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Sunday, March 30, 2014

Slovakia to hold a presidential runoff election

March 16, 2014

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Two candidates will compete in a runoff ballot to become Slovakia's next president, election results indicated Sunday.

They are Prime Minister Robert Fico and businessman-turned philanthropist Andrej Kiska, who beat 12 other candidates in the first round of voting on Saturday. Fico, who won 28 percent of the vote, and Kiska, who got 24 percent, will compete in a March 29 election for the presidency, a largely ceremonial post.

Radoslav Prochazka, an independent conservative lawmaker with a degree from Yale Law School, was third with 21.3 percent. Milan Knazko, a leading figure of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, finished a distant fourth with 12.9 percent.

Fico's first-round victory was less convincing than expected since public polls had predicted he could win up to 40 percent. "I have no reason to be disappointed," Fico said about the election result. "I have won the first round."

The leader of Slovakia's dominant left-leaning SMER-Social Democracy party is the country's most popular politician. The 49-year-old led his party to a landslide victory in the 2012 parliamentary election. That allowed it to govern alone, the first time a single party has held power in Slovakia since its 1993 split from Czechoslovakia.

Fico said Saturday's relatively low turnout — 43.4 percent — might have been to blame. Looking ahead to the runoff, he has said his election would ensure political stability in Slovakia. While he served as Slovakia's prime minister, it adopted the euro currency in 2009. Fico was a vocal opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but he supported the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

Kiska, 51, who has no experience in politics, attracts voters who are appalled by corruption and mainstream politics. He has said he wants to persuade those who voted for unsuccessful candidates in the first round to vote for him in the runoff.

"I'm sure I won't disappoint them," he said.

Prime minister leads in Slovak presidential race

March 16, 2014

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Preliminary partial results from Slovakia's presidential election are indicating the favored prime minister and his major rival are leading the first round of the race.

Results by the Statistics Office from 58.5 percent of almost 6,000 polling stations counted by Saturday night showed leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico leading with 28.0 percent while businessman-turned philanthropist Andrej Kiska in second with 24.1 percent.

An independent conservative lawmaker with a degree from Yale Law School Radoslav Prochazka was third with 20.8 percent while Milan Knazko, a leading figure of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, was distant fourth with 12.6 percent.

Final results are expected Sunday. If no candidate wins at least 50 percent, the top two will advance to a second round on March 29.

Serbia votes in early parliamentary election

March 16, 2014

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbs are voting in an early parliamentary election that is expected to benefit the governing Serbian Progressive Party, which has promised to fight crime and corruption in the troubled Balkan nation.

Sunday's vote comes as Serbia is seeking entry into the European Union. Analysts say the Progressives, leaders of the previous coalition government, could win an absolute majority in the 250-member parliament, given divisions within the opposition. The Socialists, whose leader Ivica Dacic is the premier, were trailing in the polls.

Serbian Progressive Party leader Aleksandar Vucic, a former hardline nationalist ally of the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, is expected to become the next prime minister. Vucic has promised painful reforms needed to help Serbia's economy, which has been ravaged by wars and international sanctions.

Scotland's Vikings go own way in independence vote

March 23, 2014

GULBERWICK, Scotland (AP) — In the late winter dusk, hundreds of Vikings are marching down to the beach, bearing flaming torches. Their studded leather breastplates glint in the firelight as they roar and sing.

It's a scene that would have struck terror into the hearts of Dark Age Britons — and also perhaps an unsettling one for modern politicians on both sides of Scotland's independence debate. The fearsome-looking participants in a Viking fire festival known as Up Helly Aa live in Scotland's remote Shetland Islands, a wind-whipped northern archipelago where many claim descent from Scandinavian raiders. They are cool to the idea of Scotland leaving Britain to form an independent nation, and determined that their rugged islands — closer to Norway than to Edinburgh — will retain their autonomy, whatever the outcome of September's referendum.

"Shetland is different. We have Viking blood in our veins," said the procession's magnificently bearded chief Viking, or Jarl — by day a local authority housing officer named Keith Lobban. There are only 23,000 Shetlanders, too few to make much difference to the outcome of the independence vote. But they have Viking-sized confidence, and a big bargaining chip: a chunk of Britain's oil and gas reserves lie beneath Shetland waters.

Shetlanders are seeking new powers and official recognition of their special status — possibly along the lines of the Faroe Islands, a self-governing dependency of Denmark. The islanders feel their moment may have come, as Scotland's fluid constitutional status gives them opportunities to seek concessions from both sides.

Tavish Scott, Shetland's representative in the Scottish Parliament, said an independent Scotland "doesn't have an economy if oil and gas doesn't happen. And that gives Shetland some leverage." A "yes" vote for independence on Sept. 18 would trigger complex negotiations between Edinburgh and London over Scotland's share of Britain's offshore oil and gas — and of its trillion-pound national debt. A "no" vote is likely to lead to talks about giving Scotland more power of its economy and resources — especially its energy reserves.

Authorities in Shetland, which enjoys many local-government powers such as raising taxes and running schools, see the referendum as a chance to drive a hard bargain — something at which they have considerable experience.

For centuries, Shetland was a poor place, ignored by governments far to the south and reliant on the unpredictable fishery industry and on making knitwear from sturdy local sheep. But the islands have prospered since large reserves of oil were discovered offshore in the 1960s. Construction of Sullom Voe, one of Europe's largest oil and gas terminals, brought jobs and new migrants who reversed decades of population decline.

Amid the rush of discovery, Shetland negotiated a generous compensation agreement with eager oil companies — creating an oil fund that has helped give the island chain well-paved roads, plentiful swimming pools and well-equipped community centers.

These days, oil production is dwindling, but French energy company Total is building a new natural gas plant on the islands. Shetlanders are keen to have control over their resources — oil, gas, fish and even wind — and are wary of government meddling, no matter where that government is based.

"Whether decisions are made in Edinburgh or in London, they are still distant from Shetland," said Adam Civico, editor of the Shetland Times newspaper. Local lawmakers have suggested that Shetland and the neighboring Orkney islands might demand a bigger share of oil and gas revenue as a condition for joining Scotland. An online petition on the Scottish government website calls for residents of Shetland, Orkney and Scotland's Western Isles to hold separate referenda on whether to join an independent Scotland, stick with Britain or declare independence — although any of those moves would require protracted negotiations, and the petition has only 525 signatories so far.

Officials in the island groups have formed the "Our Islands, Our Future" campaign to seek more power after the referendum, whatever the result. "We want to make sure that out of this big constitutional debate, we decide what we want for our future, because Edinburgh doesn't tend to pay much attention to the islands," Scott, the lawmaker, told the BBC.

Scott speaks with a confidence that's the product of centuries of difference from the rest of Scotland. It's hard to find tartan or kilts in Shetland, where Norse pride replaces the Celtic influence that shaped mainland Scotland. Shetland was Viking-ruled until it was mortgaged to Scotland by the king of Norway in 1469 to raise a dowry for his daughter.

There are still many Norse words in the local dialect, and Shetland abounds in Scandinavian place names such as Vidlin and Tingwall. With its raging surf, treeless hills and black volcanic rock, parts of Shetland could double for Iceland.

"I always feel when I go to Scotland I'm learning about someone else's heritage rather than my own," said Edna Irvine, who runs a clothing shop in Lerwick, Shetland's only town. The most spectacular sign of Shetland's cultural difference is Up Helly Aa, a series of festivals held in communities across the islands in wintertime whose name means roughly "the end of the holidays."

The event's focus is a fiery parade — powered by marching songs and brass bands — that ends when the well-drilled amateur Vikings hurl their torches onto a replica longship that has taken months to build. The orange fireball lights up the night sky. Once the vessel has sunk, smoldering, into the sea, the participants head to local halls for evenings of music and comic skits that are part barn dance, part Mardi Gras.

"Viking heritage means everything to Shetland folk," said 24-year-old Paul Hutton, eyeglasses glinting under his Viking helmet at an Up Helly Aa procession in the village of Gulberwick. "Shetland heritage and Shetland culture is so strong that everybody would say we are definitely Shetland first. Shetland first, and then Scottish, then part of the United Kingdom."

That distinct identity makes Shetlanders weigh up the pros and cons of independence differently to other Scots. For many on the Scottish mainland — home to most of the country's 5.3 million people — the decision is a battle between heart and head, between Scots' famous prudence and their longstanding adventurousness.

The pro-independence forces led by First Minister Alex Salmond say an independent Scotland will use its oil and gas wealth to create a prosperous and progressive nation of 5.3 million with generous welfare provisions — a bit like Scandinavia, in fact.

The anti-independence "Better Together" campaign argues that independence would bring huge economic uncertainties. Scots could face the loss of their currency, the British pound, and an end to European Union membership. Some say British companies headquartered in Scotland will pack up and move south of the border, while military shipbuilding will desert shipyards near Glasgow and Edinburgh for English ports. Battles over who owns the North Sea oil and gas could drag on for years.

Most polls show the "No" side ahead, but up to 1 million voters remain undecided. In Shetland, a strong sense of independence is balanced by a pragmatic streak that has led many to conclude their best bet is to remain part of Britain.

"I don't think isolation works anymore," said David Suckley, who runs an engineering firm in Lerwick. "We all depend on one other to such an extent nowadays. "You can be too independent, and you're very lonely then."

Hungary's prime minster readies for elections

March 29, 2014

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's prime minister on Saturday predicted "a bright and great victory" in next week's parliamentary elections for his governing Fidesz party, which has a substantial lead in the polls.

According to the Interior Ministry, around 450,000 supporters attended the rally at Heroes Square to hear Premier Viktor Orban, who said victory on April 6 would give his government the opportunity to tackle some of Hungary's main challenges like job creation, an aging population and education reform.

