Intrigue swirls around Russia defense chief's fall

November 06, 2012

MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Putin fired his powerful defense chief over a corruption scandal Tuesday, but a heady mix of sex, power struggles and military vendettas dominated talk in Russia about what was really behind the downfall of the man who has overseen the nation's most radical defense reform in decades.

The dismissal of Anatoly Serdyukov was a surprise because the burly politician was widely regarded as having the president's blessing for a military modernization that has won the enmity of generals and arms makers with connections to members of Putin's inner circle.

Adding intrigue was the fact that Serdyukov is married to the daughter one of Putin's close allies, a former prime minister who wields enormous influence as chairman of state-run natural gas giant Gazprom. Media reports suggest that Serdyukov's alleged philandering angered Viktor Zubkov and may have been a factor in the sacking.

But most experts see a behind-the-scenes power struggle at the root of Putin's decision. Serdyukov has masterminded a campaign to drastically cut the ranks of officers and overhaul an antiquated military structure to create a leaner, meaner force that might restore Russia's faded military glory.

In particular, he has aggressively demanded higher quality and cheaper prices from the military industry — ruffling powerful business interests. That is seen as having set off an internal struggle in which Kremlin allies of leading arms makers have conspired to bring Serdyukov down.

"He angered the leaders of defense industries, refusing to sign new contracts until they make their prices fully transparent," said Alexander Golts, an independent Moscow-based military expert. "And he told them that the military will buy the weapons it needs, not the weapons they want to sell."

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told The Associated Press that Serdyukov's moves to "replace the very foundation of the Russian military system" won him powerful enemies. "A lot of entrenched interests benefited from that system," Trenin said.

Putin made the announcement in a meeting with Moscow regional governor Sergei Shoigu, whom he appointed as the new minister. Some observers predict that Shoigu may take a less radical approach to military reform.

While giving few details, the president linked the move to a probe announced by the country's top investigative agency last month into the sale of military assets, including real estate. The Investigative Committee says the state suffered damages of 3 billion rubles ($95 million) in just a few cases reviewed.

The corruption case first surfaced last month and involves Oboronservice, a state-controlled company whose activities include servicing military aircraft and arms and building military facilities. In the course of the probe, investigators carried out an early morning search of the apartment of Yevgeniya Vasilyeva, a senior Oboronservice official who was once a close aide of Serdyukov in the Defense Ministry. Serdyukov reportedly was alone at the apartment with Vasilyeva when police turned up — fueling rumors of an affair.

"The scandal behind the scandal is a personal scandal that has been rumored in Mr. Serdyukov's family," Trenin said. Serdyukov, a former furniture salesman, entered public service as a tax official and quickly rose through the ranks to become head of the Russian tax service before being appointed defense minister in 2007. Russian media have speculated that he owed his meteoric rise to marrying Zubkov's daughter.

Whatever the origins of Serdyukov's success, it's clear that he made a profound impact on Russia as its military chief. Serdyukov's reform led to the dismissal of 200,000 officers, disbanded nine out of 10 military units and turned over once untouchable military assets to civilian hands.

"Serdyukov's reform marked a break with the Russian military culture," said Golts. "Russian military officers simply can't imagine a different military model." Under Serdyukov, the military purchased amphibious assault vessels from France, bought Israeli drones, Italian armored vehicles and other foreign weapons in an unprecedented slap in the face of the Russian military industrial complex.

"He has made powerful foes by ending purchases of obsolete weapons," said Igor Korotchenko, a retired colonel of Russia's military general staff who is now editor of National Defense magazine. He said that a battle for the distribution of 20 trillion rubles ($635 billion) that the Kremlin plans to spend on buying new weapons through 2020 was likely a key reason behind Serdyukov's firing.

Speculation about Serdyukov's possible downfall has floated around for years, but he had received Putin's staunch backing until now. Putin authorized and publicly praised Serdyukov's reforms, and some observers expect that they will continue, although perhaps at a slower pace, under his successor.

"The continuation of the military reform is inevitable," Korotchenko said. "Radical changes that have been made in the command system and the structure of the military can't be reversed." But others warned that Shoigu, who had served as the nation's Emergency Situations minister for two decades before being appointed regional governor half a year ago, would likely face strong pressure from the top brass to take a less radical approach to military reform.

"The new boss will have to take a new approach differing from that of his predecessor," said Golts, "and that would create a good opportunity for those who want to stop this reform."

Jim Heintz and Laura Mills contributed to this report.

Hundreds protest Ukraine election fraud

November 05, 2012

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of Ukrainians on Monday protested alleged fraud in last month's parliamentary election and the opposition threatened to boycott the new parliament and call for a re-vote.

Western observers deemed the Oct. 28 parliamentary election unfair, saying the imprisonment of President Viktor Yanukovych's arch-foe, Yulia Tymoshenko, and non-transparent vote tallying were a step back for democracy.

Three pro-Western opposition parties made a strong showing in the proportional voting that chooses half of parliament's 450 seats, but they accuse authorities of rigging results in a number of individual races in an attempt to secure Yanukovych's allies a majority.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leader of Tymoshenko's Fatherland party told a crowd of some 2,000 people outside the Central Election Commission office in Kiev that the opposition is demanding the votes in disputed districts be recounted. Earlier in the day, his party threatened to declare the new parliament as illegitimate.

World boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, leader of the opposition Udar party that got 14 percent in the proportional vote and a total of about one-tenth of parliament seats, called for new elections based solely on the proportional system.

"There will be no victory without a fight," Klitschko roared from the rally stage. The demonstration was far smaller than the hundreds of thousands who turned out in 2004 to protest the fraud-tainted presidential election that Yanukovych purportedly won. Those rallies, which came to be known as the Orange Revolution, forced a rerun that Yanukovych lost, though he won the next election in 2010.

"They stole the opposition's votes, it wasn't fair, it wasn't honest, it wasn't pretty," said Roman Vorobei, 18, a university student in Kiev, who came to the protest. Western election observers said last week that although the vote itself was satisfactory, the count prompted concern. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Monday urged Ukrainian authorities to quickly produce final results — "which should reflect the genuine will of the Ukrainian voters." Complaints should also be dealt with swiftly and effectively, she said.

While the proportional share of the vote was tallied relatively quickly, the count of votes in individual races took days, prompting brawls between government and opposition supporters, the use of tear gas and even the storming of one election commission by riot police.

The opposition accuses election officials of inflating the count in favor of government loyalists, annulling votes for opposition candidates and even outright falsifying of results. The government insists that violations were few and isolated.

The stakes were high for many government-backed candidates vying for the perks and immunity from prosecution enjoyed by Ukrainian lawmakers as well as for Yanukovych's Party of Regions as a whole, which will have to search for allies in the new parliament to get a majority.

