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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Recovery slow as Japan marks 2 years since tsunami

March 11, 2013

TOKYO (AP) — Amid growing dissatisfaction with the slow pace of recovery, Japan marked the second anniversary Monday of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and has displaced more than 300,000.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the government intends to make "visible" reconstruction progress and accelerate resettlement of those left homeless by streamlining legal and administrative procedures many blame for the delays.

"I pray that the peaceful lives of those affected can resume as soon as possible," Emperor Akihito said at a somber memorial service at Tokyo's National Theater. At observances in Tokyo and in still barren towns along the northeastern coast, those gathered bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake — the strongest recorded in Japan's history — struck off the coast.

Japan has struggled to rebuild communities and to clean up radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, whose reactors melted down after its cooling systems were disabled by the tsunami. The government has yet to devise a new energy strategy — a central issue for its struggling economy with all but two of the country's nuclear reactors offline.

About half of those displaced are evacuees from areas near the nuclear plant. Hundreds of them filed a lawsuit Monday demanding compensation from the government and the now-defunct plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, for their suffering and losses.

"Two years after the disasters, neither the government nor TEPCO has clearly acknowledged their responsibility, nor have they provided sufficient support to cover the damages," said Izutaro Managi, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

Throughout the disaster zone, the tens of thousands of survivors living in temporary housing are impatient to get resettled, a process that could take up to a decade, officials say. "What I really want is to once again have a 'my home,' " said Migaku Suzuki, a 69-year-old farm worker in Rikuzentakata, who lost the house he had just finished building in the disaster. Suzuki also lost a son in the tsunami, which obliterated much of the city.

Further south, in Fukushima prefecture, some 160,000 evacuees are uncertain if they will ever be able to return to homes around the nuclear power plant, where the meltdowns in three reactors spewed radiation into the surrounding soil and water.

The lawsuit filed by a group of 800 people in Fukushima demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen ($625) a month for each victim until all radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades. Another 900 plan similar cases in Tokyo and elsewhere. Managi said he and fellow lawyers hope to get 10,000 to join the lawsuits.

Evacuees are anxious to return home but worried about the potential, still uncertain risks from exposure to the radiation from the disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986. While there have been no clear cases of cancer linked to radiation from the plant, the upheaval in people's lives, uncertainty about the future and long-term health concerns, especially for children, have taken an immense psychological toll on thousands of residents.

"I don't trust the government on anything related to health anymore," said Masaaki Watanabe, 42, who fled the nearby town of Minami-Soma and doesn't plan to return. Yuko Endo, village chief in Kawauchi, said many residents might not go back if they are kept waiting too long. Restrictions on access are gradually being lifted as workers remove debris and wipe down roofs by hand.

"If I were told to wait for two more years, I might explode," said Endo, who is determined to revive his town of mostly empty houses and overgrown fields. A change of government late last year has raised hopes that authorities might move more quickly with the cleanup and reconstruction.

Since taking office in late December, Abe has made a point of frequently visiting the disaster zone, promising faster action and plans to raise the long-term reconstruction budget to 25 trillion yen ($262 billion) from 19 trillion yen (about $200 billion).

"We cannot turn away from the harsh reality of the affected areas. The Great East Japan Earthquake still is an ongoing event," Abe said at the memorial gathering in Tokyo. "Many of those hit by the disaster are still facing uncertainty over their futures."

The struggles to rebuild and to cope with the nuclear disaster are only the most immediate issues Japan is grappling with as it searches for new drivers for growth as its export manufacturing lags, its society ages and its huge national debt grows ever bigger.

Those broader issues are also hindering the reconstruction. Towns want to rebuild, but they face the stark reality of dwindling, aging populations that are shrinking further as residents give up on ever finding new jobs. The tsunami and nuclear crisis devastated local fish processing and tourism industries, accelerating a decline that began decades before.

Meanwhile, the costly decommissioning the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant could take 40 years as its operator works on finding and removing melted nuclear fuel from inside, disposing the spent fuel rods and treating the many tons of contaminated wastewater used to cool the reactors.

Following the Fukushima disaster, Japan's 50 still viable nuclear reactors were shut down for regular inspections and then for special tests to check their disaster preparedness. Two were restarted last summer to help meet power shortages, but most Japanese remain opposed to restarting more plants.

The government, though, looks likely to back away from a decision to phase out nuclear power by the 2030s. Abe says it may take a decade to decide on what Japan's energy mix should be.

Associated Press writers Malcolm Foster and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Emily Wang in Kesennuma, Japan, contributed to this report.

Venezuela sets presidential election for April 14

March 10, 2013

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans will vote April 14 to choose a successor to Hugo Chavez, the elections commission announced Saturday as increasingly strident political rhetoric begins to roil this polarized country.

The constitution mandated the election be held within 30 days of Chavez's March 5 death, but the date picked falls outside that period. Critics of the socialist government already complained that officials violated the constitution by swearing in Vice President Nicolas Maduro as acting leader Friday night.

Some people have speculated Venezuela will not be ready to organize the vote in time, but elections council chief Tibisay Lucena said the country's electronic voting system was fully prepared. Lucena announced the date on state television while a small inset in the picture showed people filing past Chavez's coffin at the military academy in Caracas, where his body has lain in state since Wednesday.

