

September 04, 2012

BERLIN (AP) — Lufthansa flight attendants escalated their bitter pay dispute on Tuesday, going out on strike at three German airports — including the two biggest, Frankfurt and Munich — in a showdown with an airline determined to bring down costs.

Lufthansa scrapped around 300 flights Tuesday. Most of the cancelled services were on short- and medium-haul routes but about a third of intercontinental flights — including services to and from Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Beijing and Mexico City — were also axed.

The flight attendants' UFO union called on Berlin-based members to walk out for eight hours starting at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), and their counterparts at Frankfurt, Germany's busiest airport and Lufthansa's main hub, to follow at 6 a.m. (0400 GMT).

UFO also planned to hit Germany's second-busiest airport, Munich, with an 11-hour walkout starting at 1 p.m. (1100 GMT). The union opened its strike campaign last Friday with an eight-hour walkout in Frankfurt and warned of more to come if Lufthansa didn't give ground. It has given only a few hours' notice of where and when it plans to strike.

UFO is seeking a 5 percent pay raise for the airline's more than 18,000 cabin crew workers after they did without increases in recent years. Lufthansa has said it is offering a 3.5 percent raise, and is calling for a slight increase in working hours.

The union objects to what it says would be only gradual increases and lower wages for new employees. The airline and the union also have been at odds over issues such as the possibility of Lufthansa transferring flight attendants to its partner budget airlines with cheaper contracts as part of a cost-saving program, though the walkouts are focused squarely on the pay issue.

"I have the impression both parties want to take it out on the back of the passengers to show their power, and it's a shame, because it is not our fault if employer and employees cannot agree," Olaf Terbeznik, a 38-year-old IT project manager from Berlin, said at the capital's Tegel airport.

Lufthansa is trying to cut costs amid tough competition from budget carriers in Europe and from aggressively expanding government-owned Gulf airlines. Their rise has hurt traditional big airlines such as Lufthansa.

The airline blamed high fuel costs and new taxes on air travel in Germany and Austria for a 24 percent decline in second-quarter earnings compared with a year earlier to €229 million ($288 million). Lufthansa announced in May that it will shed 3,500 office jobs over the coming years to cut costs and boost lagging profits.

The cuts are part of a cost-reduction program that started at the beginning of the year and aims to improve the company's operating profit by €1.5 billion compared to 2011 by the end of 2014. Both UFO, one of several single-profession unions in Germany that tend to be more militant than the country's traditional large umbrella unions and have caused disruption over recent years, and the airline appear in uncompromising mood.

The chairman of Lufthansa's board of directors, Juergen Weber, was quoted last month as telling the weekly Die Zeit: "It is better to let it come to a big bang before the company catapults itself out of competition."

Lufthansa spokesman Klaus Walther said that "it is time for basic pay to be improved, but we must also (adapt) to changed conditions." Things have changed over the past five to 10 years, Walther told ZDF television. "The competition situation is completely different and the economic situation is completely different too."

Airlines such as Lufthansa generate a good share of their business by carrying partner airlines' passengers to onward destinations. However, three big government-owned Gulf carriers — Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways — have all expanded aggressively, particularly in Europe, to eat in other airlines' long-haul traffic. So rather than transferring in Germany with Lufthansa, passengers from North America or Europe heading to Asia, Africa and Australia are increasingly transiting through the Gulf's gleaming airports.

The Gulf's fast-growing fleets are filled with some of the industry's newest planes, and usually boast generous in-flight meals and entertainment. Dubai-based Emirates has grown into the world's largest carrier if measured in terms of international passenger traffic. It last fiscal year pulled in $629 million in profit despite a big jump in fuel costs.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, which only started operations in 2003, posted its first annual profit of $14 million last year. Qatar Airways doesn't disclose its finances. All three carriers insist they operate on purely commercial terms and do not receive perks such as discounted jet fuel. None of them has a unionized work force, however, so they do not have to contend with strikes.

Etihad late last year when it bought nearly 30 percent of Germany's second-biggest carrier, Air Berlin PLC. It has since amassed stakes in three additional carriers and partnered with others elsewhere.

Dorothee Thiesing in Berlin and Business Writer Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.

Azerbaijan pardons, frees convicted killer

August 31, 2012

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Armenia broke off diplomatic ties with Hungary after an Azerbaijani military officer sentenced to life in prison here for killing an Armenian officer was sent back to his homeland on Friday and, despite assurances, immediately pardoned and freed.