"Things seem to be getting tense as every seat in parliament seems to count now for the party of power," said Timothy Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank in London. "They did not do as well as first thought, and might now struggle to secure a parliamentary majority."

Northern Ireland prison guard slain in gun ambush

November 01, 2012

DUBLIN (AP) — Suspected IRA die-hards killed a Northern Ireland prison officer Thursday in a gun ambush as he drove to work, the first killing of a prison guard in nearly two decades in the British territory.

Police said a gunman in a passing car shot David Black, 52, several times as he drove onto the M1 motorway southwest of Belfast. His car plummeted down a grassy embankment into a ditch. Police found the attackers' suspected getaway car burned out in the nearby town of Lurgan, a power base for two IRA factions opposed to Northern Ireland's peace process, the Real IRA and Continuity IRA. They said the car had Dublin license plates.

No group claimed responsibility. Politicians and police commanders said IRA militants were inevitably to blame and pilloried the various IRA splinter groups still in existence as politically pointless.

"These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London. The government of the neighboring Republic of Ireland pledged to help hunt down those responsible.

"I know that I speak for every decent man, woman and child on this island, north and south, in expressing revulsion at this act," Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore said in Dublin. Gilmore said police in both parts of Ireland would crack down anew on IRA extremists, many of whom live in the Irish Republic near the border. "There will be no return to the dark and violent days of the past," he said.

In Belfast, the British Protestant and Irish Catholic leaders of Northern Ireland's unity government stood shoulder to shoulder to emphasize that no act of violence would weaken their 5-year-old coalition, the central achievement of the territory's 1998 peace accord.

First Minister Peter Robinson, a Protestant, lambasted the various IRA factions as "flat-earth fanatics, living in the dark ages, spewing out hatred from every pore." Standing beside him Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, nodded in agreement and declared that Black's killers "can't kill the peace process, and we are the proof of that."

McGuinness' Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, long a political pariah, received a share of power in Northern Ireland after the long-dominant Provisional IRA faction in 2005 disarmed and accepted that Northern Ireland's political status could be changed only by majority approval. Surveys since have consistently shown that most residents want to stay in the United Kingdom and build better relations with the Irish Republic.

Despite this, small IRA groups using myriad names continue to mount sporadic gun and bomb attacks. They usually fail because of British intelligence tipoffs or equipment failures. IRA factions have killed two civilian men this year in attacks involving turf wars over the drugs trade, and last killed a policeman in April 2011, when a Catholic recruit was blown up outside his home by a bomb hidden under his car.

The level of violence is nothing like the 1970s-'80s heyday of Northern Ireland's conflict, when typically around 100 people a year died in often tit-for-tat violence involving IRA factions and paramilitary outlaws from the Protestant side of the community.

Today about 4,000 British troops remain garrisoned in Northern Ireland — a third of their level a decade ago — but play no role in local security. Police still sometimes must patrol in armored vehicles and flak jackets, but they operate with few restrictions even in the most militant Irish nationalist districts, an impossible prospect before the Provisional IRA cease-fire.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service said Black, a married man with a son and daughter, had been a prison guard for about 30 years and was due to retire soon. Finlay Spratt, chairman of the Northern Ireland Prison Officers Association, described Black as "a very nice fellow to work with. He always ensured he did his job to the letter."

Spratt lambasted the weakening of security provisions for prison officers, who live in civilian areas and still face death threats from extremists on both sides of Northern Ireland's sectarian divide.

He said the Northern Ireland and British governments "have stripped away all the security around prison officers. They treat us now as if we live in normal society," he said. The victim worked at Maghaberry Prison, where more than 40 IRA inmates have been waging protests for more than a year, including smearing their cells with their own excrement. The prisoners chiefly want to overturn the prison's policy of strip-searching inmates.

The IRA factions particularly seek to deter Catholic recruitment into the once Protestant-dominated police force, a major achievement of peacemaking. But Catholic recruitment into the similarly Protestant prison service has been less successful, a problem highlighted in a recent British government appeal for more applicants from Irish nationalist communities.

Black was the 30th prison officer to die as part of Northern Ireland's four-decade conflict. Most were killed by the Provisional IRA, but the previous killing in 1993 was committed by the Ulster Volunteer Force, a paramilitary group rooted in the British Protestant side of the community.

Spratt said Black's killing was unlikely to be the last IRA attempt to kill prison officers — and was likely to deter people from seeking work as one. "Why would you come and work in the prison service now and chance your life for 18,000 pounds a year?" he said, referring to the starting base salary, equivalent to $29,000.

Hit by crisis, Greek society in free-fall

November 01, 2012

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A sign taped to a wall in an Athens hospital appealed for civility from patients. "The doctors on duty have been unpaid since May," it read, "Please respect their work."

Patients and their relatives glanced up briefly and moved on, hardened to such messages of gloom. In a country where about 1,000 people lose their jobs each day, legions more are still employed but haven't seen a paycheck in months. What used to be an anomaly has become commonplace, and those who have jobs that pay on time consider themselves the exception to the rule.

To the casual observer, all might appear well in Athens. Traffic still hums by, restaurants and bars are open, people sip iced coffees at sunny sidewalk cafes. But scratch the surface and you find a society in free-fall, ripped apart by the most vicious financial crisis the country has seen in half a century.

It has been three years since Greece's government informed its fellow members in the 17-country group that uses the euro that its deficit was far higher than originally reported. It was the fuse that sparked financial turmoil still weighing heavily on eurozone countries. Countless rounds of negotiations ensued as European countries and the International Monetary Fund struggled to determine how best to put a lid on the crisis and stop it spreading.

The result: Greece had to introduce stringent austerity measures in return for two international rescue loan packages worth a total of €240 billion ($313 billion), slashing salaries and pensions and hiking taxes.

The reforms have been painful, and the country faces a sixth year of recession. Life in Athens is often punctuated by demonstrations big and small, sometimes on a daily basis. Rows of shuttered shops stand between the restaurants that have managed to stay open. Vigilantes roam inner city neighborhoods, vowing to "clean up" what they claim the demoralized police have failed to do. Right-wing extremists beat migrants, anarchists beat the right-wing thugs and desperate local residents quietly cheer one side or the other as society grows increasingly polarized.

"Our society is on a razor's edge," Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said recently, after striking shipyard workers broke into the grounds of the Defense Ministry. "If we can't contain ourselves, if we can't maintain our social cohesion, if we can't continue to act within the rules ... I fear we will end up being a jungle."

CRUMBLING LIVING STANDARDS Vassilis Tsiknopoulos, runs a stall at Athens' central fish market and has been working since age 15. He used to make a tidy profit, he says, pausing to wrap red mullet in a paper cone for a customer. But families can't afford to spend much anymore, and many restaurants have shut down.

The 38-year-old fishmonger now barely breaks even. "I start work at 2:30 a.m. and work 'till the afternoon, until about 4 p.m. Shouldn't I have something to show for that? There's no point in working just to cover my costs. ... Tell me, is this a life?"