"We are here to tell each other, the country and the world that we ask for four more years," Orban said. "We are the favorites in this election." The latest opinion polls show around 50 percent of likely voters backing Fidesz, about 20 percent support for the left-wing coalition led by the Socialist Party and 15 percent for the far-right Jobbik party.

Despite the favorable figures, Orban urged the crowd to vote "because there is no opportunity which cannot be wasted." The upcoming elections will be the first under new rules created by Orban's government.

The number of lawmakers will fall from 386 to 199 in a single round of voting, strict limits have been placed on campaign ads, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hungarians from the neighboring countries and abroad who hold dual citizenship are expected to vote for the first time and, critics say, a reshaping needed because of population shifts has been used by Fidesz to gerrymander the voting districts.

During his 21-minute speech, Orban spoke about the policies and achievements of the past four years, like the repayment of a 2008 bailout loan from International Monetary Fund, heavy taxes on banks and multinational companies and a public works program which has pushed down the unemployment rate.

Fidesz and its small ally, the Christian Democrats, won a two-thirds majority in 2010, a win Orban has described a "revolution in the voting booth." The landslide result allowed Fidesz to adopt a new constitution and reshape many aspects of Hungarian life, mostly by centralizing power and increasing the role of the state.

Crimea's Tatars condemn annexation, seek autonomy

March 29, 2014

BAKCHYSARAI, Crimea (AP) — Leaders of Crimea's Tatar minority gathered Saturday to condemn Russia's annexation of the peninsula and appealed to international bodies for recognition as an autonomous group.

Tatars, an ethnically Turkic and mainly Muslim group that was subjected to mass deportation from their native Crimea by Soviet leader Josef Stalin in 1944, gathered to forge a collective response to Russia's absorption of their native region.

Decisions on whether to accept Russian citizenship and possible participation in a Moscow-loyal government were deferred as the community further contemplates its options. But the forum of about 250 delegates underscored difficulties Russia will face in integrating a community that resisted annexation and largely boycotted the March 16 referendum to join Russia.

According to the most recent Ukrainian national census, carried out in 2001, the 245,000-strong Tatar community accounted for 12 percent of Crimea's population. But anecdotal evidence of higher birth rates and a continued return of Tatars from exile in Central Asia suggest those figures may have grown markedly since then.

The Kremlin decision to annex this strategic Black Sea region, which has a large Russian majority, was backed by rhetoric of national self-determination, as Moscow argued that pro-Russian Crimeans had the right to break away from Ukraine.

"Recently, all decisions (by Russia) have been based on the presupposed right of every nation to self-determination," said Refat Chubarov, the leader of the Crimean Tatar governing body. "One must now conclude that the Crimean Tatar people also have that right."

Chubarov also appealed to the international community to recognize the Crimean Tatars as a "national territorial autonomy," but fell short of demanding a referendum on independence or allegiance to Ukraine.

Yet the vociferous tone of the delegates who spoke demonstrated the lingering rage within the Tatar community. "Russia turned us out three times," Aishe Setmetova, an elderly woman in a knit sweater, bellowed from the stage. "They think of us as worthless objects. I do not believe in Russia."

Crimea's Tatars began to return to their native peninsula in the late 1980s with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The population is growing fast compared to the ageing Russian population and presents the Kremlin with a long-term problem of integration.

Russia and the local Crimean government have assured Tatars that their rights will be fully respected on the peninsula. Tatar is to be elevated to one of the three state languages and the community has been given loose assurances it will be guaranteed a prominent political status.

But Tatars, who ruled the peninsula from the 15th century until the Russian Empire took it over in the 18th century, remain deeply skeptical of Moscow's intentions. "We, as the native people of this land, shouldn't collaborate with an occupying power," congress delegate Ilver Ametov said.

"Ukraine, too, wasn't our home, but at least it was a democracy," he said. "There's a story we have about the dog who ran to Moscow because things were better over there, but ran back to Ukraine because at least here he's allowed to bark."

Land key as Crimea's Tatars discuss future plans

March 28, 2014

SIMFEROPOL, Crimea (AP) — As armed pro-Russian forces spread out across Crimea, Mustafa Maushev joined his Tatar neighbors on a nightly vigil to keep intruders off their property.

Almost exactly 70 years ago, Tatars were expelled from their homeland as a result of one of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's merciless mass deportations of perceived enemies of the state. Decades later, as the Soviet Union was crumbling, many returned and slowly reclaimed their place.

Following a March referendum that ended with Crimea breaking away from Ukraine and being swallowed up by Russia, disquiet is stirring that the Tatars' hard-fought hold over their land could be lost once again.

On Saturday, 250 delegates are gathering in the southern Crimean town of Bakchysarai for a traditional Tatar Qurultay congress to decide whether to hold a referendum on yielding to absorption by Russia or clinging to their Ukrainian citizenship. The former choice might be easier, but few have any illusions.

"Russia is offering us all sorts of nice things. But we understand the essence of the Russian empire, because we are its victims," said Zevget Kutumerov, a Tatar with extensive experience of dealing with land issues. "If (Russian President Vladimir) Putin says a word, they'll pass any law tomorrow. That's what we're afraid of."

One of the Tatars' greatest problems is their legally tenuous control over the land on which they live. Maushev, a neighborhood delegate to the kurultai, arrived penniless from Uzbekistan in 1989 and was forced to scrabble and find a home for himself.

Linking up with about 100 other homeless Tatars, he pitched a tent in a field on the outskirts of the Crimean capital, Simferopol. Each settler built a "vremyanka," or makeshift hut, which provided just enough shelter for squatters guarding the land overnight.

"About 30 or 40 people kept watch here at night so that nobody would trespass, nobody would come and break down the vremyankas," Maushev said. By the community's own estimates, Tatars on average own two-fifths as much land as ethnic Russians in Crimea. While Tatars account for only 12 percent of the peninsula's population, space still remains tight for younger generations raising large families.

After a decade-long moratorium in which no group settlements were founded, Crimean Tatars organized thousands of land seizures in 2006, as the children of the first wave of migrants grew up, made families, and felt cramped in the old settlements.

"I was living in an apartment with my mother, grandmother, everyone — female warfare, every day," said Sedomed Setumerov, who lives about a kilometer down the road from Maushev in a newer settlement. Yet regardless of how the kurultai dictates Tatars should determine their fealty, whatever victories the community has scored in securing land may yet be lost. Many Tatars worry that Russian laws will limit their ability to press for the government to recognized their land ownership.

In Russia, heavy fines are levied on those who participate in unsanctioned protests, which often end within minutes as demonstrators are swept brutally away. Setumerov moved here in 2010, and now lives in a self-built house with his wife and his three young children. The vast field around them, empty but for the identical but crumbling vremyanki on equal plots of land, gives it the air of a ghost town.

They have lived for three years without running water or electricity, using a generator that has enough gusto for a few lamps and a television but not for a washing machine. They are waiting for the government to recognize them as the owners of the land, which will allow them to use electricity and water from the public grid.

Setumerov acknowledges the wait may be long — especially now that Russia has annexed Crimea — but says it's worth it. "I'd still rather live in a vremyanka," he said. "At least it's quiet and the air is fresh."

Busloads of Ukrainian troops leave Crimea

March 25, 2014

FEODOSIA, Crimea (AP) — As former comrades saluted them from outside a base overrun by Russian forces, Ukrainian marines in Crimea piled into buses Tuesday to head back to the mainland.

It was a low-key exit from this eastern Black Sea port, with fewer than a dozen friends and relatives on hand to bid the marines farewell. A troop transporter bearing black Russian military plates trailed the bus as it pulled away.

Their departure came as Ukraine's defense minister stepped down after harsh criticism for authorities' often-hesitant reaction to Russia's annexation of Crimea, which was formalized following a hastily organized referendum this month. And while Ukraine struggled to deal with its humbling by Russia, it also faced the menace of seething Ukrainian nationalists angered by the police killing of a leading radical.

Troops were given the stark choice of either staying in Crimea and switching allegiance to serve under Russia's military, or leaving the peninsula to keep their jobs with the Ukrainian defense forces.

"The Russians threatened, intimidated, bullied and tried to get us to switch sides to Russia. It has been very difficult to resist this enormous pressure but I have made a choice that I can live with," Senior Lt. Anatoly Mozgovoy told The Associated Press after arriving in the Ukrainian city of Genichesk .

"We were greeted as heroes in Ukraine. I was able to breathe freely for the first time in months," the 30-year-old Mozgovoy said. He said he left behind his wife and 7-month-old daughter, who were staying with his mother-in-law in Crimea until he finds out where he is being permanently deployed.

So far, 131 Ukrainian marines have left Crimea, the defense ministry said. They were being temporarily stationed at a military barracks in Genichesk but their final destination was still unclear. At a summit on nuclear security in The Hague, Netherlands, President Barack Obama said Russian troops would not be dislodged from Crimea by force.

He noted that one of the achievements of his first nuclear summit in 2010 "was Ukraine's decision to remove all of its highly enriched uranium from its nuclear fuel sites." "Had that not happened, those dangerous nuclear materials would still be there now. And the difficult situation we're dealing with in Ukraine today would involve yet another level of concern," Obama said.

In an address to parliament in the capital, Kiev, Defense Minister Igor Tenyukh denied that he had failed to issue clear instructions to his troops but reserved the right to resign. The order to withdraw from Crimea was issued Monday, a week after many bases had already been stormed and seized by pro-Russian forces.