Lt. Ramil Safarov was given a life sentence in 2006 by the Budapest City Court after he confessed to killing Lt. Gurgen Markarian of Armenia while both were in Hungary for a 2004 NATO language course. Azerbaijan and Armenia are ex-Soviet neighbors who have been locked in a long-standing conflict over the mountainous territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In response to Safarov's release, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian said his country was cutting diplomatic ties with Hungary, while Hungarian state news agency MTI reported that protesters in the Armenian capital of Yerevan threw tomatoes at the building housing Hungary's honorary consulate and the tore down the Hungarian flag.

Sarkisian said Armenia was "halting diplomatic relations and all official ties with Hungary." The White House also criticized the decision to free Safarov. "President Obama is deeply concerned by today's announcement that the President of Azerbaijan has pardoned Ramil Safarov following his return from Hungary," said a statement from National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We are communicating to Azerbaijani authorities our disappointment about the decision to pardon Safarov. This action is contrary to ongoing efforts to reduce regional tensions and promote reconciliation."

Vietor added that Hungary was also being asked to explain its decision to send Safarov home. While Armenians were livid over Safarov's release, he is considered a hero by many in Azerbaijan for having killed an Armenian.

Hungary returned the 35-year-old Safarov to Azerbaijan only after receiving assurances from the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry that Safarov's sentence, which included the possibility of parole after 25 years, would be enforced.

"The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan has further informed the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary that Ramil Sahib Safarov's sentence will not be modified but will immediately continue to be enforced, based on the Hungarian judgment," the Hungarian ministry said in a statement issued before the news of Safarov's release was known.

The ministry said it based its decision on the 1983 Strasbourg Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. In a brief statement posted in English on his website, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev decreed Friday that Safarov "should be freed from the term of his punishment."

Hungary's Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Safarov's release. Hungary, which depends on Russia for most of its energy imports, has been seeking to expand its economic relations with oil-rich Azerbaijan.

Laszlo Borbely, the deputy director of Hungary's Government Debt Management Agency last week told daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet that talks between the two countries about a possible purchase by Azerbaijan of up to 3 billion euros ($3.77 billion) in Hungarian bonds were only at an "exploratory phase" for now.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan, but has remained under the control of Armenian troops and ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a six-year separatist war in 1994. Diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict have brought no result, and shootings on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have been common.

During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that the conflict was at the root of his actions and that he used an ax to kill Markarian while the victim was sleeping in a dormitory room after the Armenian repeatedly provoked and ridiculed him.

"My conscience was clouded as a result of the insults and humiliating and provoking behavior, and I lost all control," Safarov told the court in April 2006. Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan's army out of the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. A 1994 cease-fire ended the six-year war that killed 30,000 people and left about 1 million homeless and the enclave is now under the control of ethnic Armenians.

Safarov's lawyers said that his parents and relatives were exiled from Nagorno-Karabakh during the war and that two of his relatives were killed by ethnic Armenian separatists.

Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, contributed to this report.

Somalia's Marka port 'seized from Islamists'

Aug 27, 2012

MOGADISHU — African Union and Somali troops captured the key port of Marka from Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents on Monday, the latest in a string of bases to be wrested off the extremists, officials said.

"We have taken Marka, we entered alongside the Somali government forces this morning," said Colonel Ali Houmed, the spokesman for the African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

"There was some fighting, but not so heavy, most of the Shebab had fled."

The loss of Marka, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu, is another major blow for the insurgents, who have been on the back foot for several months.

AU and Somali troops have made significant gains in recent months against Shebab, although the Islamists remain a major security threat. Ethiopian troops are also battling the militants from the south and west.

The loss of Marka leaves the Shebab with two major ports in southern Somalia -- Barawe and the key rebel bastion of Kismayo -- although an international naval blockade has already greatly squeezed maritime access there.

The Shebab abandoned their last fixed bases in Mogadishu a year ago, where they have since reverted to guerrilla tactics, claiming a series of suicide attacks and roadside bombs.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.

UN says 100,000 refugees fled Syria in August

September 04, 2012

GENEVA (AP) — Some 100,000 refugees fled Syria during August making it by far the highest monthly total since hostilities began, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

The tide in people fleeing the civil war, a figure that includes both refugees who are registered and those awaiting registration with the Geneva-based U.N. refugee agency, underscores the intensifying violence between the regime of Syria's president, Bashar Assad, and the armed anti-government groups.