The fish market's president, Spyros Korakis, says there has been a 70 percent drop in business over the past three years. Above the din of fish sellers shouting out prices and customers jostling for a better deal, Korakis explained how the days of big spenders were gone, with people buying ever smaller quantities and choosing cheaper fish.

Private businesses have closed down in the thousands. Unemployment stands at a record 25 percent, with more than half of Greece's young people out of work. Caught between plunging incomes and ever increasing taxes, families are finding it hard to make ends meet. Higher heating fuel prices have meant many apartment tenants have opted not to buy heating fuel this year. Instead, they'll make do with blankets, gas heaters and firewood to get through the winter. Lines at soup kitchens have grown longer.

At the end of the day, as the fish market gradually packed up, a beggar crawled around the stalls, picking up the fish discarded onto the floor and into the gutters. "I've been here since 1968. My father, my grandfather ran this business," Korakis said. "We've never seen things so bad."

Tsiknopoulos' patience is running out. "I'm thinking of shutting down," he said, "I think about it every day. That, and leaving Greece." JUSTICE On a recent morning in a crowded civil cases court in the northern city of Thessaloniki, frustration simmered. Plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers all waited for the inevitable — yet another postponement, yet another court date.

Greece's sclerotic justice system has been hit by a protracted strike that has left courts only functioning for an hour a day as judges and prosecutors protest salary cuts. For Giorgos Vacharelis, it means his long quest for justice has grown longer. Vacharelis' younger brother was beaten to death in a fairground in 2003. The attacker was convicted of causing a fatal injury and jailed. The family felt the reasons behind the 24-year-old's death had never been fully explained, and filed a civil suit for damages. Nearly 10 years later, Vacharelis and his parents had hoped the case would finally be over.

But the court date they were given in late September got caught up the strike. Now they have a new date: Feb. 28, 2014. "This means more costs for them, but above all more psychological damage because each time they go through the murder of their relative again," said Nikos Dialynas, the family's lawyer.

Vacharelis and his family are in despair. "If a foreigner saw how the justice system works in Greece, he would say we're crazy," said the 35-year-old. "Each time we come to court we get even more outraged," he said. "We see a theater of the absurd."

VIGILANTES In September, gangs of men smashed immigrant street vendors' stalls at fairs and farmers' markets. Videos posted on the Internet showed the incident being carried out in the presence of lawmakers from the extreme right Golden Dawn party. Formerly a fringe group, Golden Dawn — which denies accusations it has carried out violent attacks against immigrants — made major inroads into mainstream politics. It won nearly 7 percent of the vote in June's election and 18 seats in the 300-member parliament. A recent opinion poll showed its support climbing to 12 percent.

Immigrant and human rights groups say there has been an alarming increase in violent attacks on migrants. Greece has been the EU's main gateway for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants — and foreigners have fast become scapegoats for rising unemployment and crime.

While there are no official statistics, migrants tell of random beatings at the hands of thugs who stop to ask them where they are from, then attack them with wooden bats. Assaults have been increasing since autumn 2010, said Spyros Rizakos, who heads Aitima, a human rights group focusing on refugees. Victims often avoid reporting beatings for fear of running afoul of the authorities if they are in the country illegally, while perpetrators are rarely caught or punished even if the attacks are reported.

"Haven't we learned anything from history? What we are seeing is a situation that is falling apart, the social fabric is falling apart," Rizakos said. "I'm very concerned about the situation in Greece. There are many desperate people ... All this creates an explosive cocktail."

In response to pressure for more security and a crackdown on illegal migration, the government launched a police sweep in Athens in early August. By late October, police had rounded up nearly 46,000 foreigners, of whom more than 3,600 were arrested for being in the country illegally.

Police say that in the first two months of the operation, there was also a 91 percent drop in the numbers of migrants entering the country illegally along the northeastern border with Turkey, with 1,338 migrants arrested in the border area compared to 14,724 arrested during the same two months in 2011.

HEALTHCARE At a demonstration by the disabled in central Athens, tempers were rising. Healthcare spending has been slashed as the country struggles to reduce its debt. Public hospitals complain of shortages of everything from gauzes to surgical equipment. Pharmacies regularly go on strike or refuse to fill subsidized social security prescriptions because government funds haven't paid them for the drugs already bought. Benefits have been slashed and hospital workers often go unpaid for months.

And it is the country's most vulnerable who suffer. "When the pharmacies are closed and I can't get my insulin, which is my life for me, what do I do? ... How can we survive?" asked Voula Hasiotou, a member of an association of diabetics who turned out for the rally.

The disabled still receive benefits on a sliding scale according to the severity of their condition. But they are terrified they could face cuts, and are affected anyway by general spending cuts and the pharmacy problems.

"We are fighting hard to manage something, a dignified life," said Anastasia Mouzakiti, a paraplegic who came to the demonstration from the northern city of Thessaloniki with her husband, who is also handicapped.

With extra needs such as wheelchairs and home help for everyday tasks such as washing and dressing, many of Greece's disabled are struggling to make ends meet, Mouzakiti said. "We need a wheelchair until we die. This wheelchair, if it breaks down, how do we pay for it? With what money?"

Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece contributed to this story.

Eurozone unemployment rises to new record

October 31, 2012

LONDON (AP) — Unemployment in the 17-country eurozone hit a record high of 11.6 percent in September, official figures showed Wednesday, a sign the economy is deteriorating as governments struggle to get a grip on their three-year debt crisis.

The rate reported by Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, was up from an upwardly revised 11.5 percent in August. In total, 18.49 million people were out of work in the eurozone in September, up 146,000 on the previous month, the biggest increase in three months.

While the eurozone's unemployment rate has been rising steadily for the past year as the economy struggled with a financial crisis and government spending cuts, the United States has seen its equivalent rate fall to 7.8 percent. The latest U.S. figures are due Friday.

With the eurozone economy fading, most economists think unemployment will keep increasing over the coming months and that the deteriorating economic picture will soon spook investors again after a brief hiatus.

"Financial markets have calmed somewhat, but we expect that the deteriorating economy will soon enough lead to more crisis headlines," said Tim Ohlenburg, senior economist at the Center for Economics and Business Research.

Five countries in the eurozone are already in recession — Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus — and others are expected to join them soon. The region as a whole is expected to be confirmed to be in recession when the first estimate of eurozone economic activity in the third quarter is published mid-November — a recession is officially confirmed after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

"With surveys suggesting that firms are becoming more reluctant to hire, the eurozone unemployment rate looks set to rise further, placing more pressure on struggling households," said Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics.

Recession and unemployment make it more difficult for the eurozone to deal with its debt problem — governments need to pay more benefits to the jobless and receive fewer tax revenues. That could push countries to take even more austerity measures, which in turn weighs on economic activity.