Chavez's boisterous state funeral Friday often felt like a political rally for his anointed successor, Maduro, who eulogized him by pledging eternal loyalty and vowing Chavez's movement will never be defeated. Maduro is expected to run as the candidate of Chavez's socialist party.

Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, coordinator of the opposition coalition, immediately followed the election announcement by offering his bloc's presidential candidacy to Henrique Capriles, the governor of Miranda state who lost to Chavez in October. A Capriles adviser said the governor would announce his decision Sunday.

David Smilde, an analyst with the U.S.-based Washington Office on Latin America, said the opposition needs to run a candidate in the presidential election even though he believes it will almost certainly lose.

Smilde said he wasn't sure Capriles will accept the candidacy. "If he says he doesn't want to run I could totally understand that," Smilde said. "He is likely going to lose, and if he loses this election, he's probably going to be done."

In that case the opposition would be wise to run someone such as Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledesma or Henry Falcone, governor of Lara state and one of just three opposition governors, he said. That would give the opposition an opportunity to clearly articulate its platform and vision.

"Really what this campaign would be about is allowing the opposition to put themselves in position for the future, to show that they have some ideas for the country," Smilde said. In his speech after his swearing-in Friday, Maduro took shots at the United States, the media, international capitalism and domestic opponents he often depicted as treacherous. He claimed the allegiance of Venezuela's army, referring to them as the "armed forces of Chavez," despite the constitution barring the military from taking sides in politics.

The opposition has denounced the transition as an unconstitutional power grab, while the government moves to immortalize Chavez. Since his death, the former paratrooper has been compared to Jesus Christ and early-19th century Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar, and the government announced that his body would be embalmed and put on eternal display.

Edith Palmeira, a 47-year-old Caracas resident at a park Saturday in central Caracas, said she would vote for Maduro, but made clear her allegiance was based purely on her love of Chavez. "Imitations are never as good as the original," Palmeira said. "But I think he must have grown as a person during so much time at the president's side. He must have learned to be a president."

Elvira Orozco, a 31-year-old business owner, said she planned to sit out the vote to protest Maduro's swearing-in Friday. "What they want is to say that here there's a democracy, but here they violate the constitution and there's no authority who says anything," Orozco said.

Observers voiced mounting concern about the deep political divide gripping Venezuela, with half of it in a near frenzy of adulation and the other feeling targeted. "Everything that happened yesterday (with the funeral and Maduro's speech) are outward signs of a fascistic aesthetic, complete with armbands," said Vicente Gonzalez de la Vega, a professor of law at Caracas' Universidad Metropolitana. "It is the cult of the adored leader, an escape from reality. ... They are trying to impose on the rest of the country a new pagan religion."

He said the ruling party was playing with fire with its strong nationalistic rhetoric and the implication that a vote against Maduro was somehow subversive. Capriles, too, has used emotionally charged language in his public comments. On Friday he denounced Maduro as a shameless liar who had not been elected by the people, and condescendingly referred to him as "boy."

Opposition figures have said they are concerned about the election's fairness, particularly given the public vows of allegiance to Chavez from senior military officials. Capriles lost to Chavez in Oct. 7 elections, but he garnered 45 percent of the vote, which was the most anyone had ever won against the late president.

A boycott of 2005 legislative elections was widely seen as disastrous for the opposition, letting Chavez's supporters win all 167 seats and allowing him to govern unimpeded by any legislative rivals.

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak, Jorge Rueda and Vivian Sequera contributed to this report.

Rebels free 21 UN captives in southern Syria

March 10, 2013

BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels in southern Syria freed 21 U.N. peacekeepers on Saturday after holding them hostage for four days, driving them to the border with Jordan after accusations from Western officials that the little-known group had tarnished the image of those fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

The abduction and the tortured negotiations that ended it highlight the disorganization of the rebel movement, which has hindered its ability to fight Assad and complicates vows by the U.S. and others to provide assistance.

It also has raised concerns about the future of U.N. operations in the area. The Filipino peacekeepers were abducted on Wednesday by one of the rebel groups operating in southern Syria near the Jordanian border and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where a U.N. force has patrolled a cease-fire line between Israel and Syria for nearly four decades.

Activists associated with the group, the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, gave different reasons for seizing the 21 men. First they demanded that all government forces leave the area. Then they suggested the peacekeepers were human shields against government attacks. Then they declared them "honored guests" held for their own safety.

They also released videos online, including one on Saturday of a bearded rebel commander with his arms around two peacekeepers' shoulders, flashing a V for victory sign. On Saturday, after negotiations that the top U.N. official in Damascus described as "long and difficult," the rebels changed the plan to deliver the peacekeepers to a U.N. team, instead taking them to the Jordanian border.

Video broadcast by Arab satellite channels late Saturday showed them sitting at a round conference table in Amman, their bright blue helmets in front of them. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed their release and called on all parties in Syria to respect the peacekeepers' freedom of movement.

Raul Hernandez, spokesman for the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs, said Sunday the initial plan for the peacekeepers is for them to stay in Jordan for two days before they return to the Golan Heights.