The August total represents more than 40 percent of the 234,368 Syrian refugees who, as of the last count on September 2, had fled for surrounding countries since the uprising began 17 months ago. "If you do the math, it's quite an astonishing number," U.N. refugee agency spokesman Melissa Fleming told reporters Tuesday at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva. "And it points to a significant escalation in refugee movement and people seeking asylum, and probably points to a very precarious and violent situation inside the country."

The refugee agency and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are continuing to expand their operations to support displaced Syrians and appealing to all nations to take in Syrians who need asylum. There are now more than 80,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey, where the borders remain open, and there is a backlog of some 8,000 Syrians waiting to be processed at the border, Fleming said. Jordan has more than 77,000 Syrian refugees; Lebanon has more than 59,000; and Iraq nearly 18,700, according to the agency.

The U.N.'s World Food Program spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters that her agency is scaling up operations to provide food urgently needed by 1.5 million people this month, mainly in areas where there has been fighting and people made at least temporarily homeless.

Activists say some 5,000 people were killed in August, the highest toll in the 17-month-old uprising and more than three times the monthly average. The U.N. children's agency says 1,600 were killed last week alone, also the highest figure for the entire revolt.

The two major activist groups, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, have raised their total death toll to between 23,000 and 26,000.

Riots after Kenyan backer of Somali Islamists killed

By Michael Richard (AFP)
Aug 27, 2012

MOMBASA, Kenya — Deadly riots broke out in Kenya's main port of Mombasa after the assassination of a radical cleric linked to Somalia's Al-Qaeda-allied Shebab militants.

At least one person was hacked to death as thousands of angry protesters took to the streets after Aboud Rogo Mohammed -- who was on US and UN sanction lists for allegedly supporting the Shebab -- was shot dead.

"A car behind us aimed at my husband, they shot him on the right side," said his widow Haniya Said, screaming in grief after the killing by unknown attackers.

"One person has been killed, he was slashed to death during the protests," said regional police chief Aggrey Adoli.

Cars were set on fire and two churches were looted in the city -- Kenya's main port and a key tourist hub -- according to an AFP reporter.

"There is chaos in town now, and our officers are on the ground dispersing the rioters to maintain peace," added Adoli. "They are demonstrating against the killing of Aboud Rogo, who was shot by unknown people."

Witnesses said that Mohammed's car was riddled with bullets, and a photograph released by his supporters showed his bloody corpse slumped behind the wheel of a car.

"He died as we rushed him to hospital. Why have they killed my dear husband?" his widow added, before she and her children were taken to the hospital.

Mohammed was placed on a US sanctions list in July for "engaging in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Somalia", specifically for recruiting and fundraising for the hardline Shebab.

The United Nations Security Council placed a travel ban and asset freeze on the cleric in July, saying he had provided "financial, material, logistical or technical support to Al-Shebab".

He was the "main ideological leader" of Kenya's Al Hijra group, also known as the Muslim Youth Center (MYC), the UN said. The group is viewed as a close ally of the Shebab in Kenya.

Mohammed "used the extremist group as a pathway for radicalization and recruitment of principally Swahili-speaking Africans for carrying out violent militant activity in Somalia", the UN said.

MYC leader Sheikh Ahmad Iman Ali, in a message posted on Twitter, said: "We are on the right track when our leaders get shahadah (martyrdom)."

"He will remain in our hearts forever," the MYC added, while another message offered the grim warning that the "kuffar (infidels) will pay" for his death.

"The whole city is on fire, there are looters in the streets, cars have been damaged, some have been burnt," said Francis Auma, from the local organization Muslims for Human Rights.

"An imam in the mosque shouted through the speaker 'blood for blood', and immediately youths started stoning cars," said witness Dennis Odhiambo, whose car was damaged and who was forced to flee into a police station for safety.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga condemned Mohammed's "horrific" murder, adding the government was "committed to bringing whoever was responsible to justice".

"I appeal to our people not to use this sad act to inflict more pain and suffering on our country," he said in a statement.

The local Muslim Human Rights Forum also condemned the assassination, claiming it "mirrors" the recent killings or disappearance of others "on the country's terrorism watch list".

Mohammed "repeatedly called for the violent rejection of the Somali peace process", the US Treasury said, noting he had often advocated the use of violence against both the UN and the African Union force battling the Shebab in Somalia.

He "urged his audiences to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shebab's fight against the Kenyan government", the Treasury added.