Once again, Spain held the ignominious position of having the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone, at 25.8 percent. Greece may yet surpass that — its unemployment rate mushroomed to 25.1 percent in July, the latest available figure, and is due to increase in the face of what many economists are calling an economic depression. The country is forecast to enter its sixth year of recession next year.

Both countries, which are at the heart of Europe's three-year debt crisis, have youth unemployment above 50 percent. That risks creating a lost generation of workers and is straining the countries' social fabric. Extremist political groups in Greece and regional separatist parties in Spain have grown in popularity as the economy worsened.

Concern over the social impact of unemployment has also weakened governments and hobbled political decision-making. In Greece, the three parties in the coalition government have tried for months to agree on an austerity package that is necessary for the release of bailout loans to prevent the country's bankruptcy.

The lowest unemployment rate in the eurozone was Austria's 4.4 percent. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has a jobless rate of only 5.4 percent. Separately, Eurostat reported that inflation in the eurozone fell modestly to 2.5 percent in the year to October, from the previous month's 2.6 percent. Inflation is still above the European Central Bank's target of keeping price rises just below 2 percent.

"High and rising unemployment, and relatively sticky inflation, does not bode well for consumer spending across the eurozone, especially as consumers in many countries are also facing muted wage growth and tighter fiscal policy," said Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight.

Above-target inflation has not prevented the ECB cutting its key interest rate to a record low of 0.75 percent, but few economists think financially strained consumers will get any more help from the bank at next week's monthly policy meeting.

Protesters greet Indonesian president in London

October 31, 2012

LONDON (AP) — Indonesia's president met Queen Elizabeth II Wednesday during a visit to Britain that was marred by protesters accusing him of human rights abuses.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Indonesian first lady Ani Bambang Yudhoyono were welcomed by the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, in a ceremony at London's Horse Guards Parade. The two couples then took part in a state carriage procession to Buckingham Palace, where the visiting couple will stay during their three-day visit.

About 50 demonstrators holding placards that read "Stop killing Papuans" protested the Indonesian leader's visit outside Prime Minister David Cameron's residence at 10 Downing Street. They claim Yudhoyono has committed crimes of humanity against tribal people in West Papua.

Rights groups including the New York-based Human Rights Watch have said that Indonesia's military is responsible for some of the violence in the southeast Asian country's restive Papua province, home to a decades-long low-level guerrilla war. Yudhoyono has conceded that Indonesian security forces had overreacted at times, but said the attacks were "on a small scale with limited victims."

Later Wednesday, two human rights activists tried to reach Yudhoyono's car, but were stopped by police. Scotland Yard confirmed that they arrested one man for attempting to disrupt the leader's visit. The man, activist Peter Tatchell, was released without charge.

The queen, who along with her husband visited Indonesia 33 years ago, praised Yudhoyono for leading democratic change in Indonesia during a lavish state banquet she hosted in honor of her guests at a ballroom in Buckingham Palace.

The president is the first foreign leader to be welcomed in a state visit during the queen's Diamond Jubilee year.

2,000 sheep led through streets of Spain's capital

October 28, 2012

MADRID (AP) — Spanish shepherds led a flock of more than 2,000 sheep through central Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.

Many tourists and residents were surprised to see traffic cut to allow the ovine parade to bleat its way across some of Madrid's most upscale urban streets. The right to use droving routes that wind across land that was open fields and woodland before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great metropolis it is today has existed since at least 1273.

Every year, a handful of shepherds defend the right and, following an age-old tradition, on Sunday paid 25 maravedis — coins first minted in the 11th century — to city hall to use the crossing. Shepherds have a right to use 78,000 miles (125,000 kilometers) of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer and more protected lowland grazing in winter.

The movement is called transhumance and in Spain up until recently involved close to a million animals a year, mostly sheep and cattle. Modern farming practices are however increasingly confining animals to barns, because shepherding is costly, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, which has been promoting the colorful annual Transhumance Fiesta in Madrid since 1994.

Madrid became an important urban center when King Philip II chose it as the capital of his vast empire in 1561. Some paths have been used for more than 800 years and modern-day Madrid has sprawled to engulf two north-south routes. One that crosses Puerta del Sol — Madrid's equivalent of New York's Times Square — dates back to 1372.

Spaniards are proud of their centuries-old sheep rearing traditions and hold the native Merino breed of sheep in particular esteem. Merinos have gone on to form the backbone of important wool industries in places such as Australia and South America.

Sicily vote provides test for national elections

October 28, 2012

MILAN (AP) — Sicilian elections on Sunday provided a key testing ground for Italy's political parties before national elections in the spring to replace the technical government of Premier Mario Monti.

Ten candidates were vying for governor of one of Italy's most important regions in the election, which was called following the resignation of Gov. Raffaele Lombardo amid concerns that the region risked insolvency and following his indictment on charges of Mafia association. He has denied the charges.

The region of about 5 million inhabitants and with an unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent is considered a barometer for national elections. Italian political parties are jockeying for strategies to retake power in Rome when the mandate for Monti's government expires.

Monti, who took power last year tasked with shielding Italy from the debt crisis, has said he will not run for another term, but has said he would be open to a second term under certain circumstances, which analysts have said would mean if no party wins a clear mandate or can put together a majority.

On the center-left, the Democratic Party and the centrist Union of the Center Party have united behind one candidate, testing sentiment for a possible repeat in the national elections. Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Liberty Party, damaged by political scandals in the regions of Lazio and Lombardy, also is seeking to invigorate itself. On the eve of the vote and just days after saying he would not run in the spring for premier, the 76-year-old Berlusconi threatened to withdraw support for Monti's policies.

Berlusconi was convicted Friday of tax fraud, and sentenced to four years in jail. The sentence is not definitive until two levels of appeals are exhausted, which his lawyers have vowed to pursue. Meanwhile, he populist Five Star Movement launched by comic Beppe Grillo is proving a threat to the traditional center-right and center-left parties.

Ukraine ruling party claims victory in election

October 28, 2012

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's party claimed victory Sunday in a parliamentary vote tainted by the jailing of the country's top opposition leader.

Despite a strong showing of pro-Western opposition parties in the proportional portion of the vote, Yanukovych's Party of Regions was likely to retain its parliamentary majority as its candidates were expected to take the lead in individual races across the country.

With former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko in jail and widespread fears of election fraud, the West is paying close attention to the vote in the strategic ex-Soviet state, which lies between Russia and the European Union, and serves as a key conduit for transit of Russian energy supplies to many EU countries. An election deemed undemocratic by international observers could freeze Kiev's ties with the West and push Ukraine toward Moscow.