Hernandez also cited reports from Philippine Ambassador to Jordan Olivia Palala indicating that the peacekeepers are safe. "They are safe, they are unharmed, they are OK, and they are whole," he said, quoting Palala.

It was the first time in nearly two years of violence in Syria that U.N. personnel have been directly caught up in the civil war, which evolved from an uprising against Assad that broke out in March 2011 and has left more than 70,000 people dead.

Since then, hundreds of independent rebel groups have formed across the country to fight Assad's forces, overrunning military bases and seizing territory in northern and eastern Syria while the regime maintains its grip in the center and the capital, Damascus.

Although some groups have banded together into organized brigades, most still operate independently, competing with each other for resources and booty from captured sites. Even the rebel's political leadership, the Syrian National Coalition, which the U.S. and other powers have officially recognized, has no direct control over fighters on the ground. And it remains unclear how many rebels follow its associated High Military Command, which was formed in Turkey in December.

This lack of a central command has hindered rebel efforts against government forces and discouraged the U.S. and others from providing arms. Last month, the U.S. promised $60 million dollars in new aid for the opposition but refused to arm the rebels, saying more weapons would worsen the situation and could help extremists.

The release of the 21 peacekeepers serves as a case study in rebel disorganization. As the days passed and the captors' terms changed, international indignation rose. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland blasted the Syrian government on Friday for shelling the area, while also warning the rebels that the kidnapping was "not good for their reputation and that they need to immediately release these people."

The men were held in the village of Jamlah, less than two kilometers (a mile) from the Jordanian border. A U.N. team tried to retrieve the hostages on Friday, but abandoned the plan because of government shelling.

On Saturday, another U.N. team reached the area and stopped in a village less than a mile away to wait for the captives, said Mokhtar Lamani, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria. Lamani said the team was "surprised" when the rebels issued a "very urgent request" that the team come to the village itself.

The team demurred, Lamani said, then was "surprised" again when rebels took the peacekeepers directly to Jordan. "We were surprised to hear to hear the news from a satellite channel that they had reached Jordan," he said. "Praise God in the end that all of them were released safely."

An activist associated with the captors said via Skype that the rebels had not been able to reach the U.N. team because of "security conditions" so had taken them to Jordan instead. He said the Syrian government had been shelling and carrying out airstrikes on the area for weeks, and that locals worried the situation would get worse after the captives left.

"They lightened the shelling today, but we fear that now they will launch a harsh attack on the area," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a letter to the United Nations Saturday that the Syrian army had held its fire in the area "out of concern for the security and safety of the U.N. forces."

It called on the U.N. to "unequivocally condemn the attacks of those terrorist groups against civilians and work to dislodge those terrorist groups immediately from the region." The Syria government says the uprising is a foreign-backed conspiracy to weaken the country carried out by "terrorists" — its blanket term for the opposition.

The peacekeepers are part of a U.N. mission known as UNDOF that was set up to monitor a cease-fire in 1974, seven years after Israel captured the plateau and a year after it pushed back Syrian troops trying to recapture the territory.

The truce's stability has been shaken in recent months, as Syrian mortar shells have hit the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli officials worry the violence will prompt UNDOF to end its mission.

On Friday, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said "the mission in the Golan needs to review its security arrangements and it has been doing that."

Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Beirut and Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

Falkland Islanders vote with an eye on Argentina

March 10, 2013

STANLEY, Falkland Islands (AP) — Britain is hoping this weekend's referendum on the political status of the Falkland Islands will push the United States and other neutral governments off the fence in its territorial dispute with Argentina over the remote South Atlantic archipelago.

The local Falkland Islands Government has mobilized a major effort to get as many of its 1,650 registered voters as possible to cast their secret ballots Sunday and Monday, preparing to send off-road vehicles, boats and seaplanes to remote sheep farms across the lightly populated islands.

Elections observers from Canada, Mexico, the U.S., Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and New Zealand also will be watching as islanders answer a simple yes-or-no question: "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?"

Islanders expect the answer to be overwhelmingly in favor of British governance and protection, a result they hope will put their own self-determination at the center of any debate about their future in the face of Argentine claims to the islands. Britain wants the U.S. in particular to recognize the islanders' rights, but Secretary of State John Kerry refused to budge during his recent visit to London.

"I'm not going to comment, nor is the president, on a referendum that has yet to take place," Kerry said, punting the question until after the results are announced Monday night. "Our position on the Falklands has not changed. The United States recognizes de facto U.K. administration of the islands, but takes no position on the question of the parties' sovereignty claims."

"Sovereignty" is a term that focuses on a territory more than its people, and it's the word Argentina often invokes while asserting its claim to the islands. Late Friday, Argentina's foreign ministry repeated its assertion that the islanders are an "implanted" people and that U.N. resolutions require Britain to resolve the dispute bilaterally, "taking into account the 'interests' (not the 'desires') of the inhabitants of the islands."

Britain prefers to refer to "self-determination," which focuses more on the people than the land they live on. The U.S. strongly endorsed self-determination for the people of South Sudan ahead of their 2011 referendum, which showed 99 percent wanted independence from their northern neighbor. President Barack Obama said during the Arab Spring uprisings that "the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination" for people in Egypt and Tunisia. The Palestinians and the Puerto Ricans have gained similar support for self-determination rights, and Obama even came out in favor of a UN declaration supporting self-determination for Native Americans.