Lawmakers initially refused Tenyukh's resignation but later accepted it and replaced him with Col. Gen. Mykhailo Koval. About 4,300 Ukrainian servicemen and 2,200 of their relatives have asked to leave Crimea, Tenyukh said Tuesday. That means about two-thirds of the 18,800 military personnel and relatives that he said were stationed on the Black Sea peninsula were taking their chances in Crimea.

Tenyukh said accommodations for incoming soldiers were being prepared at boarding houses and other facilities in Kiev. Oleksandr Rozmaznin, deputy chief of operations for Ukraine's armed forces, said navy troops were being redeployed in port cities along Ukraine's southern mainland — in Odessa, Mykolaiv and Kherson.

The Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said 11 of its servicemen have been abducted by Russian troops and remain unaccounted for, including Col. Yuliy Mamchur, a commander who earned wide acclaim in Ukraine for defying besieging pro-Russian forces until his base was stormed over the weekend.

Ukraine's new government is struggling to consolidate control amid ominous signals of discontent from Right Sector, a radical nationalist movement that played a key role in the anti-government demonstrations that prompted President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia in February.

One radical, Oleksandr Muzychko, was shot dead overnight as he was being detained by police, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. Moscow has cited the alleged influence of nationalist groups like Right Sector to justify its hasty annexation of Crimea, which has a large Russian majority.

Russian state television, which is widely viewed by Ukraine's Russian-speaking population in the east, has regularly aired lurid reports on Muzychko's antics as part of what media analysts say is a sustained effort to undermine the government in Kiev.

But many in Ukraine downplay the group's importance and it has no posts in the new government. Police say Muzychko was being sought for organized crime links, hooliganism and threatening public officials.

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh lashed out at his killing. "We cannot silently watch as the Interior Ministry carries out active anti-revolutionary activities," Yarosh said. His group demanded the immediate resignation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and the arrest of the head of the Sokol special forces.

Amid the country's political turmoil, Ukraine's economy is in a dire state and representatives from the International Monetary Fund have been holding talks with the new government for weeks on the terms of a potential bailout.

Officials in Moscow, meanwhile, warned Kiev that the country's new government will have to pay more for Russian gas. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said a gas discount that Russia had previously given Ukraine was linked to the Russian Black Sea fleet's lease in Crimea and is no longer valid.

But he added that the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom would have to set the new price. In November, Russia agreed to help prop up Yanukovych's teetering government by selling Ukraine gas at $268.50 per thousand cubic meters, but that discounted price has been scrapped. Ukraine's Energy Minister Yury Prodan said Tuesday that Kiev would pay Gazprom no more than $387 per thousand cubic meters for gas.

The U.S. and the EU have both hit Russia with sanctions for annexing Crimea, and NATO member Norway on Tuesday suspended joint activities with Russia's military. But Russia has so far shrugged off the sanctions, including being tossed out of the elite Group of Eight developed nations.

Officials say the other G-8 nations will meet, without Russia, in Brussels in June.

Leonard and Yuras Karmanau reported from Kiev. Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.

Ukraine orders troop pullout from Crimea

March 24, 2014

NOVOOZERNOE, Crimea (AP) — Russia's foreign minister met with his Ukrainian counterpart for the first time on Monday and demanded more autonomy for Ukraine's regions, even as Ukraine under pressure ordered its troops out from Crimea after the Russian seizure of military bases there.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an unexpected move agreed to the highest level meeting yet between the Russian government and a representative of the new Ukrainian government that Moscow has opposed vociferously over the past month.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in the Hague, Netherlands. Lavrov told Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia that Russia continues to want constitutional changes in Ukraine that would give more autonomy to all regions of Ukraine.

Russia is eager to retain its influence in Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern regions and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. It has pushed for the new Ukraine to become a loose federation — demands the new Ukrainian government has rejected.

Before the meeting, Deshchytsia said his government fears a Russian military buildup near Ukraine's border. "The possibility of a military invasion is very high. We are very much worried about this concentration of troops on our eastern border," he said.

The concerns have been deepened in by the intense military pressure Russia has applied in Crimea since Russian President Vladimir Putin formally annexed the peninsula last week. Russian forces have commandeered ships and broke into walled military installations with armored personnel carriers.

In the bay of Donuzlav in western Crimea, dozens of Ukrainian sailors marooned on the Konstantin Olshanskiy navy landing vessel abandoned ship Monday after weeks of tension and uncertainty. The Olshanskiy and two other warships have been trapped in the bay since Russian forces scuttled mothballed ships at the bay's inlet.

The sailors, using a small rubber boat that needed several trips to ferry them to land, were greeted by the taunts of hecklers on the shore. One man shouted they were deserting "rats," while another man blasted the Russian national anthem from his car.

"We aren't rats, we aren't running," said one sailor, who only gave his first name of Yevgeny to discuss a sensitive subject. "Why should we have stayed, what would we have accomplished?" Twenty out of the estimated 60 sailors originally on board remained on the ship, which was later in the day stormed by armed men, presumed to be Russian forces.

Defense Ministry spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said the crew, which barricaded itself in the bulkhead, heard stun grenades and rifle fire. At a naval base near the eastern Crimean port of Feodosia, two injured servicemen were taken captive earlier in the day and as many as 80 were detained at the site, Ukrainian officials said.

With the storming of at least three military facilities in Crimea over the past three days — and the decision by some Ukrainian troops to stay employed by switching to the Russian side — it wasn't clear how many Ukrainian troops remained on the peninsula. The former chief of Ukraine's navy, who was charged with treason after he swore allegiance to Crimea's pro-Russian authorities and urged others to defect, was named a deputy chief of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchnynov, whose new government in Kiev has struggled to maintain control and cohesion, signed a decree Monday ordering the withdrawal of all servicemen in Crimea to Ukraine's mainland.

But in remarks that seemed to underline the disarray that has characterized the Ukrainian authorities, the Defense Ministry spokesman later stated he had heard about no such order.

Leonard reported from Kiev. Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report. Julie Pace reported from the Hague.

Greece child abuse rises as economy falters

29 Mar 2014
John Psaropoulos

Economic crisis has been linked to a growing number of abandoned and abused children, straining local charities.

Athens, Greece - Haritina is a fine-boned, well-mannered 16-year-old. She's earned top marks in school and wants to study ancient Greek civilization in university. What sets her apart from most people is that since the age of three she has been raised in a home run by The Smile of the Child, a non-profit organization.

Like the 25 other children in this suburban Athens home, whom she considers siblings, Haritina was at some point abandoned or abused by her parents. Such instances of abandonment, abuse or extreme neglect of children have been on the rise during Greece's economic crisis, and have now begun to overwhelm institutions which are capable of caring for them.

"The crisis has caused parents to lose their jobs, or to live in a state of terror because they can't feed their families," says Kostas Yannopoulos, who founded The Smile of the Child 18 years ago. "They start drinking, some commit suicide, some take drugs, some become mentally unbalanced. This impacts their children and in some cases endangers their lives."

The Smile of the Child runs a 24-hour hotline and relays reports of abuse, neglect, or abandonment to the authorities. Sometimes they are unable to act in time.

"The prosecutor tells us that there is a lack of places for children to go to, so they are left in their abusive environment," Yannopoulos says. "Not long ago, we had a case of a [little girl] who, on four separate occasions, was reported as being abused. She was found dead in her fridge at home. Her mother, a drug addict, had abused her to death and hidden her [body] there." The Smile of the Child, however, did rescue the girl's two little siblings.

On other occasions the hotline has saved lives. "We received a call from a father who could no longer provide for his family. He was about to commit suicide. We got his 17-year-old son on the phone, who said, 'Please, dad, we need you,' and talked him down."

The effect of the crisis on families is evident in the organization's aid to families who are emotionally stable enough to supervise their children. Last year, it delivered food and other aid to more than 2,600 families, twice as many as the year before.

Lack of state institutions

But it is the children who are emotionally orphaned that need help the most. Last year, The Smile of the Child increased its capacity and is now home to a record 306 minors. Greece's other major non-profit childcare organization, SOS Children's Villages, is also filled to capacity at 250, and plans to expand. Its director, Stelios Sifnios, agrees that cases of neglect and abuse are on the rise. The number of children that a third charity, Kivotos, cares for doubled from about 100 to over 200.

The Smile of the Child and SOS Children's Villages are vitally important for vulnerable children because the government does not have the means and institutions to adequately support each abandoned child.

"Often the buildings are old and grand," says Efi Bekou, general secretary for social security. "They are difficult to heat and maintain, and not all their wings are working. Most date to the early 20th century. In the town of Drama, for instance, our [social services center] used to be the old Ottoman hospital."

The overflow of abandoned or abused children is now being directed to the state hospital system. The country's two largest children's hospitals, Agia Sofia and Aglaia Kyriakou, served as temporary homes to 177 children three years ago; that number rose to 216 two years ago and 301 last year.

Manolis Papasavvas, who runs both institutions, considers this as an inadequate solution. "In the past, children didn't stay for more than two to three weeks. Now, we keep them for up to two to three months. It's not the best thing for a healthy child to live in a hospital. It's not good for them psychologically, and they can catch illnesses. And we shouldn't be occupying the nursing staff with their care."

Children aren't allowed off hospital premises. There is a schoolroom in the hospital, but a network of volunteers is all they have for stimulation and companionship outside the school. Yet, even living in a hospital turns out to be better than what these children have experienced before. "What surprises me is that these children say to me, 'It's nice here, we feel welcome here,'" says Papasavvas.

An economic issue?

Abandonment often used to be the result of birth defects. Increasingly, though, it seems to be directly or indirectly a result of economic issues. "Last year, a parent brought their two-month-old boy to the hospital and left it by the elevators," says Papasavvas. "They left a note saying, 'I don't want this child, I can't take care of it, please take it.' The child was entirely healthy."