An exit poll conducted by three leading polling agencies showed the Party of Regions ahead with some 28.1 percent of the vote. Tymoshenko's Fatherland party is poised to get about 25 percent of the proportional vote, while the Udar (Punch) led by world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is set to get around 15 percent, according to the survey. The anti-government nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and the Communists, Yanukovych's traditional allies, both look set to get about 12 percent. And even though the three opposition parties have more proportional votes than the Regions and the Communists combined, Yanukovych candidates are likely to win enough individual races to form a majority in parliament.

Official results were slow to trickle in. With the votes at less than 1 percent of all polling stations counted, Yanukovych's Party got 50 percent, Tymoshenko's and Klitschko's parties got about 15 percent each, Svoboda got 7 percent and the Communists 5 percent, according to election officials.

"We believe that this is an undisputable victory of the Party of Regions," Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said shortly after polls closed. "Above all, it shows the people's trust to the (policy) course that is being pursued."

Opposition parties alleged widespread violations on election day, such as vote-buying and multiple voting and an attack on a candidate who tried to document election violations. The Committee of Ukrainian Voters, an independent local election monitor, confirmed those problems, but said it remains to be seen whether the violations would significantly affect the overall elections results and how fair the vote-tallying will be. Authorities insisted the election was honest and democratic. Independent monitors will give their assessment Monday.

With Yanukovych under fire over the jailing of his top rival, Tymoshenko; rampant corruption and slow reforms, the opposition made a strong showing. "This clearly shows that the people of Ukraine support the opposition, not for the government," Tymoshenko ally Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.

Opposition forces hope to garner enough parliament seats to weaken Yanukovych's power and undo the damage they say he has done: the jailing of Tymoshenko and her top allies, the concentration of power in the hands of the president, the snubbing of the Ukrainian language in favor of Russian, waning media freedoms, a deteriorating business climate and growing corruption.

The strong showing by the far-right Svoboda party, which campaigns for the defense of the Ukrainian language and culture but is also infamous for xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric, emerged as a surprise and showed the widespread disappointment and anger with the ruling party.

It remains to be seen whether Tymoshenko's group, Klitschko's party and Svoboda can forge a strong alliance and challenge Yanukovych. The election tainted by Tymoshenko's jailing on charges of abuse of office has also been compromised by the creation of fake opposition parties, campaigns by politically unskilled celebrities, and the use of state resources and greater access to television by Yanukovych's party.

Yuras Karmanau in Kiev contributed to this report.

Russian opposition issues warning to Kremlin

October 24, 2012

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leaders urged President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to stop clamping down on dissent and warned they would ask Western governments to freeze assets of Russian officials involved in a spiraling crackdown on the opposition.

Alexei Navalny and other opposition activists who were elected to the opposition's Coordinating Council in a weekend online ballot accused the Kremlin of unleashing a campaign of "direct and forceful pressure against its opponents in rude violation of Russian and international law."

They pointed at what they said was the abduction of opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev from neighboring Ukraine as an example of the repression of dissenters. The opposition leaders warned that government officials and law-enforcement officers will face "imminent punishment for their crimes against Russian citizens."

They said the opposition will hold a rally in Moscow in support of Razvozzhayev and other jailed opposition members this weekend. "The Coordinating Council will demand the arrest of all foreign assets of the masterminds and perpetrators of the abduction, torture and illegal criminal repression against the opposition," the opposition leaders said in a statement.

Russia's top investigative agency formally charged Razvozzhayev on Tuesday with orchestrating riots. The agency said he had turned himself in, but Razvozzhayev and his supporters said he was kidnapped from Ukraine where he was seeking asylum, smuggled back into Russia and tortured into confessing that he organized riots.

Members of a Russian prisoners' rights watchdog, who spoke Wednesday after meeting with Razvozzhayev in jail, said unidentified abductors forced him to make "confessions" by threatening to kill him and his family.

Valery Borshchev and other members of the Public Observation Commission said the masked men who abducted Razvozzhayev kept him in handcuffs and leg chains in a basement for three days, denying him food, water, sleep and a toilet until he signed the confessions.

"They accompanied it all with threats, telling him that they know everything about his children and that his children and his wife will be dead," Borshchev said. Borshchev's colleague, Lidiya Dubikova, said Razvozzhayev looked anemic and his speech was slow, as if he had been drugged. Razvozzhayev told rights defenders that he feared the men who forced him to make confessions would return.

Amnesty International said Wednesday that the claims about Razvozzhayev's abduction and torture "are extremely disturbing" and urged Russia to "ensure such allegations are promptly, effectively and independently investigated."

Charges against Razvozzhayev stemmed from hidden camera footage aired earlier this month by a Kremlin-friendly TV channel. The documentary claimed that leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov met with a Georgian lawmaker to raise money for organizing riots in Moscow and several other Russian cities. Udaltsov rejected the charges and said the footage was a sham.

Udaltsov already was questioned last week and he fears arrest. One of his aides was arrested last week. Opposition and rights activists denounced the case against Udaltsov and other activists as a throwback to the times of Soviet-era repression. "The evidence of abduction and torture of Razvozzhayev is like a message from hell," gallery owner Marat Gelman wrote in his blog.

Putin has methodically raised the pressure on the opposition since he was sworn in for a third term in May. Protest leaders have faced interrogations, searches and criminal charges, and the Kremlin-controlled parliament churned out a series of repressive bills to discourage people from joining protests and to introduce new tough restrictions on non-government organizations.

On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers passed a new bill offering a new broad definition of treason, which rights activists say is so loose that it could allow officials to brand any dissenter a traitor. Earlier this month, Moscow declared an end to the U.S. Agency for International Development's two decades of work in Russia, saying the agency was using its money to influence elections — a claim the U.S. denied.

And despite an international outrage against the two-year prison sentence given to members of the Pussy Riot punk band for an irreverent anti-Putin protest at Moscow's main cathedral, two of them were sent to remote prison colonies this week. The third one was released after a court suspended her sentence.

Hungary opposition groups form electoral alliance

October 23, 2012

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian opposition groups say they are forming an electoral alliance meant to defeat Prime Minister Viktor Orban's governing Fidesz party in 2014.

Gordon Bajnai, Orban's predecessor, said the alliance will seek to make Hungary "a normal, democratic and European society" and integrate the disparate groups opposing Orban's right-wing government. Bajnai spoke to 30,000 supporters at a bridge in Budapest Tuesday.

Orban, speaking to an estimated 150,000 supporters at a separate rally outside parliament, against criticized the EU, saying it needs to be more decisive with the economic crisis. Orban said that while Hungary accepts rules applying to all EU members, "we cannot accept anyone telling us what we can and cannot do in our own country."

Both rallies were held to commemorate the 56th anniversary of Hungary's anti-Soviet 1956 uprising.

Russian opposition elects its leaders online

October 22, 2012

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin has had nothing but mockery for the protesters who have taken to the streets against him in unprecedented numbers. Russia's opposition, he said, is no more than a gaggle of Internet dwellers with "no unified program, no clear and comprehensible way of achieving their unclear goals, and nobody who can actually do something."