The Obama administration also has expressed support for letting Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, determine their territory's relationship to the U.S., though the result of a referendum on the question last year was ambiguous.

But when it comes to the Falklands, which Argentines claim Britain stole from them nearly two centuries ago, and which the two nations fought a war over in 1982, Washington has always tried to take no side. US policy casts it more as a dispute over a territory than a population. This is why the referendum poses a potential dilemma for the U.S., diplomats and political scientists say.

"What we hope is that an act of self-determination in a free society, where people are able to vote as they did in Puerto Rico, is not something that anybody can dismiss or ignore," Britain's ambassador to Chile, Jon Benjamin, told The Associated Press. "It's a self-evident reflection of the will of the people. And that will be the case shortly in the Falkland Islands too. The people there have the right to choose how they are governed and under whose sovereignty."

Mark Jones, a Latin American politics expert at Rice University in Texas, called the U.S. position "tortured" and difficult to maintain. "It's hypocritical for the U.S. to deny the right of the Falkland Islanders to self-determination, while at the same time supporting that same right for a host of other groups throughout the globe. The referendum's clear-cut outcome makes the U.S. position increasingly untenable and difficult to justify," Jones said.

The Falkland Islands Government is a direct democracy and largely self-governing, although Britain handles its defense and foreign affairs, and the queen's representative has veto power over its decisions. So far, islanders have decided to keep their permanent population very small, making it very hard to obtain formal "islander status."

Excluding the British military and civilian contractors, the islands' population was 2,563 in last year's census, and only 1,973 of them had islander status. The referendum rules exclude anyone who lacks a British passport and hasn't lived in the islands for the last 12 months.

It boils down to 1,650 voting adults, a tiny electorate and one in which the voters all know each other — and their parents and grandparents, some going back nine generations — very well. There were no polls before the vote, but islanders interviewed by the AP predicted that nearly everyone would vote to keep things as they are.

Immediately following the vote, Falkland Islands lawmakers Sharon Halford and Mike Summers planned to arrive in Washington to lobby administration officials and members of Congress.

Associated Press writers Michael Warren in Buenos Aires and Luis Alonso Lugo in Washington contributed to this report.

Bosnian woman helped make rape a war crime

March 08, 2013

PRIJEDOR, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — There were days when she prayed for a bullet to end her suffering. When she thought she was dying of a heart attack, she whispered "Thank you God."

A young judge, Nusreta Sivac was one of 37 women raped by guards at a concentration camp in Bosnia. They never discussed the nightly traumas — their pained glances were enough to communicate their suffering. She also witnessed murder and torture by Bosnian Serb guards — and was forced to clean blood from walls and floors of the interrogation room.

She told herself to memorize the names and faces of the tormentors so that one day she might bring them to justice. Today, it's partly thanks to Sivac's efforts to gather testimony from women across Bosnia that rape has been categorized as a war crime under international law. Thirty people have been convicted at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague and another 30 cases are ongoing. She personally helped put the man who raped her repeatedly during her two months in captivity behind bars.

"Most of the strength I took from the idea that one day this evil would be over," she told The Associated Press this week ahead of International Women's Day on Friday. The U.N. Special Representative on sexual violence in conflict said Sivac and other victims are helping to make sure wartime rapists pay for their crimes.

"The courage these women have shown coming forward and sharing their stories demonstrates the need to break the silence and stigma surrounding sexual violence in conflict," said Zainab Hawa Bangura. "These survivors are helping to end impunity by making sure perpetrators are brought to justice."

Bosnia's 1992-95 war was the bloodiest in the series of armed conflicts that erupted when the Yugoslav federation fell apart and its republics began declaring independence. It took over 100,000 lives and devastated the region. According to the UN, between 20,000 to 50,000 Bosnian women were raped — many in special rape camps — during the war that was fought between the new country's Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks.

African conflicts have seen even more harrowing figures: Between 250,000 and 500,000 were raped during the Rwandan genocide, and hundreds of thousands more in conflicts in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sivac's ordeal started in the spring of 1992 when Bosnian Serbs took control over her native Prijedor, in the northwest of Bosnia and threw Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats in concentration camps. Alongside the women were 3,500 male prisoners, hundreds of whom were killed.

Sivac, a Muslim Bosniak, would start the day counting the bodies of the men who were tortured to death overnight. "Their bodies lay there in the grass in front of the building. Sometimes 20, sometimes 30 of them," she recalled outside the factory in Omarska where she was held for two months.

During the long days of forced labor in the camp's restaurant, the women listened to tortured prisoners screaming, calling for help and begging for mercy with voices that would become weaker until they went silent. Then the guards would force the women to clean the interrogation rooms, strewn with bloody pliers and batons. At night, guards would come to take the women away one by one — to rape.

Her captivity ended in August 1992 when a group of foreign journalists found the facility. The images of skeletal prisoners behind a fence and naked bodies beaten black and blue shocked the world and prompted an avalanche of reactions that forced the Serb leadership to release the prisoners.