The health ministry says it is now preparing a new center to house healthy children currently in its hospitals, but it will only be able to accommodate about a tenth of them.

As the problem of abused, neglected and abandoned children grows, authorities are beginning to realize the ineffectiveness of dealing with the situation piecemeal. They do not even know the extent of it because neither social security nor prosecutors, who issue guardianship and adoption orders to public institutions and foster homes, have the staff to classify cases or produce centralized statistics.

In early March, Bekou invited private institutions to coordinate their actions, even though friction between the government and private sector exists. "I want [state] institutions to be better known... It's not necessarily known that they exist," says Bekou. "The state always has a greyer, mustier and more worn image. But it's wrong to say that the state is entirely absent."

Funding and taxes

Money will likely be a lively topic in this dialogue. Social security spent $13m on both children and the handicapped last year. The Smile of the Child and SOS Children's Villages together raised $20.5m entirely from individual and corporate donations - a remarkable feat in a recession, largely thanks to a painstakingly built grassroots funding network and overseas remittances.

Despite the two non-profit groups' significant contribution, the state has made life difficult for them during the crisis. A 2010 law stopped recognizing donations as tax-deductible, even as corporate social responsibility became vitally important. The law started taxing donations to the tune of 0.5 percent, and forced non-profit groups to pay 23 percent VAT on fundraising revenues. More recently, they have been forced to pay property taxes. In all, the two charities paid just under half-a-million dollars in taxes last year.

The figures suggest that wealth redistribution has failed to address Greece's massive social distress. The country now has the fourth-highest rate of childhood poverty across the European Union according to Caritas, a Catholic charity.

However, Greece also has a powerful tradition of philanthropy dating back to ancient times, and it is this, rather than taxation, which has saved children like Haritina.

"When children have healthy role models and receive the love they need, they are emotionally full and can make their way in the world, even if that love hasn't come from their biological parents," says Stefania Tekou, a social worker who looks after the 26 children in Haritina's home. She is assisted by a staff of 15 teachers and nurses, who care for the children around the clock.

Tekou recounts a recent conversation with Haritina. "She turned to me and said, 'When I grow up and have children, I won't need a nanny. I'll have 16 grandmothers!' We were all very moved by that."

Source: al-Jazeera.
Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/greece-child-abuse-rises-as-economy-falters-2014328134335710676.html.

Paris set to get its first woman mayor

March 17, 2014

PARIS (AP) — Two women are vying to be the new face of Paris, the first time in this city's long history that the mayor won't be a Monsieur.

The discreet, hard-working Socialist Anne Hidalgo is the favorite to win municipal elections that start Sunday, which would keep this leading tourist destination in leftist hands despite the deep unpopularity of President Francois Hollande's Socialist national government.

"A woman at the head of one of the most important cities of the world ... will have of course a very, very important influence," Hidalgo told The Associated Press. It will also send an important message to leaders and voters in a country where women only got the vote at the end of World War II and where sexist attitudes persist toward women in power.

Hidalgo, 54, has experience on her side, after 13 years as the deputy to outgoing Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe. In all recent polls, Hidalgo leads center-right challenger Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a 40-year-old rising star of former President Nicolas Sarkozy's party known by her initials NKM.

The race for Paris mayor — one of the most coveted jobs in French politics — is one of several thousand underway across the country for municipal elections held in two rounds March 23 and 30. Both the top candidates in the capital pledge to improve security and transport and to build more public housing in one of the most expensive cities of the world.

Hidalgo, whose parents emigrated from Spain when she was 2, plays a low-profile card, arguing she'd rather meet with as many Parisians as possible than be a media star. She leads such a quiet campaign that she has been accused of "hibernating" by her conservative opponents.

"I'm very calm, very relaxed, very determined," Hidalgo told the AP. "We are going to write a new page for our city. We're going to take up new challenges regarding ecology, solidarity and democracy." Hidalgo says she wants to allocate 5 percent of the city investment budget — 71 million euros per year— to finance projects from citizens' initiatives.

Her ambitious challenger Kosciusko-Morizet, a former environment minister during Sarkozy's presidency who hardly hides her interest in the French presidency someday, was at first considered to have a real chance to win Paris. But her campaign has been compromised by dissent in her own party. Her party lists are facing dissident conservative candidates in some districts, which could cost her some precious votes.

One the one side, Hidalgo "does not have a career at the national level and is a man's heir," said Gael Sliman, a political analyst with the French polling agency BVA. On the other side, he said, Kosciusko-Morizet has "huge political resources, a career at the ministerial level, and is quite young, so she has a career in the making. But she is penalized by an anti-Kosciusko-Morizet rebellion in her own party."

Yet she told The AP that she still believes in a possible victory. "Parisians want some change," Kosciusko-Morizet said while savoring a chocolate given by the shopkeeper in the touristed Montmartre neighborhood where she was campaigning. "Paris needs ... more security, more cleanliness in the streets, and to be the city of the avant-garde that reflects its reputation and history."

Kosciusko-Morizet, who comes from a family of well-connected politicians, tried to break her bourgeois image by adopting a more casual look, with loose wavy hair. But she also made some spectacular blunders, for instance when she spoke of the "charm" of the Parisian metro. The comment set off a flood of mockeries from subway commuters forced to deal with often-overcrowded, bad-smelling trains.

Both have tried to spice up their programs. Hidalgo wants to use a former railway that surrounds Paris —and even its tunnels— to create places for urban art or mushroom and fish-breeding farms. Kosciusko-Morizet proposes to convert unused "ghost" stations of the Paris metro — currently closed to the public — into gyms, swimming pools or nightclubs.

Hidalgo benefits from the successful projects carried out by Mayor Delanoe, such as the Velib bike-sharing and Autolib auto-sharing services, and the creation of a beachfront each summer on the banks of the Seine.

But Kosciusko-Morizet says the Socialists in charge of Paris for the past 13 years have failed to make Paris attractive to young people, and she wants to change that. "There's now a whole generation dreaming of living abroad, starting a business in London, being an artist in Berlin," she said.

She wants more stores to be open on Sunday, especially in tourist zones and luxury shopping streets — while Hidalgo says she'd stick to the traditional day of rest for employees. Hidalgo benefits from Paris' system of indirect voting, in which the mayor is chosen by the 163 members of the City Council. Voters choose council members based on party lists in Paris' 20 districts, and Hidalgo's Socialists are very likely to be ahead in some of the most populated neighborhoods.

Image will also play a role. According to surveys, Kosciusko-Morizet is mostly perceived as "dynamic" and "combative," said Yves-Marie Cann, political analyst with the CSA polling agency. Hidalgo's main assets are her ability to be "attentive to Parisians" and to unite people, and she is considered "a nice person," he said.

Such qualities may be just what it takes to become "Madame le maire."

Swedes protest for tolerance in anti-fascist rally

March 16, 2014

HELSINKI (AP) — Thousands of people have protested against fascism in southwestern Sweden, calling for dialogue and tolerance.

Left-wing and anti-fascist groups organized the demonstration in Malmo against a backdrop of violence a week earlier in the city when four people were injured in a fight at a feminist demonstration on International Women's Day.

Local media said about 9,000 people attended Sunday's rally, citing police. Malmo, where about 40 percent of the 300,000 residents are first- or second-generation immigrants, has been the scene of several attacks, including execution-style shootings and gang-related violence.

Two years ago, gunman was convicted of two murders and five attempted murders in a spate of shootings mainly targeting immigrants.

Norway's Stoltenberg appointed as new NATO chief

March 28, 2014

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO's next leader was announced Friday: former Norwegian Premier Jens Stoltenberg will lead the military alliance starting in October.

The appointment comes at a critical time as the crisis over Ukraine has suddenly made the 28-nation alliance a more relevant security force in Europe. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will step down after a NATO summit in Wales later this year.

"Warm congratulations" Fogh Rasmussen said in a Twitter message Friday to his fellow Scandinavian politician. The past weeks had seen a flurry of diplomacy as member states sought to push their candidates into NATO's top political job.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who replaced Stoltenberg as prime minister last year, said NATO was getting "a strong and unifying secretary general." "It is a huge and responsible task Stoltenberg has received today," Solberg said in a statement.

A two-time Norwegian prime minister, Stoltenberg became a recognizable face on the international scene with his dignified response to the twin terror attacks that killed 77 people in July 2011. Stoltenberg's pledge at the memorial service to combat the atrocity with "more democracy, more openness, and more humanity" helped salve the country's wounds.

His coalition suffered a year later when an independent inquest into the bomb and gun attacks by right-wing fanatic Anders Breivik found a litany of failures by police and security services that might have disrupted or even prevented the slaughter. By September 2013, Stoltenberg's coalition government had been ousted by a combination of conservatives and populists as the Norway tilted right.

Jan M. Olsen contributed from Copenhagen

Latvians honor Nazi allies from World War II

March 16, 2014

RIGA, Latvia (AP) — About 1,500 Latvians on Sunday celebrated Legionnaires Day — which their government abolished in 2000 — by paying tribute to World War II veterans who fought alongside Nazi troops.

After a church service in the Lutheran Cathedral in Riga, the capital, the marchers went to the Freedom Monument, where they laid roses in the red and white colors of the Latvian flag, closely watched by police and security guards.

A few dozen anti-fascist demonstrators, including from Germany and Latvia's Russian-speaking minority, protested at a nearby park behind police barricades, shouting: "Shame!" and "Fascism will never end!"

Police said their abundant presence and the cold, windy weather helped keep tensions under control at the annual event, which stokes ethnic animosity between Latvians and minority Russians. Seven people were arrested for minor offenses.