Kenyan police arrested the preacher in January, seizing firearms; ammunition and detonators, but later released him on bail.

He was previously acquitted of the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa which killed 15 people -- 12 Kenyans and three Israelis -- as well as three suicide bombers.

The cleric is also alleged to have introduced Fazul Abdullah Mohammed -- the late head of Al-Qaeda's east Africa cell, shot dead last year in Somalia's war-torn capital Mogadishu -- to at least one of the men who helped him carry out the twin US embassy bombings in 1998.

The bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed 224 people.

Mohammed, born on Kenya's Lamu Island, was aged between 43 and 52, according to different aliases.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.

Egypt reopens Gaza border crossing for passengers

By ASHRAF SWEILAM, Associated Press
Aug 26, 2012

EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — An Egyptian security official says Egypt has reopened its passenger terminal with the Gaza Strip and resumed normal operations there after nearly three weeks of disruption following a deadly attack on Egyptian soldiers by Islamic militants.

The official said from inside the Rafah crossing that it will be open six days a week, with normal security measures. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

The closure of the terminal raised tensions between Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Gaza's ruling Hamas, which had hoped Morsi would end the enclave's five-year isolation.

Egypt shut down the terminal after 16 Egyptian soldiers were shot dead by masked gunmen while breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan on Aug. 5.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Turkey to press for safe zone in Syria

August 29, 2012

ISTANBUL (AP) — There is no better lesson about the perils of setting up a safe zone in a country in conflict than Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serbs killed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995 in what had been declared a U.N.-protected enclave. Now Turkey is pressing the United Nations to set up a safe haven inside Syria to protect thousands of people fleeing the country's civil war as it strains to shelter an increasing flow of refugees.

Mindful of that bloody episode in the Balkans — Europe's worst massacre since World War II — Turkey and its allies, particularly the United States, have conducted detailed planning and extensive diplomacy ahead of a possible occupation of some territory in Syria, where activists say more than 20,000 people have died since an uprising began in March 2011 — many of them civilians killed by regime forces.

Yet the idea of a buffer zone, or no-fly zone — or more likely a combination of the two — still poses complex legal and logistical challenges, as well as fears that intervention could trigger reprisal attacks and end up widening the conflict in an already combustible region.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Wednesday that he would press the U.N. Security Council on Thursday at a high-level meeting in New York to set up the safe zone, reflecting frustration at the failure of rhetoric, diplomacy, economic pressure and aid for the Syrian opposition to stop the bloodshed. However, such action amounts to military intervention because a security force would have to guard civilians, and Russia, an ally of Syria that has a military base there, and China have used their council votes to block action against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"We expect the U.N. to step in and protect the refugees inside Syria, and if possible, to shelter them in camps there," Davutoglu said. "When refugee numbers reach hundreds of thousands, this problem goes beyond being an internal issue and becomes an international one. No one has the right to expect Turkey to take on this international responsibility on its own."

Turkey has long floated the idea of a buffer zone to protect displaced Syrians from attacks by Syrian regime forces, but the issue is more pressing because the number of refugees in Turkey has exceeded 80,000 — an amount it says approaches its limits. The U.N. refugee agency has said up to 200,000 refugees could eventually flee to Turkey, which shares a 566-mile (911-kilometer) frontier with Syria. Tens of thousands of Syrians have also fled to Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.

However, the humanitarian crisis is clouded by geopolitical interests and rivalries. Russia felt betrayed by the NATO military mission in Libya, where it believes a U.N. mandate to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to dictator Moammar Gadhafi was used as legal cover to unseat him.

If Russian cannot be persuaded, a group of allies, including the U.S., Turkey, France, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, could choose to proceed with a safe zone without the legitimacy of a U.N. resolution. But Assad, who still counts regional power Iran among his few supporters, could gain political capital by characterizing an intervention as a Western or sectarian vendetta against him.

With Syria known to be in possession of chemical weapons, and Israel pondering an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, allied planners must consider the worst-case scenarios of intervention — an especially unappetizing prospect for the U.S. administration ahead of a presidential election in November. Turkey has said it will not act alone.

"Legally they need U.N. approval to create a buffer zone or no-fly-zone, but it doesn't seem possible in the near future because of Russia's opposition in the Security Council," said Ercument Tezcan, an international law expert at USAK, a research center based in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Still, he said, allies could establish a no-fly zone in Syria, just as U.S.-led powers did in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurds and Shiite Muslims from dictator Saddam Hussein, and enforce it on the basis of humanitarian intervention even though they would be violating Syria's sovereignty.