Sivac's pre-war colleague from the Prijedor court, prosecutor Jadranka Cigelj, was also among the 37 Omarska women. The two escaped to neighboring Croatia, where they began collecting testimonies from hundreds of women who had been raped.

They spent years transcribing testimonies, convincing victims to break their silence and putting together legal dossiers which they then presented to the investigators at the International Tribunal for War Crimes in Former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague.

During this process, she said, "it became obvious how many women from all over Bosnia were affected. But I wasn't surprised by the big number." For centuries, rape was considered a byproduct of wars — collateral damage suffered by women, horrors often overshadowed by massacres. Even though the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibited wartime rape, no court ever raised charges until Sivac and Cigelj presented their overwhelming evidence.

The effort finally paid off in June 1995 when the two traveled to The Hague to take part in preparations for the first indictment by the Yugoslav war crimes court. Their collected evidence exposed the magnitude of rape which courts could no longer ignore. According to the United Nations, it was a major "turning point" in recognizing rape as a war crime.

Sivac remembers the sunny July day the two realized their work would be soon rewarded. They enjoyed a coffee in an outdoor cafe in The Hague and wrote a few postcards back to their torturers in Prijedor.

"Dear Friends," they wrote. "We hope you will soon join us in this wonderful city." A year later, the tribunal indicted eight Bosnian Serb men for sexual assault in eastern Bosnia — a verdict based on testimonies collected by Sivac and Cigelj.

It was the first time in history that an international tribunal charged someone solely for crimes of sexual violence. Nerma Jelacic, spokeswoman for the Yugoslav war crimes court, recalls the "shocking" testimony in subsequent cases where some victims were as young as 12.

"We had cases where both mother and daughter came to testify and both were subjected to same kind of torture and kind of crimes," she told AP. Sivac who has since testified in several cases, including against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, is satisfied with what she has achieved, although she wishes the ongoing cases would accelerate. "It's slow, very slow," she said. "But it is a start."

One of the Omarska guards she testified against was released in 2005 after he served two-thirds of his seven-year sentence. Sivac ran into him on the street one day in Bosnia. "We stared at each other," she said. "He was the first one to lower his head."

UN says 21 peacekeepers detained on Golan Heights

March 07, 2013

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Armed fighters linked to the Syrian opposition detained 21 U.N. peacekeepers from the Philippines on Wednesday in the increasingly volatile zone separating Israeli and Syrian troops on the Golan Heights, a new escalation in the spillover of Syria's civil war.

The U.N. Security Council demanded their immediate and unconditional release. In Manila, Philippine officials that Syrian rebels were holding 21 Filipino peacekeepers "as guests." Early Thursday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said the U.N. commander on the ground told him that negotiations were progressing. He said he was told "by tomorrow, they expect all of these 21 to be released."

Philippine military spokesman Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos said the peacekeepers were in a military convoy when they were "suddenly held at one Syrian rebel outpost. They were allowed to go through the first outpost but were stopped at the second outpost."

The troops, part of a Philippine contingent of 300 peacekeepers, were taken to a "safe area" after their vehicles were taken, he said. The capture comes a week after the announcement that a member of the peacekeeping force is missing. The force, known as UNDOF, was established a year after the 1973 Yom Kippur war. It monitors the disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces and maintains a cease-fire.

Israeli officials have grown increasingly jittery as the Syrian war moves closer to Israel. There have been several instances in which stray fire has landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, and Israel is concerned that Syrian weapons could fall into the hands of hostile groups and be used against Israel.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and Syria wants the land returned in exchange for peace. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council president, said the capture of the peacekeepers "is particularly unacceptable and bizarre" because the UNDOF peacekeepers are unarmed and their mission has nothing to do with Syria's internal conflict.

"They are there on a completely different mission so there is no reason at all under any circumstances, any kind of sick imagination to try to harm those people," he said. Churkin said U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who briefed the council behind closed doors, identified the captors as being from a group associated with the Syrian armed opposition.

"There was no fighting, according to his briefing to us," Churkin said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the capture of the 21 peacekeepers, U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said.

Del Buey said the U.N. observers were on a regular supply mission when they were stopped by about 30 armed fighters near an observation post that was damaged in heavy combat last weekend and had been evacuated.

A video posted online by activists showed a group of armed rebels standing around at least three white U.N. vehicles with the words UNDOF on them, allegedly in the village of Jamlah in Daraa province.

The video, circulated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, accuses the peacekeepers of assisting the Syrian regime to redeploy in an area near the Golan that the fighters had seized a few days ago in battles that left 11 fighters and 19 regime forces dead.

A man identified as Abu Qaed al-Faleh, spokesman for the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigades, announced the group is holding the peacekeepers until Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces withdraw from Jamlah.

"They will not be released until after Bashar Assad's forces withdraw from the village of Jamlah bordering Israel," the man said. Churkin urged countries with influence on the Syrian opposition to use it to help free the peacekeepers. He did not name any countries but Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are known to have been providing military aid to some Syrian rebel groups.

The international community has been divided in its response to Syria's conflict. The United States and other countries have supported Syria's political opposition but have been reluctant to send weapons partly because of fears they may fall into the hands of extremists who have been gaining influence among the rebels. The Obama administration, however, announced last week that it would, for the first time, provide non-lethal aid directly to the rebels.