The opposition has set out to prove him wrong by formally choosing its leaders through an online election that ended Monday night. Nearly 82,000 voted in the election, which was intended to help the opposition present a more united front against the Kremlin and find a way to broaden its appeal as enthusiasm for streets protests fades.

Alexei Navalny, a charismatic corruption fighter who is a rock star among the protest leaders, won the most votes, confirming his leadership role among the diverse collection of liberals, leftists and nationalists who make up the anti-Putin opposition.

The elections will clarify "which people, which methods and which ideology have the most support," Navalny said in an interview. Navalny and his supporters dominated a three-week series of debates among the candidates, a process some of his rivals derided as his "coronation."

Navalny won nearly 44,000 votes in the election, while a sharp-tongued, larger-than-life poet, novelist and columnist Dmitry Bykov came second followed by Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion turned opposition leader. Ksenia Sobchak, a glamorous TV host who became a face of Moscow protests, also made a strong performance, finishing fourth with more than 32,000 votes.

Throughout the weekend, thousands of Russians, many of them middle-aged or older, stood in long lines on a central Moscow square to register to vote. Those with better Internet skills registered online. They had to prove their identity either by transferring a token amount, under the equivalent of 50 cents, from their bank account or sending a photograph of themselves holding their passport.

Despite a heavy police presence and occasional visits from pro-Kremlin activists, the event was peaceful and festive, with classic Russian rock songs playing over speakers. The voting was supposed to end Sunday night, but was extended for a day after a barrage of hacker attacks took down the servers for most of Saturday.

Pressure on the opposition has increased since Putin began his third term as president in May. Protest leaders have come under criminal investigation, been called in for questioning and had their homes and offices searched.

This weekend, a leftist activist accused Russian security officers of kidnapping him in Ukraine and bringing him back to Russia, where he said he was tortured into confessing to organizing riots. Investigators said Monday that the activist, Leonid Razvozzhayev, had turned himself in. He is associated with leftist opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov, who is under investigation in the same case.

Also Monday, two members of the Pussy Riot punk band were transferred from a Moscow jail to remote prison colonies, their lawyer said. Earlier this month, an appeals court upheld the two-year prison sentences handed to Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova for an irreverent anti-Putin protest in Moscow's main cathedral in February. The court released a third member of the group by suspending her sentence.

Moscow has been the epicenter of the protest movement, which brought tens of thousands onto the streets for a series of rallies during the winter and spring, and nearly all of the favorites in the opposition election live in the capital. Nevertheless, the election indicates that the protest movement has wide support nationwide, with more than half of the registered voters living outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.

More than 200 people ran for seats on the 45-member Coordinating Council. Voters were able to choose up to 30 candidates from a general list and up to five from each of three separate lists of liberals, leftists and nationalists.

Nikolai Petrov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the opposition has done well simply to get this far. "They started very positive and serious discussions about what protesters should do," he said. "If they can have fair elections a week after unfair federal elections, that's an achievement in itself."

The challenge for the Coordinating Council will be to tap into anti-Putin sentiment across the country. Many Russians express discontent with Putin's rule but say they see no viable alternative. Leonid Volkov, an activist who organized the election, said the opposition could use the know-how to vote on other issues in the future. "We have got a mechanism for honest and transparent election on the Internet, and we will maintain it," he said.

With few exceptions, opposition figures skipped the elections this month for governors, mayors and regional legislatures across the country, allowing the Kremlin party to sweep the board. Some within the opposition derided the decision to focus instead on electing the Coordinating Council, saying it distracted attention from what should have been real electoral work.

Syrian rebels capture air base near Damascus

November 26, 2012

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels captured a helicopter base just outside Damascus Sunday in what an activist called a "blow to the morale of the regime" near President Bashar Assad's seat of power, while the bombardment of a village near the capital killed at least eight children.

Activists said the children were killed when Syrian warplanes bombed the village of Deir al-Asafir just outside the Damascus. The village is close to suburbs of the capital that has been witnessing clashes, shelling and air raids between troops and rebels over the past months.

The Britain-based Syrian observatory for Human Rights said the bombardment of the village killed eight children. Another activist group, the Revolution Command Council said 10 children were killed when warplanes struck the village as they played outdoors.

An amateur video showed two girls lying dead in a street while the bodies of two bloodied dead boys were in the back seat of a car parked nearby. Several other wounded children were seen rushed for treatment.

Another video showed the bodies of two dead boys inside what appeared to be a makeshift hospital as others received treatment from injuries while lying on the floor. The activist videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting about the events depicted. Syria restricts the access of reporters.

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with an uprising against Assad's regime, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts. It quickly morphed into a civil war that has since killed more than 40,000 people, according to activists. Hundreds of children have been killed since the crisis began, according to activists.

The air base takeover claim showed how rebels are advancing in the area of the capital, though they are badly outgunned, making inroads where Assad's power was once unchallenged. Rebels have also been able to fire mortar rounds into Damascus recently.

The director of the Observatory, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said rebels seized control of the Marj al-Sultan base on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning. He said at least 15 rebels and eight soldiers were killed in the fighting that started a day earlier. The rebels later withdrew from the base.

Rebels appear to be trying to take over air bases and destroy aircraft in order to prevent the regime from using them in attacks against opposition forces around the country. The rebels have no protection against the attack helicopters and fighter jets that have been blasting their positions.

Rebels have been attacking air bases in different parts of Syria, mostly in the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo. In the battle at the base outside Damascus, Abdul-Rahman and Damascus-based activist Maath al-Shami said rebels destroyed two helicopters with rocket propelled grenades and captured a tank. They say the base, which is on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, houses several radar positions.

"This is a blow to the morale of the regime, because it is close to the heart of the capital," said Abdul-Rahman, referring to the base that is about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from Damascus. Al-Shami said the rebels withdrew from the base after they captured some ammunition. He said they feared counterstrikes by regime aircraft.

An amateur video posted online showed rebels walking next to two destroyed helicopters. At least three other helicopters appeared undamaged. Black smoke billowed in the distance. Another video showed several radar posts on hills inside the large compound. Parked military trucks stood inside as rebels roamed freely.

The Observatory also reported violence in other parts of Syria, including the country's largest city of Aleppo in the north and the capital itself. It said rebels on Sunday captured a training base for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command near the Damascus suburb of Douma. The PFLP-GC is one of the Palestinian factions most loyal to Assad.

The PFLP-GC said in a statement late Saturday that the base was under attack. It said that thousands of activists and fighters who fought against Israel were trained at the base over the past 30 years.

Also Sunday, the Observatory said a bomb targeted a bus in the southern village of Othman, killing at least five people and wounding dozens. It said rebels and troops clashed in the southern region of Quneitra on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said residents found 12 bodies in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, scene of heavy clashes between rebels and government troops over the past few days.