Former Environment Minister Einars Cilinskis, of the right-wing National Alliance, who was dismissed Friday for announcing he would participate in the procession, ignored Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma's orders not to attend.

The Jewish human rights organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, denounced the march and welcomed the ouster of Cilinskis. "We welcome the steps taken by the Latvian government against the minister who indicated his intention to participate in the march," the group said in a statement.

Latvia, which gained its independence after World War I, was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany a year later, and again by the Soviets in 1944. The country restored its independence in 1991, after nearly five decades of Soviet occupation, in the wake of the Soviet collapse.

About 250,000 Latvians fought alongside either the Germans or the Soviets — and about 150,000 Latvians died in the fighting. Nearly 80,000 Jews, or 90 percent of Latvia's prewar Jewish population, were killed in 1941-42, two years before the formation of the Latvian Waffen SS unit — which some Latvians claim shows the unit couldn't have played a role in the Holocaust.

Many Latvians honor war veterans on Legionnaires Day, but ethnic Russians who account for about one-third of Latvia's 2.3 million population, see it as glorifying fascism.

Armed pro-govt militias roil Venezuela protests

March 30, 2014

VALENCIA, Venezuela (AP) — The masked gunmen emerged from a group of several dozen motorcycle-mounted government loyalists who were attempting to dismantle a barricade in La Isabelica, a working-class district of Valencia that has been a center of unrest since nationwide protests broke out last month.

The barricades' defenders had been hurling rocks, sticks and other objects at the attackers, who included perhaps a dozen armed men, witnesses told The Associated Press. Lisandro Barazarte, a photographer with the local newspaper, Notitarde, caught images of several of the men shooting into the crowd while steadying their firearms on their palms.

"They were practiced shooters," Barazarte said. "More were armed, but didn't fire." When it was over, two La Isabelica men were dead: a 22-year-old student, Jesus Enrique Acosta, and a little league baseball coach, Guillermo Sanchez. Witnesses told the AP the first was shot in the head, the second in the back. They said neither was at the barricades when he was killed.

Similar shootings across Venezuela by gunmen allied with the socialist-led government have claimed at least seven lives and left more than 30 people wounded since the anti-government protests began in mid-February.

President Nicolas Maduro has done nothing to publicly discourage the violence by armed pro-government militants, loosely known as "colectivos," which are also blamed for scores more cases of beatings and intimidation in multiple cities. That includes a March 19 incursion into the architecture academy at the Central University of Venezuela in the capital in which some 40 masked men and women identifying themselves as government defenders bloodied at least a dozen students.

In fact, since the protests began, Maduro and his vice president have each welcomed pro-government "motorizados," or motorcyclists, to separate events at the presidential palace — a Feb. 24 rally and a "peace conference" on March 13.

At the latter gathering, Vice President Jorge Arreaza told his guests, "If there has been exemplary behavior it has been the behavior of the motorcycle colectivos that are with the Bolivarian revolution." He claimed the CIA was behind a propaganda campaign to discredit the colectivos.

Maduro has blamed the violence on the other side, telling supporters on March 9, "There are violent armed groups in the streets, and they are all from the right." Colectivos have long been a fixture in poorer neighborhoods that became strongholds of the late President Hugo Chavez during his 14-year reign. They organize cultural events and community services such as youth summer camps but have also included armed motorcycle-riding militants who have long menaced opposition activists, blocking their marches and roughing up peaceful protesters.

Those violent tactics escalated when anti-government protests surged in mid-February. Fatalities since blamed on colectivo aggression have mostly involved university students, including a prominent student leader, Daniel Tinoco, shot in the chest March 10 in the western city of San Cristobal, where the unrest began amid student outrage at alleged police indifference to an attempted sexual assault.

Most were manning barricades, as were the two students in the western city of Barquisimeto wounded the following day by gunmen who pierced their university's perimeter and set fire to several cars inside.

During the attack in La Isabelica in Valencia, Acosta was hit by a bullet while he was inside an apartment with a friend near the barricades. Sanchez, 42, was out walking to buy a paint brush when the bullet that claimed his life tore into his lower torso.

One of Sanchez's neighbors, who spoke on condition he not be identified for fear of retribution, said the pro-government gang grabbed the wounded Sanchez and dragged him down the street, beating him. "The police never came. There was no (National) Guard," the neighbor said. "It was the Wild West."

Daniel Wilkinson, managing director for the Americas for the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch, said such colectivo violence is nationwide. "This is just one example of a practice we've seen across several states, of security forces not only tolerating armed groups of civilians who attack peaceful protesters, but even collaborating with these gangs when they commit beatings, arbitrary arrests and other abuses," Wilkinson said.

Video and still images chronicling apparent colectivo abuse, mostly shot by private citizens, have been widely posted on social networks in a country where, according to international press freedom groups, independent journalism has been under steady government assault for years.

In many images, the gunmen are seen menacing people and removing barricades set up by protesters as police and National Guardsmen stand idly by. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last month accused the Maduro government of wielding "armed vigilantes" against peaceful protesters, and the European Parliament passed a resolution on Feb. 27 calling on the government to "immediately disarm and dissolve the uncontrolled armed pro-government groups and end their impunity."

Spokesmen for Venezuela's colectivos deny perpetrating anti-opposition violence. "No one has been able to offer proof (of abuses) because they don't have them," said Jose Pinto, secretary general of one of the biggest colectivos, the Tupamaros, which has been around since the 1970s. "Our only weapon is our conscience."

Such groups gained strength and multiplied under Chavez, with the Tupamaros becoming a political party after a failed 2002 coup attempt against the government. Pinto denied that members of his group are armed and said the opposition simply fears the Tupamaros because the organization is growing stronger politically, winning two mayors' offices and 63 city council seats in December municipal elections.

Antonio Gonzalez, a sociologist and former university vice rector who advised a government committee that studied disarming loyalist vigilantes, said armed leftist militant groups have existed for some four decades but are marginal in influence and are being used by the opposition as a scapegoat.

"It's the perfect excuse to discredit the masses and Chavista organizations as violent," he said. An attorney who has studied the groups as part of a commission formed by the MUD opposition alliance disputed that characterization.

Armed colectivos exist in at least 110 of the country's 1,136 communities, according to the attorney, Fermin Marmol Garcia. Their members were "at one point municipal or national police officers and who also may have at one point served in the military."

Some have day jobs in the government, working as bodyguards for top officials, said Alejandro Velasco, a New York University assistant professor who spent a year and a half from 2004-2005 living in the Caracas colectivo stronghold of 23 de Enero. He estimated that in the entire district of 150,000 residents about 500 people were involved with colectivos.

They identify themselves, said Marmol Garcia, as "guardians of the revolution" and are sometimes involved in resolving disputes in their barrios or in protecting small businesses. Opposition leaders have been complaining about them for years and Maduro himself presided over a ceremony last August in the 23 de Enero district in which 100 firearms were destroyed, according to the official newspaper Correo del Orinoco.

Yet a week into the protest wave, Maduro said his government would not accept "the campaign to demonize Venezuelan colectivos," which he said "have organized to protect their communities." That's certainly not what the masked attackers who identified themselves as colectivos were doing when they corralled about 40 male and female architecture students in a first-floor hall at the Central University of Venezuela for nearly an hour on March 19, ordering them at gunpoint to disrobe and robbing them of their belongings.

"They put a pistol in my face and said they were going to kill me," said Jhonny Medrano, a 21-year-old student, describing how he and several classmates were beaten with sticks, pipes and pistols by the attackers, whom he quoted as saying, "We are the ones who are defending the government. We are Chavez. We are Maduro."

The students said they were made to walk through a line of attackers, some of whom wore university firefighters uniforms, while they were beaten. As they left, the attackers filled the building with tear gas.

"This can't keep happening," architecture professor Hernan Zamora told the AP, crying inconsolably as he recalled the terror he felt. "This can't keep happening."

Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez reported from Valencia, and Frank Bajak from Caracas. Christopher Sherman contributed from Caracas.

Thousands of Muslims stuck in C. African Republic

March 29, 2014

BODA, Central African Republic (AP) — There is only one neighborhood in Boda where Muslims are safe from the bullets and machetes of Christian militia fighters. Many who ventured out were killed, their throats slit or their cars showered in gunfire.

Even the dead must obey: Muslim bodies are buried behind an old warehouse because the traditional Muslim cemetery is now off limits. Boda is home to one of the largest Muslim communities left in Central African Republic. About 4,000 Muslims are trapped here and they say they are suffering and just want to leave after months of being targeted by the militia. Their plight is mirrored throughout the country.

Aliou Alidu stays inside the boundaries of Boda's Muslim neighborhood even as the 18-year-old's arms and legs throb from deep burns. Days earlier, his home was set ablaze by a Christian mob and he survived death by crawling out a window. There is no pain medicine here. The only doctors live on the Christian side of town, a trip he says is more likely to kill him than his burns.

There used to be a man who could link the two neighborhoods — a Christian who had long ago converted to Islam. He is now dead, along with hopes here that these two communities may ultimately reconcile.

"For generations, our families lived together and even intermarried. Now you want to kill us all?" laments Mahamat Awal, Boda's mayor, who is among those stuck in this town 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of the capital.

He meets regularly with the French forces in town and the Christian fighters known as the anti-Balaka. At each meeting the militiamen make their point clear: Every Muslim must leave the town without exception — even the mayor.

Nearly 300,000 people already have fled the sectarian violence that erupted in Central African Republic in early December when anger erupted against the Muslim rebels known as Seleka, who had overthrown the government. When they fled from power in late January, civilians turned on their Muslim neighbors, accusing them of having collaborated with the brutal regime.