Russia and China, meanwhile, have continued to back Assad's regime. Human Right Watch, meanwhile, is investigating whether the same rebels linked to seizing the peacekeepers were involved in the executions of captured regime soldiers in another incident around Jamlah several days ago. The rights group began the investigation after receiving one video apparently showing the capture of the Syrian soldiers and a second video showing bodies in the same area, Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said.

"We were just starting to investigate this today ... when we learned about the incident with the UN peacekeepers," he said. Asked about why the rebels might be holding the U.N. peacekeepers, he said: "This seems to be a rather inexperienced group. It shows the desperation that many people, including armed groups, around Syria feel about protecting the civilians in their own villages."

Ban has warned of escalating military activity along the Israeli-Syrian border as a result of the intensifying Syrian conflict, which began in 2011 and has cost more than 70,000 lives. In December, Ban accused the Syrian government of serious violations of the 1974 separation agreement and called on both countries to halt firing across the cease-fire line. He cited numerous clashes between Syrian security forces and opposition fighters in the disengagement zone.

In response, he said, UNDOF has adopted a number of security measures.

Associated Press writers Karin Laub and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, and Hrvoje Hranjski and Teresa Cerojano in Manila, Philippines contributed to this report.

Syrian refugees top 1 million, rebels take city

March 06, 2013

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's accelerating humanitarian crisis hit a grim milestone Wednesday: The number of U.N.-registered refugees topped 1 million — half of them children — described by an aid worker as a "human river" of thousands spilling out of the war-ravaged country every day.

Nearly 4 million of Syria's 22 million people have been driven from their homes by the civil war. Of the displaced, 2 million have sought cover in camps and makeshift shelters across Syria, 1 million have registered as refugees in neighboring Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, and several hundred thousand more fled the country but haven't signed up with the U.N. refugee agency.

The West has refrained from military intervention in the two-year-old battle to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, a conflict that has claimed more than 70,000 lives, and many Syrians hold the international community responsible for their misery.

"The refugee numbers swelled because the world community is sitting idly, watching the tyrant Assad killing innocent people," said Mohammed Ammari, a 32-year-old refugee in the Zaatari camp straddling Jordan's border with Syria. "Shame, shame, shame. The world should be ashamed."

Despite an overall deadlock on the battlefield, the rebels have made recent gains, especially in northern Syria. On Wednesday, they completed their capture of Raqqa, the first major city to fall completely into rebel hands, activists said.

But with no quick end to the conflict in sight, the refugee problem is bound to worsen, said Panos Moumtzis of the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. The number of uprooted Syrians is still lower than those displaced in other conflicts, including Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans, but the Syria crisis will likely be protracted, and widespread devastation will make quick repatriation unlikely.

"We fear that the worst may not have come yet," Moumtzis said. The exodus from Syria picked up significantly in recent months, turning into a "human river flowing in, day and night," he added. The number of registered refugees doubled since December, he said, with some 7,000 fleeing Syria every day.

Many refugees moved from shelter to shelter in Syria first before deciding to leave the country, while others were driven out by the increasing lack of basic resources, such as bread and fuel, in their hometowns. In the hardest-hit areas, entire villages have emptied out and families spanning several generations cross the border together.

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old mother of two became the one-millionth Syrian refugee to register with UNHCR. She would only give her first name, Bushra, because she feared reprisals. Bushra waited with several others at a U.N. office in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli to sign up. Along with her 4-year-old daughter, Batoul, and 2-year-old son, Omar, she fled fighting in the central city of Homs more than two weeks ago.

"Our life conditions are very bad. It is very expensive here (in Lebanon) and we cannot find any work," Bushra said. Only about 30 percent of the 1 million registered refugees live in 22 camps — 17 in Turkey, three in Jordan and two in Iraq — and the rest live in communities in host countries, Moumtzis said.

Zaatari, one of the largest, is home to some 120,000 people. Refugees have been struggling with harsh desert conditions, including cold and floods in the winter, and scorching heat, along with snakes and scorpions, in the summer.

Moumtzis said he recently met a woman in Zaatari with an ID that shows her to be 101 years old. The woman, from the southern Syrian town of Daraa, was carried by her relatives, he said. The U.N. refugee agency needs money to help overstretched host countries cope. Of the $1 billion in refugee aid pledged at a donor conference in Kuwait in January, only $200 million has come through, officials said.

"We are doing everything we can to help, but the international humanitarian response capacity is dangerously stretched," said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, adding that "Syria is spiraling toward full-scale disaster."

The uprising against Assad began in March 2011 with peaceful protests, but soon became a civil war. The rebel takeover of Raqqa, a city of 500,000, would consolidate opposition gains in the northern towns along the Euphrates River, which runs from Turkey to Iraq.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said rebels seized control of the military intelligence headquarters and another security building after three days of fighting with regime holdouts.

In southern Syria, rebel fighters detained about 20 U.N. peacekeepers Wednesday, said U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey. The peacekeepers are part of a force that monitors a cease-fire between Israel and Syrian troops on the Golan Heights.