"There is no legal definition of humanitarian intervention," Tezcan said. "It just needs strong willpower, but these countries may be criticized by their publics and by history." Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, which backs Turkey's idea for buffer zones, said in an interview Wednesday on France-Inter radio that setting them up without an internationally imposed no-fly zone to protect civilians is impossible.

"We continue to believe despite all the limits that there are, that something can be done in international legality," he said, citing Russo-Chinese vetoes on tougher U.N. language against Syria. "We cannot just sit idly by."

Since the powers that would establish any safe zone are also calling for Assad's ouster and supporting the Syrian opposition, a so-called humanitarian mission could easily be construed as the first step in regime change managed from the outside. There would be concerns about whether Syrian rebels are using any foreign-protected camps to stage attacks on regime forces, which in turn could try to launch long-range artillery or air strikes on those same locations inside Syria.

The grave burden of protecting civilians was evident at Srebrenica, where thousands were slain in summary executions and their bodies plowed into mass graves. International courts have ruled the massacre amounted to genocide. Dutch troops stationed in the enclave as U.N. peacekeepers were undermanned and outgunned, and failed to intervene.

"To be effective, a safe zone requires a serious armed force that can defend it and serious logistics to supply it and that means a lot of military boots on the ground and serious commitment," said Emir Suljagic, a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre who had worked as an interpreter for U.N. forces based in the town. He advocated an allied bombing campaign in Syria along the lines of those in Libya and Kosovo on the basis that, "the only answer to such violence is equally extensive violence."

Bosnian Serbs also took peacekeeping soldiers hostage in an attempt to deter United Nations commanders from ordering NATO air strikes against Serb forces surrounding Bosnian safe zones. This hostage situation blocked any serious military action by the U.N.

In 1994, under a U.N. mandate, France established a humanitarian zone in Rwanda in response to the genocide there, but the project was plagued by accusations that perpetrators of the violence benefited from it.

Human Rights Watch has urged countries that have taken in Syrian refugees to keep their borders open despite the pressure of greater numbers, and said the international community should contribute aid. In Beirut, HRW representative Lama Fakih expressed concern that the establishment of any safe zone could leave fleeing civilians in a potentially more precarious situation against their will.

"Under international law, they have a right to be able to leave their country and seek asylum in another country," Fakih said. Turkey has experience with a buffer zone, helping to set one up in 1991 to deal with hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees flooding to the border from Iraq during Saddam's war with a U.S.-led coalition. International aid groups assisted Kurds on the Iraqi side of the border. The numbers flooding across from Syria are not as great, but Turkey is building four new camps to accommodate new arrivals. One opened late Tuesday, allowing authorities to start letting in several thousand more displaced Syrians who were waiting on the Syrian side of the border.

"If the situation in Syria becomes graver, it is possible that we will experience a mass exodus," said Atilla Sandikli, an analyst at BILGESAM, a research center in Istanbul. "A buffer zone has become inevitable."

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed.

AP IMPACT: With war, Syrians in constant flight

August 23, 2012

KAFAR HAMRA, Syria (AP) — Civil war has chased Fatima Ghorab and her brood of some two dozen women and children across Syria in search of safe havens that keep disappearing in the booms of artillery shells. They now shelter in an unfinished apartment in this Aleppo suburb, crowded into two rooms with a few plastic chairs and some thin mattresses. If their neighbors didn't bring them bread, they'd have none.

As her daughters and daughters-in-law and their kids tuck into a simple lunch of tomatoes and cucumbers, canned meat and apricot jam, the 56-year-old housewife from Damascus struggles to comprehend what has become of her life.

"Before all this we were living well," said Ghorab, whose family ran a supermarket in the capital until it and their home were torched during a government attack on rebels. "Our house was full and our shop was full. Now we're 100 degrees below zero."

Across Syria, hundreds of thousands of people have been thrown into a life on the move by the widening fight between President Bashar Assad's forces and rebels seeking to end his rule. Some 1.2 million people are displaced inside Syria, according to the United Nations, on top of a quarter-million who have fled to neighboring countries.

Many have picked up and fled multiple times, pushed from town to town by fighting. When they find a place that appears safe, they pile into half-built apartment buildings or sleep on tile floors in schools or on the dirt in olive groves. In tow, they bring shell-shocked children who wet their beds, get nosebleeds and vomit when they hear explosions or fighter jets.