State TV said troops clashed with al-Qaida militants in Daraya, killing some of them and confiscating a mortar that they were using in their attacks. The station said that troops killed an al-Qaida affiliated Palestinian militant known as Abu Suhaib in the Damascus suburb of Hajira. It said his group was behind several bombings in Syria that killed and wounded dozens of people.

Assad's regime blames the revolt on a foreign conspiracy. It accuses Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the United States, other Western countries and Turkey, of funding, training and arming the rebels, whom it calls terrorists.

Bangladeshis mourn garment-fire dead, plan protest

November 27, 2012

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in a weekend fire at a garment factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps.

The national flag flew at half-staff in government buildings. The country's factories were closed as a mark of respect, and prayers for the dead were held in places of worship across the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

Relatives and colleagues gathered near the site of Saturday's blaze, many wearing black badges as a sign of mourning. "I've lost my son and the only member to earn for the family," said Nilufar Khatoon, the mother of a worker who died. "What shall I do now?"

Some labor organizations planned rallies later Tuesday. About 15,000 workers protested Monday blocks away from the gutted factory, blocking traffic on a major highway in a suburb of Dhaka, the capital.

In a statement issued Tuesday the European Union deplored the loss of lives in the fire and urged the Bangladesh government to improve working conditions in garment factories. "The European Union has always been very clear about the need to improve working standards and safety in this sector," said the statement. European market is a major export destination of Bangladesh textiles.

The fire was the deadliest of many to hit garment factories in Bangladesh in recent years. The industry has grown from nothing to become the country's dominant exporter in little more than three decades, but factories often ignore safety in the rush to supply major retailers in the U.S. and Europe. More than 300 people have died over the past six years in Bangladesh garment-factory fires.

Wal-Mart said Monday that the factory, owned by Tazreen Fashions Ltd., had been making clothes for the U.S. retail giant without its knowledge. Tazreen was given a "high risk" safety rating after a May 2011 audit conducted by an "ethical sourcing" assessor for Wal-Mart, according to a document posted on the website of Tazreen's parent company, the Tuba Group.

Wal-Mart said the factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for Wal-Mart but that a supplier subcontracted work to it "in direct violation of our policies." The retailer said it stopped doing business with the supplier Monday.

"The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh," Wal-Mart said in a statement.

Survivors of the weekend fire said an exit door was locked, fire extinguishers didn't work and apparently were there just to impress inspectors, and that when the fire alarm went off, bosses told workers to return to their sewing machines. Victims were trapped or jumped to their deaths from the eight-story building, which had no emergency exits.

Maj. Mohammad Mahbub, fire department operations director, said investigators suspect a short circuit caused the fire. But he added that if the building had had even one emergency exit, "the casualties would have been much lower."

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which has offered $1,250 to each of the families of the dead, urged investigators not to rule out sabotage. "Local and international conspirators are trying to destroy our garment industry," association President Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin said. He provided no details.

Investigator Mainuddin Sarkar said the government is "looking into all possibilities, including sabotage." Police said Tuesday they were questioning a woman accused of trying to set fire to another factory in the area on Sunday. Local police chief Habibur Rahman said police also arrested a man who the woman says paid her to set the fire, and that police were investigating whether the two are linked at all to the Tazreen fire.

Bangladesh has some 4,000 garment factories. The country earns about $20 billion a year from exports of garments, mainly to the U.S. and Europe.

Associated Press writer Al Emrun Garjan contributed to this report.

Syrian rebels take villages near Israel-held area

November 14, 2012

JERUSALEM (AP) — Syrian rebels control almost all the villages near the frontier with the Israel-held Golan Heights, the Israeli defense minister said Wednesday, bringing the conflict dangerously close to the Jewish state and raising the possibility of an armed clash with the region's strongest power.

During a tour of the Golan Heights, Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a scathing assessment of Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and said Israel will remain "vigilant and alert." "Almost all of the villages, from the foot of this ridge to the very top, are already in the hands of the Syrian rebels," said Barak, who was accompanied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The Syrian army is displaying ever-diminishing efficiency."

The civil war in Syria has renewed tensions over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in 1967. Despite hostility between the two countries, Syria has been careful to keep the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war.

But in recent days, Israeli troops have fired into Syria twice after apparently stray mortar shells flew into Israel-held territory. On Wednesday, an Associated Press journalist said an Israeli helicopter was patrolling the border area, and gunfire could be heard. The source of the gunfire was not immediately clear.

While it is widely believed that Assad does not want to pick a fight with Israel, there are fears the embattled Syrian leader may try to draw Israel into the fighting in a bout of desperation. Israeli officials believe it is only a matter of time before Syrian rebels topple the longtime leader.

Israeli political scientist Dore Gold, an informal adviser to Netanyahu, said it's difficult to assess whether Israel is better off with rebels in control along the border. "The forces fighting the Assad government are made up of diverse elements. And to make a judgment whether Israel should be more or less worried, that would require having a very precise picture of what's going on there, which we don't," he said. "But it's no secret that among the Syrian rebels are forces that identify with al-Qaida, and are a cause of concern."

A buffer zone lines the Israeli border with Syria. Beyond the border on the Syrian side is a 75-kilometer (46-mile) stretch where no military forces other than U.N. forces are permitted. Israeli military officials said Barak's assessment depicted a situation that is not entirely new, and that rebels have held those villages for several weeks. It was not clear how many villages the rebels hold along the Golan Heights, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the sensitive information, said the situation is dynamic and could change easily, with the villages returning to Assad's hands.

Israeli experts said nothing prevents Assad's forces from entering the villages and retaking them, even ones in the U.N. zone. "Just like any other place, it is a battleground between the army and the rebels," said Itamar Rabinovich, the former chief Israeli negotiator with Syria.

He said Israel would likely continue to remain on the sidelines of the fighting because Israeli officials believe Assad will eventually fall and that any support for rebels would backfire. But privately, "Israel is rooting for the right kind of insurgents," he said, ones who follow a moderate line and have no links to Islamist extremist groups.

Moshe Maoz, professor emeritus at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, said the exchange of fire this week was "based on a mistake," and that if such incidents continued, they would be infrequent. "The Syrian army doesn't have any interest in provoking Israel," he said. "Syria has enough problems."

The violence in Syria, which has killed more than 36,000 people since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, threatens to inflame an already combustible region. The fighting already has already spilled into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

On Wednesday, Syrian troops used aircraft and artillery to try to dislodge rebels from a town next to the border with Turkey, as Ankara warned it would retaliate against any airspace violations. An AP journalist in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar saw Syrian airstrikes in the adjacent Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn, where rebels say they have ousted troops loyal to Assad.