In video circulated by the Observatory, a rebel identifying himself as a fighter from the "Yarmouk Brigade" walks along an armored U.N. vehicle. He accuses the peacekeepers of helping regime soldiers redeploy in an area near the Golan that the fighters had seized a few days earlier.

Del Buey said the U.N. observers were on a regular supply mission when they were stopped by the rebels. He said a team was dispatched to try to resolve the issue. The Observatory quoted rebels as saying the peacekeepers, all Filipinos, would not be released until regime forces withdraw from a village called Jamla.

The U.N. Security Council demanded their immediate and unconditional release. Peter Bouckaert, a researcher for the international group Human Rights Watch, said he is investigating suspicions, based on amateur video, that the same group of rebels was involved in the execution of captured regime soldiers in the area several days ago.

In Belgium, the top rebel commander renewed an appeal to the international community to send weapons to the opposition. Gen. Salim Idris, head of the rebels' Supreme Military Council, asked for anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to protect Syrian civilians from Assad's warplanes.

He said Russia and Iran are aiding the regime, while the West, while calling for Assad's ouster, is not doing enough to help the rebels. "The people don't understand why the international community just looks at the news on their TVs," he said. "They just speak in the media and say, 'that is not good and the regime must stop and must go, Bashar must go.' And they don't act."

Britain seemed to be stepping up its support. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said his country would provide armored vehicles, body armor and search-and-rescue equipment to the opposition. But he said Britain is sticking to the European Union's sanctions against Syria, which include an arms embargo.

In Cairo, the 22-member Arab League gave a diplomatic boost to the opposition. The League's chief, Nabil ElAraby, offered Syria's seat to the opposition, provided it forms a representative executive council. The League had suspended Syria's membership in 2011, after Assad's government did not abide by an Arab peace plan.

Associated Press writers Barbara Surk, Bassem Mroue and Zeina Karam in Beirut; Jamal Halaby in Amman; David Rising in Berlin; Don Melvin in Brussels; Jill Lawless in London; and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

Pakistan, Iran leaders inaugurate pipeline project

March 12, 2013

GABD, Iran (AP) — The leaders of Pakistan and Iran are pushing ahead with a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran despite American opposition, and the Iranian president has declared the West has no right to block the project.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke alongside his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, in Iran near the Pakistani border during a ceremony Monday intended to mark the beginning of construction of the Pakistani side of the pipeline.

The Iran-Pakistan pipeline is designed to help Pakistan overcome its mushrooming energy needs at a time when the country is facing increased blackouts and energy shortages. But there are serious doubts about how Pakistan could finance the $1.5 billion needed to construct the pipeline and whether it could go through with the project without facing U.S. sanctions, which Washington has put in place to pressure Iran over its nuclear program.

"Today is a historic day. The gas pipeline project is the beginning of a great work," said Ahmadinejad, speaking to dignitaries from both countries. "The Westerners have no right to make any obstacles in the way of the project."

Monday's ceremony comes just days before the Pakistani government's term is set to expire and could be designed to win votes by making the ruling Pakistan People's Party look like it's addressing the energy crisis. It also allows the government to thumb its nose at the United States, which is widely unpopular in Pakistan despite billions of dollars in U.S. military and civilian aid.

Zardari praised Iran for its help in the project and said the pipeline was a vital part of his country's development. "In order to help ourselves we've got to be economically sound," he told the crowd.

The U.S. has opposed the project, instead promoting an alternative pipeline that runs from the gas fields of Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and then to India. The U.S. has also championed a number of electricity generation projects within Pakistan, such as helping renovate hydropower dams.

Iran's deputy oil minister, Javad Owji, told Iranian state television that Tehran already built 900 kilometers (560 miles) of the pipeline, with about 320 kilometers (200 miles) remaining to be built inside Iran.

The Pakistan segment of the pipeline is expected to be about 780 kilometers (500 miles). Owji said Iranian contractors will be involved in building the Pakistani portion of the pipeline. Gas is supposed to start flowing in by the end of 2014, although few see that deadline as realistic, considering the delays so far.

The U.S. has repeatedly raised questions about the project although a state department spokeswoman pointed out the multiple stops and starts to the pipeline so far. "We have serious concerns if this project actually goes forward that the Iran Sanctions Act would be triggered," Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington on Monday. "All of that said, we've heard this pipeline announced about 10 or 15 times before in the past. So we have to see what actually happens."

Under American regulations, a wide-ranging list of business-related activities with Iran can trigger American sanctions. Certain sales of technology or equipment that allow Iran to develop its energy sector are barred, as are most transactions involving gasoline or other fuels, according to a January statement by the Congressional Research Report. The regulations also bar business dealings with Iranian financial institutions.

Possible penalties include barring the offending entity from receiving American military equipment or making it essentially impossible to do business with American banks. Iran also faces separate European Union and U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, which the West believes may be geared for building nuclear weapons. Tehran denies that, insisting the program is purely for peaceful purposes.

"The pipeline has nothing to do with the nuclear issue. You can't build an atomic bomb with a natural gas pipeline," Ahmadinejad said on Monday. Rhetoric aside, it remains to be seen whether Pakistan would ever actually face American sanctions. The PPP government led by Zardari likely has only days left leading the country, because elections are expected to be called by the end of the week.