For many, no place feels safe as the regime ramps up its use of attack helicopters and fighter jets, carrying out near daily airstrikes on towns and villages. While some towns are largely destroyed and empty, others are packed. One day, villagers watch refugees from elsewhere flood in. The next day, they themselves load their belongings into rented trucks and clear out.

Ghorab's turmoil began several months ago, when three of her sons were arrested for anti-regime protests. They were freed, but then her husband was arrested. When he was released, his feet were so swollen from beatings he couldn't walk, Ghorab said. Then last month, security forces torched the family's home and supermarket during an assault to push rebels from their battle zone neighborhood of Tadamon.

By that time, Ghorab had already fled with her daughters and daughters-in-law, fearing they could be arrested too. They went first to Aleppo, 200 miles to the north. The city, Syria's largest, had been quiet for most of the 17-month-old uprising. But then last month, rebel fighters pushed into Aleppo and the government tried to bomb them out, turning the city into a war zone.

So Ghorab and her family fled once more, to nearby Kafar Hamra. They have little money, and all their men remain in the cities to protect their remaining properties from thieves. "I have to take care of all these women and children, and there are no men here and no money," Ghorab said.

Her family has it better than some. Nearby, a public school is packed with some 15 families who fled the town of Anadan, which regime forces have reduced to a rubble-strewn ghost town. More than 17 months of violence in Syria have ravaged entire communities across this country of 22 million and killed more than 20,000 people, according to anti-regime activists.

Recent months have been particularly bloody as rebel forces have grown more adept at attacking government troops and pushed the battle into the country's two biggest cities — Aleppo in the north and the capital Damascus. In retaliation, the regime has turned increasingly to air power.

But no community has been left unaffected, whether by rising prices for food and fuel, destruction brought by fighting or influxes of civilians. Every morning in the tiny village of Sawran near the Turkish border, hundreds of men and boys form long, dense lines that snake from the two windows of a small bakery under the glare of the sun. Most of them have fled to the area from Aleppo or from largely destroyed towns further south and now sleep in schools or farmhouses, often 10 to a room.

Ali Jassem, a stonemason, brought his family from Aleppo and hasn't worked in two months. He said he can barely afford bread, much less gas for his car, so he walks eight kilometers (5 miles) each morning to the bakery, waits in line for an hour, then walks back to the farmhouse of friend where he is staying.

"The hardest part is food and poverty because there is no work anywhere," he said. Minutes later, a fight broke out in the line and men rushed to intervene. "This happens all the time," Jassem said with a shrug. "It's chaos."

For Mariam, a 42-year-old mother of four, life has become a series of rushed moves whose end has yet to come. Three months ago, Syrian forces started firing occasional artillery shells at her home village of Mayer, north of Aleppo, she said. Residents guessed their Sunni Muslim village was targeted because they live near a Shiite village that supports Assad's regime.

At first, the family would sleep in nearby fields, but the shelling continued, so they moved to Aleppo. Then Aleppo's fighting erupted, and neighborhoods were consumed by fighting between rebels and government forces. Mariam's family moved three times inside the city, and finally returned to Mayer.

"We decided that if we were going to get shelled, it might as well be in our own house," she said. The family had also run out of money to rent places to stay. The shells continued to fall and the family slept in an underground storeroom, though the summer heat made it sweltering. The booms terrified her children, who sometimes screamed in their sleep.

"They all started wetting their beds. Even the teenagers," said Mariam, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of reprisals against her family. Then the fighter jets came, dropping bombs that shook the walls and destroyed buildings, so a group of families rented a vegetable truck to take them to the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey. Most didn't have passports, making it hard to leave, so they laid out a plastic mat on the sidewalk to sleep on until they could decide what to do next.

Scores of other families had camped out nearby. Ironically, other families have fled the same Aleppo suburb that Ghorab fled to. Abdel-Basit Mustafa's family once ran a successful construction company in Kafar Hamra, which he said remained quiet while violence further north drove entire towns into the town.

Then the shells came their way, too. On two successive days, several artillery shells hit the town, Mustafa said, one peppering his brother's car with shrapnel. The next day, an airstrike killed three people who had fled to the area from Aleppo.

The next day, Mustafa's family hired a truck to take them to a large olive grove along the Turkish border where many Syrians collect before entering refugee camps on the other side. Unlike many, the family had the money to rent an apartment in Turkey, but many lacked passports, making it unsure if they could cross at all.