Deadly airstrikes began several days ago, and many casualties were taken to Turkey for treatment. Local officials said as many as 30 people have died since Monday. The journalist also saw Syrian forces shelling a wooded area near Ras al-Ayn from where rebels had been firing.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the fighting in Syria into neighboring Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Another 11,000 escaped to Turkey last week following the surge of fighting at Ras al-Ayn, which is located in the northeastern Syrian province of al-Hasaka, an oil-producing region where the population is mostly Kurdish.

The proximity of the fighting to Turkey has raised fears of an escalation. Turkish media, including the Anadolu news agency, said several villages west of Ceylanpinar have been evacuated to protect residents from any spillover of the fighting in Syria. About 1,000 people left Mursitpinar, 110 miles (180 kilometers) from Ceylanpinar, after an appeal from the loudspeakers of local mosques.

Ismet Yilmaz, Turkey's defense minister, indicated that military force would be used in response to any incursions by Syrian aircraft. Last month, Turkish artillery fired on targets in Syria after Syrian shells landed inside Turkey and killed several civilians.

"The necessary response will be given to Syrian planes and helicopters that violate our border," Yilmaz said. A Turkish official in Ceylanpinar said the sound of shelling was heard through the night. Two rocket-propelled grenades hit houses on the Turkish side, but there were no injuries, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is barred by rules from being quoted by name.

The official later said a dozen wounded Syrians had been brought across the border, and one died during treatment. The official cited contacts in Ras al-Ayn as saying Syrian forces had entered the town.

A convoy of seven white jeeps and a truck was seen near the Syrian town, but it was unclear who was in the vehicles. On the Turkish side of the border, Turkish jets were heard overhead. At one point, sounds of jubilation were heard from Ras al-Ayn. One rebel shouted in Arabic: "The Syrian army fled. Did you see?"

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes carried out six airstrikes in al-Hasaka, including those at Ras al-Ayn. Regime fighter jets also targeted the rebellious suburbs of Damascus on Wednesday, the Britain-based Observatory said. Heavy clashes between rebel units and Assad's troops were ongoing in the northern city of Aleppo, the Observatory said. The group relies on reports from activists on the ground.

Although the conflict has been grinding on for nearly 20 months, neither side has managed to strike a blow that could tip the balance. Over the weekend, Syria's splintered rebel factions agreed to a U.S.-backed plan to unite under a new umbrella group that seeks a common voice and strategy against Assad's regime.

President Barack Obama said he's encouraged the opposition has formed a new, more representative leadership council, but the U.S. isn't ready to recognize the group as a "government in exile" or to arm it.

"We consider them a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people," Obama said at a news conference at the White House. France was the first Western country to formally recognize the newly formed opposition coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Obama said the U.S. wanted to make sure the group "is committed to a democratic Syria, an inclusive Syria, a moderate Syria." He also said the U.S. isn't considering sending weapons to the opposition because of concerns the arms might fall into the hands of extremists.

"We have seen extremist elements insinuate themselves into the opposition and one of the things that we have to be on guard about, particularly when we start talking about arming opposition figures, is that we are not indirectly putting arms in the hands of folks that would do Americans harms, or do Israeli harm or otherwise engage in actions that are detrimental to our national security," he said.

The outgunned rebel fighters want arms — including critical anti-aircraft batteries — from main regional backers such as the wealthy Gulf states and Turkey. Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi brushed off the new opposition group as a "desperate attempt" to undermine Syrians' morale.

Foreign ministers from the main Gulf Arab bloc — which includes key rebel backers Saudi Arabia and Qatar — met Wednesday in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss the crisis, according to the official Saudi News Agency. The talks were expected to bring in visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose nation is an important ally of Syria.

Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut, Lauren E. Bohn in Jerusalem, Mehmet Guzel in Ceylanpinar, Turkey, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Strike hits Greece in bid to derail austerity plan

November 06, 2012

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek trade unions launched a general strike and nationwide protests on Tuesday against a new package of austerity measures, to be voted on this week, which would condemn Greece to more years of hardship in exchange for rescue loans.

Flights to and from the country stopped for three hours at the start of a 48-hour strike that closed schools, halted train and ferry services, and left Athens without public transport or taxis while state hospitals ran on emergency staff.

More than 35,000 people marched in two separate demonstrations in Athens organized by labor unions. Another 20,000 gathered to protest in the country's second largest city of Thessaloniki. Police were on alert for potential violence, as most major anti-austerity protests over the past three years have degenerated into riots.

The demonstrations will culminate Wednesday, when lawmakers vote on a €13.5 billion ($17.3 billion) package of spending cuts and tax increases over the next two years. The outcome of the vote is far from certain due to disagreements in the five-month-old coalition government and a reluctance among center-left lawmakers to approve yet more austerity measures. But the rejection of the savings package would leave Greece facing the threat of a default on its mountain of debt that could force it to eventually exit the euro bloc.

This is the biggest political crisis Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has faced since he formed the coalition in June. His small Democratic Left coalition partner has said it will not back the measures, while a handful of lawmakers from the third coalition party, the Socialists, are expected to vote against the austerity package.

"The government's majority is narrowing and the general strike further puts pressure on MPs to vote against the government's plans," said Martin Koehring of the Economist Intelligence Unit. "On balance, however, we expect the package to be approved by MPs because the alternative would be the government running out of cash ... and facing default and potential euro exit."

The government combined has 176 of Parliament's 300 seats, and needs an absolute majority of those present to pass the bill. Without the Democratic Left, Samaras' conservatives and the Socialists control 160 votes — not counting dissenters.

The main opposition Radical Left Coalition has urged demonstrators to surround Parliament during Wednesday night's vote. "The new measures must not pass for they will turn the country into a financial and social desert," a party statement said. "They will lead us decades back, without medicine or state healthcare, without schools and universities, without a future, with endless armies of unemployed, suicides and desperate people."

The deeply unpopular measures include new deep pension cuts and tax hikes, a two-year increase in the retirement age to 67, and laws that will make it easier to fire and transfer civil servants. The country is suffering a deep recession set to enter a sixth year, and record high unemployment of 25 percent.

If Parliament rejects the package, Greece will lose access to the rescue loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund that have kept it afloat since May 2010. The country would then run out of money — as soon as by Nov. 16, according to Samaras — default on its debts and, most likely, abandon the 17-member eurozone. That would create hyperinflation as the new currency plummets in value, intensifying Greeks' misery.

A Greek exit from the euro would also have severe international repercussions, fueling fears that other troubled eurozone members could likewise leave the currency bloc. Sky-high interest rates have kept Greece out of international bond markets since 2010. However, the country retains a market presence through regular short-term debt issues — mostly bought up by domestic lenders that need the paper as collateral for vital European financing.

On Tuesday, Greece raised €1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) in a 26-week treasury bill auction that saw its borrowing costs ease slightly to 4.41 percent, from 4.46 percent last month. Demand was 1.7 times the amount on offer.

Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.