"That timing is very important for the People's Party because they are building their campaign on this," said Hussain Yasar, a senior energy analyst at KASB Securities in Karachi. One of the chief complaints of Pakistanis with the current government is over the widespread blackouts that have only gotten worse since it took over five years ago. The government seems to be promoting its commitment to the pipeline as a way to prove it is committed to solving the energy crisis despite its track record, and it has emphasized that it is going forward with the project in the face of U.S. opposition.

One of the biggest challenges for cash-strapped Pakistan is how to come up with the money needed to build the pipeline. Few countries have been willing to risk American ire by financing the project. In a statement Monday, Pakistani officials said Iran will give Pakistan a $500 million loan to build part of it.

The Pakistanis said they will finance the rest of the project - roughly $1 billion - through a $500 million Chinese loan and an fee added to customers' bills. But that is a tough proposition, considering how few Pakistanis actually pay for electricity.

It's unclear whether Pakistan's commitment to the project will continue if the ruling party loses the upcoming election. The PPP's main contender is the Pakistan Muslim League-N, headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who spent years living in exile Saudi Arabia.

The oil-rich gulf kingdom, a Sunni Muslim country with deep suspicion of Iran's Shiite Muslim rulers, is believed to also be adamantly opposed to any deal that would benefit Iran. "It will be a tricky situation for the PML-N," said Yasar.

Santana reported from Islamabad.

Associated Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed to this report from Tehran, Iran.

Falklands vote shows 99.8 pct want to stay British

March 12, 2013

STANLEY, Falkland Islands (AP) — An overwhelming 99.8 percent of Falkland Islands voters have backed keeping their government just the way it is: a British Overseas Territory.

Of the 1,517 valid votes cast, only 3 islanders voted "no" to the question: "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?" One vote was somehow lost, officials said Monday.

The referendum was aimed at showing the world that the residents' self-determination must be considered in any discussion about the future of the remote South Atlantic islands that are claimed by both Britain and Argentina.

Elections officials reported a 92 percent turnout among the approximately 1,650 Falkland Islands voters eligible to cast ballots in the referendum. International election observer Juan Henao said the process was completely normal.

The islands' 2,563 residents did all they could ahead of the vote to show their sympathies, waving Union Jack flags and dressing up in red-white-and-blue. "The referendum will show the world how we feel, that we are British and that we wish to remain British. We don't want to have nothing to do with Argentina, at all," islander Barry Nielson said as he voted.

The ballot didn't consider any alternatives, such as full independence or some sort of political relationship with Argentina. The Falkland Islands Government had said that if a majority said "no," they could explore alternatives in a second vote later.

The government barred from voting any visiting contractors or personnel from the sizeable British military deployment, as well as anyone who had not resided in the islands for the last 12 months, thus excluding several people with islander status who have chosen to live in Argentina.

Argentines consider the "Islas Malvinas" to be part of their national territory, taken from them by the British more than 180 years ago. One group at the iconic obelisk in Buenos Aires said Monday that it had gathered 100,000 signatures supporting Argentina's claim to the territory and the resource-rich seas that surrounds the archipelago.

The islands' community, which includes families that have worked the land for nine generations, is steeped in British culture, and British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote in the tabloid The Sun on Sunday that "as long as the Falklanders want to stay British, we will always be there to protect them. They have my word on that."

But islanders have worried that British support is not guaranteed. They well remember that Britain was preparing to hand over the islands to Argentina before the military government in Buenos Aires occupied them in 1982, prompting a war that killed 907 people.

Defending them ever since by staffing a large military garrison 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) from London has been a costly sore point for Britons facing austerity measures. A Daily Mirror columnist complained about this on Monday, saying that "the result's not in doubt when the Islanders are voting for 'free money.' "

The political columnist, Kevin Maguire, wrote that the UK "spends 75 million euros ($112 million) on troops, missiles, aircraft and warships to guard their sheep lands," an annual military subsidy he calculated at 44,856 euros ($67,000) per island voter.

"It is glaringly obvious that a deal with neighbor Argentina remains the only sensible long-term answer to the Falklands-Malvinas," Maguire concluded. Argentina maintained that the vote was illegal and that islanders — an "implanted people" — have no voice in a dispute that must be settled bilaterally.

The islanders hope the result will help them keep any deal off the table — and perhaps even persuade neutral nations such as the United States to come down on their side. Gov. Nigel Haywood is Queen Elizabeth's representative in the islands, a mostly advisory role. The islanders directly elect members of a legislative assembly, and settle all their own affairs except for defense and foreign policy.

"I think countries when faced with the outcome of this will look at it and say ... 'we're in the 21st century, is it right that a country should want to try to take possession of these islands again against the freely expressed wishes of its inhabitants?' Haywood told The Associated Press. "That's just not how countries should act in the 21st century."

Two Falkland Islands lawmakers were already on their way to Washington, preparing to hand-deliver the results of an overwhelming "yes" vote to the U.S. Congress. "Self-determination is what the United States was founded on and it is a fundamental right. It's a right that they recognize. So I would hope that they would listen to what's happening here today," said another member of the islands' legislative assembly, Dick Sawle.