So they waited. "That's our family over there," Mustafa said, pointing to a dozen women and children in the scant shade of an olive tree. "We'll probably sleep there tonight, on the dirt."

Yemen Terminates Saleh-era Dubai Ports World Contract

Written by Ali Saeed
Thursday, August 30, 2012

[Sana’a] Yemenis rejoiced this week with word that the contract with Dubai Ports World (DPW) to operate the Port of Aden had been terminated. The contract was one of the remaining links to the thirty-plus-year reign of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and a reminder of how business was transacted during Saleh’s reign. Secretly signed by officials of the regime in 2008, the agreement to operate the Aden port was later attacked for depriving Yemen of significant financial resources by virtue of providing the UAE-based company with a 100-year lease on terms disadvantageous to the state that nevertheless went unfulfilled.

On Saturday, Transportation Minister Dr. Waed Batheeb ordered The Gulf of Aden Ports Corporation, a governmental agency under the aegis of the transportation ministry, to end the contract.

For Batheeb, who represents the Yemeni Socialist Party in the National Unity Government which was formed after Saleh was removed from office in 2011, it was the end of a long quest that began before the regime-change. Since last February, Batheeb survived three assassination attempts, the most recent of which came on the day the contract termination was announced.

According to officials of Yemen’s Ministry of Transportation, the actual cause for ending the contract that under DPW’s tenure, Aden’s terminals -- which the company was supposed to be developing -- deteriorated instead. An official at the ministry who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to comment to media told The Media Line that, “the port used to receive around 200,000 tankers every year, but since DPW took charge, this number decreased to 165,000 tankers."

He added that the transportation minister attempted to solve the problem cordially, traveling to Dubai last February to meet with DPW officials. But he reported that the company “showed no response.”

A report released in July by the parliament’s Transportation and Telecommunication Committee described the contract with DPW as being more political than economic. It accused the company of weakening the operations of Aden’s terminals and not abiding to the terms of the contract. One example cited was DPW’s failure to expand the dock at the port to a length of 100 meters and a depth of 18-meters as it had agreed to do.

Expressing the thoughts of most Yemenis, Mostfat Nasr, an economist, told The Media Line that, “Terminating the contract with DPW is a good step.” But he admonished that, “from now, it is the responsibility of the government to restore the port to its normal place."

That “place” figures prominently in the nation’s post-Saleh socio-economic realities. The new Yemeni government sees improving the economy as being a key to creating stability in the aftermath of the uprising that ultimately ended Saleh’s rule. With unemployment at more than forty-per cent, the new Yemeni government had hoped the port, properly managed, could produce 10,000 jobs for Yemeni workers.

The port of Aden has strong potential for producing revenue on a large scale according to Dr. Mohamed Jurban, professor of economics at the University of Sana’a. He told The Media Line that its strategic location, only miles from the Strait of Bab Al-Mandeb, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, makes it a key route for tankers and ships going to and from south Asia and Europe. The strait is a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a principle link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.

“When tankers cross the Strait of Bab Al-Mandeb, and they are in need for gas charging or regular maintenance, it is better for them to do this service in Aden’s terminals than sailing thousands of kilometers to have this service performed in Dubai or Djibouti where the weather there is not good as Aden,” Prof. Jurban explained. But, he cautioned that, “There must be a good administration to be capable of attracting the tankers that pass through the strait.”

Yemeni officials believe improvement in the situation at the Aden port will also go a long way toward convincing the international community to extend financial assistance. Next month, a conference of donor nations including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the Gulf States is scheduled to take place.

Popular support for the strategy was confirmed by 57-year old Ahmed Nasser, who predicted that, “We have our resources and we will not be in need for such donor conferences if our resources are managed efficiently with no corruption.”

It is still unclear whether the Yemeni government will take over operations at the Aden port or will seek a replacement for DPW. But either way, the process must reflect “competent management by the government “or tendering it in competition in a transparent way,” in the opinion of Nasr.

Copyright © 2012 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Young Iraqis face religious fashion crackdown

By LARA JAKES | Associated Press
Mon, Sep 3, 2012

BAGHDAD (AP) — For much of Iraq's youth, sporting blingy makeup, slicked-up hair and skintight jeans is just part of living the teenage dream. But for their elders, it's a nightmare.