Despite the mass evacuations, the United Nations warns that about 15,000 Muslims remain blockaded "in an extremely dangerous and untenable situation" such as in Boda. As a result, peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies face "terrible dilemmas such as choosing between unwillingly aiding the 'cleansing' of confined Muslim populations, or leaving them — against their will — in places where they are in real danger of being slaughtered en masse," Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said after a recent visit to the capital.

In Bangui, the capital, the several thousand Muslims who remain say they don't step outside their last remaining neighborhoods and even then some have been killed hundreds of meters (yards) away from the area mosque. And in the southwest, some 1,000 Muslims are still sheltering at a Catholic church, too scared even to let their children play soccer for fear that a stray ball could lead them outside where they could be attacked by Christian militiamen.

"People are desperately wanting to leave because they're in fear for their lives, and they haven't been able to leave initially because they couldn't afford it and now there's no transport whatsoever," said Joanne Mariner, a senior crisis adviser with Amnesty International.

"To give those people a solution out is protecting them. I think obviously what the international community needs to be doing is providing greater security and coming up with a long-term strategy to ensure that the people who leave are able to return in the future," she added.

That is much further ahead, though, than many in Boda want to look right now. Ousmane Nana, 49, his wife and six children are among those in Boda who say they just want out no matter what. Born and raised in the town, Nana says he never felt a sense of otherness or fear until Jan. 29, when the Muslim rebels fled town after months of brutal rule.

That was the night a group of some 30 young people armed with rifles and machetes attacked him, leaving deep gashes across his back. More than a month later, the bullet wound to his left arm is still healing. Now he waits for the day peacekeepers will evacuate Muslims from Boda and take him to neighboring Cameroon.

Thieves already have stolen his four-by-four vehicle, taken all his money, even the clothes off his back. French patrols continue in the town, but the brutal assault has eroded Nana's sense of security. He says many of his attackers were people he'd given free rides to as a driver around town.

"I was certain I was going to die that night," he says. "The good God did not allow it. Now I will leave the very first chance I get."

Settlers destroy solar panels in south Hebron hills

Thursday 27/03/2014

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- A group of settlers from the illegal outpost of Mitzpe Yair on Thursday attacked and destroyed solar panels belonging to a Palestinian community in the south Hebron hills, locals said.

Witnesses told Ma'an that the settlers destroyed three out of five solar panels providing electricity to the small village of Khirbet Bir al-Idd.

The attackers fled before villagers arrived at the scene.

Local officials filed a complaint at an Israeli police station, where officers said they would search for the attackers.

Villagers told Ma'an that settlers frequently attack their property in an attempt to get them to leave the land so nearby Israeli settlements can be expanded.

Settler outposts in the south Hebron hills have an adverse effect on local Palestinian communities through a combination of physical violence and restrictions on movement.

Located in Area C, Palestinians in the south Hebron hills suffer from extreme electricity and water shortages and face violent intimidation from the Israeli army and radical settlers.

Less than 1 percent of Area C has been planned for Palestinian development, while some 135 settlements and over 100 outposts have been built in the same area.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=685211.

Thousands march in Thai capital against government

March 29, 2014

BANGKOK (AP) — Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters marched through the streets of Thailand's capital Saturday, reviving their whistle-blowing, traffic-blocking campaign to try to force the resignation of the country's prime minister.

The protest came after a lull in anti-government rallies and amid growing concern of violence between opponents and supporters of embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. It also came a day before a key vote to elect a new Senate.

Yingluck's opponents have tried a variety of tactics for the past four months to force her ouster. They have blocked Bangkok's major intersections, stormed government offices and most recently transformed the city's sprawling Lumpini Park into a messy protest headquarters overrun with tents and sleeping bags.

Saturday's crowds marched from Lumpini Park, in the central business district, to the city's historic quarter to press demands that the government yield power to an interim appointed council to oversee reforms before new elections. Protesters say Yingluck is a proxy for her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power.

"We march today to call for an end to the Thaksin regime, and show that the power truly belongs to the people," said a protest leader, Thaworn Senniem. A group of several hundred protesters forced their way into the prime minister's office compound, Government House, in a symbolic show of defiance. The compound has been largely deserted by officials since the protests started.

The march was the first major rally since Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled March 21 to nullify last month's general election, a ruling cheered by protesters and criticized by Yingluck's supporters as the latest sign of judicial bias against her.

"The fact that the election has been nullified means that our campaign is successful," Thaworn said. "Now we must finish the job with reforms." Yingluck has refused to resign and had called the Feb. 2 early elections to receive a fresh mandate. Her ruling Pheu Thai party and its predecessors have easily won every national election since 2001. It had been expected to win again in February, especially because the opposition Democrat Party boycotted the election.

Election officials say it will take at least three months for a new vote to be held, prolonging Thailand's political paralysis. Yingluck's supporters, known as the Red Shirts, have generally kept a low profile during the anti-government protests. However, as Yingluck's government comes under greater threat of legal action that might force it from office, they have said they are prepared to respond with force.

On Monday, Yingluck is due to submit her defense to the National Anti-Corruption Commission for a case her supporters call politically motivated that could lead to her impeachment. If the commission decides to indict Yingluck and forward the case to the Senate for an impeachment vote, government supporters have vowed to rise up in her defense. The case accuses Yingluck of dereliction of duty over the government's flagship rice subsidy program, which has run up huge losses.

The current Senate is pro-Thaksin, but that could change in Sunday's election to fill 77 seats in the 150-seat Senate. The remaining seats are appointed, and a government attempt to make the Senate a fully elected body was one of the triggers for the unrest that started in November.

Yingluck's Red Shirt supporters have vowed to stage their own mass rally next Saturday, though they have not yet said whether it will be held in the capital, which many fear could lead to clashes between the two sides. The sporadic violence over the past four months has left at least 23 people dead and hundreds hurt.

Thailand has seen political conflict since 2006, when Thaksin was ousted by a military coup. Thaksin's supporters and opponents have since taken to the streets for extended periods in a power struggle.

Associated Press writer Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Venezuelan student protesters seek to woo poor

March 19, 2014

PETARE, Venezuela (AP) — The two students venture into one of Latin America's biggest slums for the first time, feeling scared and somewhat awkward. Their mission: to broaden support for their anti-government protest movement in the low-income barrios whose working poor the late President Hugo Chavez championed.

"Our families didn't want us to come up here," says Fernando Viscuna, a 21-year-old international commerce major at the Instituto Universitario de Nuevas Profesiones. "But if you want a better country, it's got to be done."

He and Jhony Pulido, a curly-haired 22-year-old economics student at Andres Bello University, are earnest foot soldiers in an incipient bridge-building effort by students whose five-week-old protest movement has badly convulsed the country and triggered a firm government crackdown.

The students have no illusions. If anything is to change, they need allies in the very districts that Chavez converted into bulwarks of support by investing tens of billions of dollars in oil income in generous social welfare programs.

In two hours of knocking on doors and canvassing shop owners in the hilltop barrio of El Morro, accompanied by a local auto mechanics teacher allied with the opposition, the students get a polite but mostly cool reception.

Most people barely engage them. Some, like 79-year-old retired plumber Valentin Castillo, openly dismiss them. "You're killing a lot of people, torching cars. You're against us, against everyone," Castillo says, raising his voice.

"Exactly. We agree with you. We're against the blockades, too," says Viscuna, trying to get in a word. But Castillo doesn't buy it. He mentions the slaying of National Guardsmen, the government's shock troops against protesters, by unknown gunmen — four have now been killed — and a motorcyclist who authorities say was killed by a steel cable stretched across a street by protesters.

"What are they looking for with this fight?" Castillo demands, doubting Viscuna's claim not to endorse violence or seek the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro. Some people the students meet say they, too, are fed up enough with worsening food shortages, crippling inflation and unchecked violent crime — the very maladies that precipitated the unrest — and would take to the streets, too, but for their fear of pistol-packing pro-government posses known as "colectivos" that have violently suppressed dissent. The colectivos have been implicated in at least six protest-related killings, only one in metropolitan Caracas.

Katherin Castillo, a 35-year-old single mother of five, and her neighbors are exhausted by the roulette that food shopping has become, of spending hours in queues outside state-run supermarkets in hopes that flour, milk, cooking oil will show up at subsidized prices.

On this morning, chicken is all Castillo has on offer at the storefront canteen where she serves cheap breakfasts. "I would go out and protest. But I'm afraid," Castillo says after the students leave. "The colectivos are abusing their power, and a mother can't take risks."

The auto mechanics teacher who accompanies the students, Jorge Idrogo, says colectivos threw him to the street when he tried to protest at a busy Petare intersection on Feb. 17, his banner torn away while national police stood by idly. Such stories about colectivos abound.

Earlier this month, colectivos twice prevented students from entering Petare to explain themselves in assemblies with residents in two districts, says Idrogo, 35. "It's the only way around the government media blackout," he says. State-run media portray student protesters as violent troublemakers bent on destroying the gains of 15 years of socialist-inspired advances.

Student leader Alfredo Graffe of Simon Bolivar University said the movement has held more than a dozen informational meetings in working-class districts since late February, but says it is only safe for students to visit by daylight.

In the lower middle-class district of Caricuao in Caracas' mostly pro-government west, colectivos have broken up all five student-organized protests since mid-February. In other parts of the proletarian west, students have dared not even try.

Which is why the handbill that Idrogo presses into people's hands as he works his neighborhood with the students, his wife and two young children, stresses the shared problems of all Venezuelans in simple language spoken by stick figures in comic book-like balloons.