A new culture rift is emerging in Iraq, as young women replace shapeless cover-ups with ankle-baring skirts and tight blouses, while men strut around in revealing slacks and spiky haircuts. The relatively skimpy styles have prompted Islamic clerics in at least two Iraqi cities to mobilize local security guards as a "fashion police" in the name of protecting religious values.
"I see the way (older people) look at me — they don't like it," said Mayada Hamid, 32, wearing a pink leopard-print headscarf with jeans, a blue blouse and lots of sparkly eyeliner Sunday while shopping at the famous gold market in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

She rolled her eyes. "It's just suppression." So far, though, there are no reports of the police actually taking action.

This is a conflict playing out across the Arab world, where conservative Islamic societies grapple with the effects of Western influence, especially the most obvious — the way their young choose to dress.

The violations of old Iraqi norms have grown especially egregious, religious officials say, since the Aug. 20 end of Ramadan, Islam's holy month. In the last two weeks, posters and banners have been hanging along the streets of Kazimiyah, sternly reminding women to wear an abaya — a long, loose black cloak that covers the body from shoulders to feet.

A similar warning came from Diwaniyah, a Shiite city about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, where some posters have painted a red X over pictures of women wearing pants. Other banners praise women who keep their hair fully covered beneath a headscarf.

Religious officials speculate young Iraqis got carried away in celebrating the end of Ramadan and now need to be reined in.

"We support personal freedoms, but there are places that have a special status," said Sheik Mazin Saadi, a Shiite cleric from Kazimiyah, home to the double gold-domed shrine that is one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites.

He said the area's residents lobbied Baghdad's local government to ban unveiled women from walking around the neighborhood, including its sprawling open-air market that attracts people from across Iraq.

"The women started to follow to this order," Saadi said.

Government leaders in Baghdad say they've issued no such ban and ordered some of the warning posters removed. The rule "is only for the female visitors who go inside the shrine itself," said Sabar al-Saadi, chairman of the Baghdad provincial council's legal committee. "We think that wearing a veil for women in Iraq is a personal decision."

Muslim women generally wear headscarves or veils in public out of modesty, and female worshippers are required to wear an abaya or other loose robes in shrines and mosques.

But over the last several years, following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, Western styles have crept into Iraq's fashion palate. Form-fitting clothing, stylish shoes and men's edgy hairstyles are commonly seen on the street. Some younger women have even begun to forgo the hijab, or headscarf.

Their parents — and their parents' parents — fear Western influence will drown out Iraq's centuries of culture and respect for religion.

"We as Iraqis do not respect our traditions," said Fadhil Jawad, 65, a gold seller near the Kazimiyah shrine. He estimated his profits have dropped by 10 percent in the last two weeks since authorities posted warnings about improper dress codes at the entrance to the market. He called the financial loss worth the lesson being imposed.

"Legs can be seen, there are low-cut shirts," Jawad lamented. "And all, very, very tight. I think these Iraqis who are wearing these things have come back from Syria, Dubai and Egypt. They probably spent too much time in nightclubs. The families in Kazimiyah are conservative. These young people — nobody can control them. They should be given freedoms, but they should know their limits."

Several young adults strolling the Kazimiyah gold market on Sunday accused the religious class of trying to pull Iraq back to the dark ages, a sentiment that human rights activist Hana Adwar echoed.

"It is an aggression on the rights of not only religious minorities, but also on secular Muslim women who do not want to wear veils," said Adwar, head of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Hope Association.

Men, too, have been targeted in the fashion flap: Edgy haircuts, tattoos and body piercings have angered religious authorities. But Hassan Mahdi, 22, said he does not care.

"No, hell no, nobody can tell me what to do," said Mahdi, sporting a tight turquoise Adidas tracksuit and a trendy moptop hairdo at the Kazimiyah market.

So far, it appears, the fashion police have stopped short of taking any real steps. Guards at two security checkpoints in Kazimiyah said they have not been ordered to stop daring dressers from entering the market, and 17-year-old Ali Sayeed Abdullah said his slicked-up pompadour didn't prevent him from going into the shrine. "Nobody objected," he said. "But if there is a ban on this, I will change it," referring to his hairstyle.

But some women have been handed tissues at Kazimiyah checkpoints and told to wipe off their makeup before entering the market, said resident Hakima Mahdi, 59.

"This is very good," she said, smiling broadly, sheathed in a black cloak with an extra abaya covering her head. "It's respect to the imam, respect to this holy place."

___

Associated Press Writers Sameer N. Yacoub, Bushra Juhi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Alaa al-Marjani in Diwaniyah, Iraq, contributed to this report.