"I've been robbed." "I don't know when the water will come back on." "They didn't get the guy who killed him." "Two months without obtaining milk." The handbills that the students distribute use fancier words and list demands: The government must acknowledge that its economic policies are bankrupting the country. It must halt censorship, reverse violent crime that has made Venezuela a world leader in murder.

But Venezuela's poor are, on the whole, more worried about losing the pensions, subsidies, education and basic health services gained under Chavez if the opposition were to come to power. That's what University of Georgia sociology graduate student Rebecca Hanson says people tell her in the sprawling working-class district of Catia in Caracas' west, where she has been living on-and-off since 2009. "I think people are widely interpreting the protests as seeking to get Maduro out of office and nothing else."

On top of that, the students have not clearly articulated an agenda, says Luis Vicente Leon, director of the Venezuelan Datanalisis polling firm. And they're divided among moderates and radicals just like the main opposition parties.

"I'd say the majority are moderates, but they've been tainted by the radical battle at the barricades, and get blamed for it," says Leon. In all, at least 27 people have been killed in the unrest, by government count.

Ironically, many of the protesters who have battled riot police regularly in Caracas' upper class Chacao district in recent weeks hail from poorer barrios, where they say they don't dare protest publicly.

Those who have tried to organize peaceful marches in their home districts say the repressive response from armed, government-allied groups has been swift. When colectivos broke up a Feb. 17 protest in the southwestern district of Caricuao, firing tear gas and blocking marchers with motorcycles as National Guardsmen stood by idly, a local colectivo leader approached the father of Jefres Henriquez, a 23-year-old student activist who lives there.

The leader knew both father and son because Henriquez had once worked at a children's summer camp that the colectivo runs. "He showed my father a photo of me and said, 'We need to take action against your son,' said Henriquez.

So he fled, and didn't return for a week. "When I got back, I got calls from colectivo members who said they wanted to meet with me," said Henriquez. Fearful, he declined.

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.

US Air Force fires nine in nuclear missile cheating scandal

Washington (AFP)
March 27, 2014

The US Air Force said Thursday it sacked nine nuclear missile officers and will discipline dozens of others over an exam cheating scandal that has sparked concerns about lax ethics.

The officers, including chiefs of four squadrons, were all working at Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, which has been rocked by cheating allegations that implicated up to 100 airmen.

"Nine officers in leadership positions at Malmstrom were recommended for removal," Air Force Secretary Deborah James told a news conference.

An internal investigation had found that the commanders had not engaged in any test cheating but had "failed to provide adequate oversight of their crew force," James said.

A tenth officer had submitted his resignation over the case, she said.

A top general overseeing nuclear forces said the cheating stemmed in part from a stifling atmosphere created by commanders who over-emphasized perfect test scores for the missile launch officers.

"Although the required test score is 90 percent, crew members felt pressure to score 100 percent on each and every test," Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson said at the same news conference.

"They felt compelled to cheat to get a perfect score," he said.

The "zero-defect" approach was unrealistic and unnecessary, as the rules for managing the ballistic missiles had redundancies and other automatic safeguards, Wilson said.

"Leaders lost sight of the fact that execution in the field is more important than what happens in the class room," he said.

The cheating was first uncovered in January during an unrelated investigation into illegal drugs. The outcome of that drug probe is still pending.

Out of 100 officers potentially linked to the cheating, nine have since been cleared in an investigation, James said.

Another nine cases were being examined separately by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Of those, eight could involve criminal charges related to mishandling classified information -- possibly the exam materials.

About 30 to 40 officers will be retrained and allowed to return to duty to the missile force, while the remainder will face disciplinary action that could include being discharged from the military, officials said.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel has expressed deep disappointment over the cheating and voiced a wider concern over unethical conduct across the armed forces, after a spate of embarrassing scandals.

Hagel this week appointed a senior naval officer, Rear Admiral Margaret Klein, to serve as a special adviser looking at ethics and "character" issues.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Air_Force_fires_nine_in_nuclear_missile_cheating_scandal_999.html.

A Honduran Paradise that Doesn't Want to Anger the Sea Again

By Thelma Mejía

SANTA ROSA DE AGUÁN, Honduras , Mar 26 2014 (IPS) - At the mouth of the Aguán river on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, a Garífuna community living in a natural paradise that was devastated 15 years ago by Hurricane Mitch has set an example of adaptation to climate change.

“We don’t want to make the sea angry again, we don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mitch, which destroyed so many houses in the town – nearly all of the ones along the seashore,” community leader Claudina Gamboa, 35, told IPS.

Around the coastal town of Santa Rosa de Aguán, the stunning landscape is almost as pristine as when the first Garífunas came to Honduras in the 18th century.

To reach Santa Rosa de Aguán, founded in 1886 and home to just over 3,000 people, IPS drove by car for 12 hours from Tegucigalpa through five of this Central American country’s 18 departments or provinces, until reaching the village of Dos Bocas, 567 km northeast of the capital.

From this village on the mainland, a small boat runs to Santa Rosa de Aguán, located on the sand in the delta of the Aguán river, whose name in the Garífuna language means “abundant waters.”

Half of the trip is on roads in terrible conditions, which become unnerving when it gets dark. But after crossing the river late at night, under a starry sky with a sea breeze caressing the skin, the journey finally comes to a peaceful end.

A three-year project to help the sand dunes recover, which was completed in 2013, was carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) through the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Small Grants Program, with additional support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The project sought to generate conditions that would enable the local community to adapt to the risks of climate change and protect the natural ecosystem of the dunes.

The initiative enlisted 40 local volunteers, almost all of them women, who went door to door to raise awareness on the importance of protecting the environment and to educate people about the risks posed by climate change.

“They called them crazy, and thought the people working on that were stupid, but I asked them ‘don’t stop, just keep doing it.’ Now there is greater awareness and people have seen the winds aren’t hitting so hard,” Atanasia Ruíz, a former deputy mayor of the town (2008-2014) and a survivor of Hurricane Mitch, told IPS.

She and Gamboa said the women played an essential role in raising awareness on climate change, and added that thanks to their efforts, the project left an imprint on the white sand and the local inhabitants.

People in the community now understand the importance of protecting the coastal system and preserving the dunes, and have learned to organize behind that goal, Gamboa said. “It’s really touching to see the old women from our town picking up garbage for recycling,” she said.

The sand dunes act as natural protective barriers that keep the wind or waves from smashing into the town during storms.

“When the sea got mad, it made us pay. When Mitch hit, everything here was flattened, it was just horrible,” Gamboa said.

Some people left town, she said, “because we were told that we couldn’t live here, that it was too vulnerable and that the sea would always flood us because there was no way to keep it out.

“But many of us stayed, and with the knowledge they gave us, we know how to protect ourselves and our town,” she said, proudly pointing out how the vegetation has begun to grow in the dunes.

In late October 1998, Hurricane Mitch left 11,000 dead and 8,000 missing in Honduras, while causing enormous economic losses and damage to infrastructure.

Santa Rosa de Aguán was hit especially hard, with storm surges up to five meters high. The bodies of more than 40 people from the town were found, while others went missing.

The effort to recover the sand dunes along the coast included the construction of wide wooden walkways to protect the sand.

In addition, the remains of cinder block houses destroyed by Mitch were finally removed, to prevent them from inhibiting the natural formation of dunes.

The project also introduced recycling, to clear garbage from the beach and the sandy unpaved streets of this town, where visitors are greeted with “buiti achuluruni”, which means “welcome” in the Garífuna language.

Lícida Nicolasa Gómez is an 18-year-old member of the Garífuna community who prefers to be called “Alondra”, her nickname since childhood.

“I loved it when they invited me to the dunes and recycling project, because we were deforesting the dunes, hurting them, destroying the vegetation, but we’re not doing that anymore,” she said.

“We even made a mural on one of the walls of the community centre, to remember what kind of town we wanted,” she added, with a broad smile.

The mural includes scraps of plastic, metal, tiles and bottle tops. It reflects the beauty of the Garífunas, showing people fishing, crops of mandioc and plantain, and the sea and bright sun, while reflecting the desire to live in harmony with the environment.

The sand dunes are up to five meters high in this small town at the mouth of a river that runs through the country’s tropical rainforest.

Hugo Galeano, from GEF’s Small Grants Program, told IPS that Santa Rosa de Aguán became even more vulnerable after Hurricane Mitch, which affected the local livelihoods based on fishing, farming and livestock.

For this community built between the river and the sea, flooding is one of the main threats to survival, said the representative of the GEF program.

Ricardo Norales, 80, told IPS that, although the sand dunes and vegetation are growing, “the location of our community means we are still exposed to inclement weather.

“With the project, we saw how the wind and the sea don’t penetrate our homes as much anymore. But we need this kind of aid to be more sustainable,” he said.

The history of Santa Rosa de Aguán is marked by the impact of tropical storms and hurricanes, which have hit the town directly or indirectly many times since it was founded.

But the sand dunes are once again taking shape along the shoreline, where the community has built walkways to the sea.

Local inhabitants want their town to be seen as an example of adaptation to climate change and the construction of alternatives making survival possible. Several of them said they did not want an “ayó” – good-bye in Garífuna – for their community.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/honduran-paradise-doesnt-want-anger-sea/.

Côte d’Ivoire’s Middle Class – Growing or Disappearing?

By Marc-Andre Boisvert

ABIDJAN, Mar 27 2014 (IPS) - “I’m middle class. Definitively,” Sonia Anoh, a young and independent 30-year-old Ivorian tells IPS. Anoh has a master’s degree, earns 1,470 dollars a month working in marketing, lives alone, owns a car and is now shopping for a home.

But while Anoh freely talks about her economic status, not many others brag so easily about being middle class in this West African nation.

Defining the African “middle class” is a challenge. For the World Bank, it comprises everyone who earns between two and 20 dollars per day. It’s a range that is far too broad and while the African Development Bank uses the same income range, it emphasizes the need to subdivide the middle class into two.

The upper middle class, by this definition, earns between 10 and 20 dollars a day, and a vulnerable lower class is one that earns between two and four dollars a day. The latter are just marginally above the poverty line of 1.5 dollars a day and can easily slip back into it.

Côte d’Ivoire used to have the strongest middle class in West Africa until it was seriously hit by the post-1980 economic meltdown and the recent post-electoral political crisis from 2010 to 2011. More than 3,000 people died in the violence that followed former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to concede victory to current President Allassane Ouattara. Now the Ivorian middle class represents over two million of this country’s 23 million inhabitants, according to government figures.

While Côte d’Ivoire’s middle class may have shrunk, there are signs that this economic group appears to be slowly starting to increase. But its expansion remains limited by two decades of economic problems and conflict.

According to the Moscow-based Institute for Emerging Market Studies, the African middle class will rise three times from 32 million in 2009 to 107 million by 2030 — the largest increase in the world. And with the World Bank predicting that Côte d’Ivoire’s economy will grow at a rate of 8.2 percent for 2014, there is hope that this boom will lift many more of the country’s people out of poverty.

Growing or disappearing?

“Building a strong middle class was an important preoccupation for former president Félix Houphouet-Boigny (1905-1993),” Professor Marcel Benie Kouadio, economist and dean at the Abidjan Private University Faculty tells IPS.

“At the time, [middle class] meant mostly civil servants, doctors, magistrates and other liberal workers.

“Houphouet-Boigny [implemented] several policies to transform a middle class dependent on the state into an entrepreneur class. The state fostered the middle class to invest in cocoa or palm oil plantations as a way to build a middle class that would also be able to produce goods.”

Jean Coffie is a retired civil servant and an example of what Houphouet-Boigny dreamt of for the middle class. He is an entrepreneur who lives off his investments.

“My pension is not enough to live on. But I invested in hevea [rubber trees]. Income is random but I still earn more with that than from my government pension,” he tells IPS.

With this extra money, he is helping pay for his grandson’s studies in France. But Coffie is quick to point out that life for a middle class Ivorian is not what it used to be.

“At the time [during Houphouet-Boigny’s presidency], we had a lot of support to develop ourselves. University [education] and health care were more accessible. We might still be middle class but we lost all our privileges.”

Benie Kouadio agrees.

“The middle class has shrunk. Twenty years ago, teachers and doctors were middle class. Now, they can’t afford a new car. The Ivorian middle class lost its purchase power.”

A consumer class

Purchase power is a key word. Accountants differ with economists in their understanding of the middle class; rather than analyzing income, they look at disposable revenue.

Being middle class is about hitting a “sweet spot”, where people are able to spend money for things other than survival, says a report from accounting firm Ernst & Young.

Marcel Anné is the managing director of the supermarket chain Jour de Marché, which is situated in downtown Abidjan, the country’s economic capital. He has a good view of the emerging consumer class.

“Actually, this supermarket is less crowded than it used to be but this is more about changing consumer habits. This used to be [a] central [spot] for the middle class. Civil servants would buy things here and then go home,” he tells IPS.

The middle class here has become a more diverse, complex grouping that is not necessarily just comprised of civil servants anymore. The privatization of companies, the need for qualified labor work in IT and on the new oil and gas fields have diversified this economic grouping.

So now Jour de Marché has opened “more, smaller supermarkets where the middle class live.”

And around Abidjan, the housing boom too suggests that there is a rising middle class.

Riviera Palmeraie, a former plantation where palm oil trees were cut down to make space for several small bungalows, has been one of the first major housing developments in Abidjan based on affordable units.

And now similar developments are slowly spreading across the city and beyond.

Ousmane Bah is the director of Alliance Cote d’Ivoire, one of the companies building middle class housing. His company will build the Akwaba Residence, one of many housing developments being constructed along Abidjan’s outskirts. Prices for homes start at 21,000 dollars for a two-room home and 36,100 dollars for four rooms.

“It targets mostly the young professionals starting up in life, as well as civil servants,” he tells IPS.

His project, like several others, is supported by the government and is part of an initiative to boost social housing for the middle class.

The government targets households with revenue of less than 840 dollars per month. Buyers only need to provide a 10 percent cash deposit, and then benefit from a government-backed loan with low interest rates of 5.5 percent.

It addresses a difficult problem that seriously limits the growth of the Ivorian middle class: lack of credit.

“People are not used to buying flats here. They rent. Credit institutions are not used to provide housing loans. This is a big issue. We cannot simply build and expect people to buy,” says Bah.

Mohamed Diabaté is the first to agree.

“This is ridiculous. I wanted to get a credit for my house. It was easier to get credit to buy a goat for a Muslim holiday than having a real sustainable project. They did not even look at my file,” the 40-year-old IT specialist tells IPS.

He says even though he has a “comfortable revenue” and a steady job for 12 years, he could not obtain a home loan.

Benie Kouadio points out that “this is a clear limitation to the growth of the middle class. The middle class has no access to credit. Banks do not give loans for housing or cars any more.”

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/cote-divoires-middle-class-growing-disappearing/.

AU troops declare war on CAR militia

Wed Mar 26, 2014

The African Union peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic (CAR) has declared war against the majority Christian vigilante groups.

The head of the African-led peacekeeping mission to the CAR blamed the anti-Balaka groups for attacks against the troops belonging to the African Union force.

“From now on, we consider the anti-Balaka as enemies of MISCA,” media outlets quoted Congolese General Jean Marie Michel as saying, adding, “And we will treat them as such.”

The peacekeepers have been fighting the anti-Balaka in the capital Bangui since Saturday, with at least 16 people being killed in the latest clashes there.

“They even fire on people who are here to try to end this crisis on behalf of the Central African people to which they belong. We hold them responsible for attacks that have targeted our troops in recent days,” the general added.

The AU mission is in the CAR to help end an ongoing violence which broke out between Muslims and Christians a year ago.

The United Nations Human Rights chief, Navi Pillay, has recently expressed horror at the level of the ongoing violence in the CAR.

The developments come as UN has described the displacement of the Muslims of the CAR as ethnic-religious cleansing.

The conflict in the CAR erupted after Christian militia launched coordinated attacks on the mostly Muslim Seleka group, which toppled the government last March.

Christian militiamen, however, have been targeting the Muslim population as a whole.

French and African peacekeepers are on the ground, but they have been unable to stop the violence and even in some occasions have been accused of killing Muslims.

France currently has around 2,000 troops in the CAR, while the African Union has three times that number.

So far, thousands of people are believed to have been killed and more than one million displaced.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/356108.html.

Philippines, Muslim rebels seal historic peace deal

Manila (AFP)
March 27, 2014

The biggest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines signed an historic pact Thursday to end one of Asia's longest and deadliest conflicts, promising to give up their arms for an autonomous homeland.

Following four decades of fighting that has claimed tens of thousands of lives; the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the peace deal with President Benigno Aquino's government at a high-profile ceremony in Manila.

"The comprehensive agreement on Bangsamoro is the crowning glory of our struggle," MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim said at the signing ceremony, using a local term that refers to a Muslim homeland.

"With this agreement the legitimate aspirations of the Bangsamoro and the commitment of the government of the Philippines to recognize those aspirations are now sealed."

The pact makes the MILF and the government partners in a plan to create a southern autonomous region for the Philippines' Muslim minority with locally elected leaders by mid-2016.

"What is being presented before us now is a path that can lead to a permanent change in Muslim Mindanao," Aquino said at the ceremony, attended by more than 1,000 people.

The Bangsamoro region would cover about 10 percent of territory in the mainly Catholic Philippines. The planned region has a majority of Muslims, but there are clusters of Catholic-dominated communities.

Muslim rebels have been battling since the 1970s for independence or autonomy in the southern islands of the Philippines, which they regard as their ancestral homeland dating back to when Arabic traders arrived there in the 13th Century.

The conflict has condemned millions of people across large parts of the resource-rich Mindanao region to brutal poverty, plagued by Muslim and Christian warlords as well as outbreaks of fighting that has led to mass displacements.

The conflict also created fertile conditions for Islamic extremism, with the Abu Sayyaf group and other hardline militants making remote regions of Mindanao their strongholds.

The MILF, which the military estimates has 10,000 fighters, is easily the biggest Muslim rebel group in Mindanao, and the political settlement was greeted with relief and optimism in the south.

"I am really happy. In the face of all the hardship of our parents, we the next generation hope and pray that Christians and Muslims will have peace," Mona Rakman, 42, a mother of four who lives close to the MILF headquarters, told AFP.

The autonomous region would have its own police force, a regional parliament and power to levy taxes, while revenues from the region's vast deposits of natural resources would be split with the national government.

It would have a secular government, rather than being an Islamic state. The national government would retain control over defense, foreign policy, currency and citizenship.

There are about 10 million Muslims in the Philippines, roughly 10 percent of the population, according to government statistics. Most live in the south of the country.

- Fragile peace -

However there are no guarantees the peace deal will be implemented by the middle of 2016, a crucial deadline as that is when Aquino is required by the constitution to end his six-year term.

Aquino needs to convince Congress to pass a "basic law" to create the Bangsamoro autonomous region, ideally by the end of this year to allow time for other steps such as a local plebiscite.

But even though Aquino enjoys record-high popularity ratings, there are concerns politicians could reject or water down the proposed law.

Powerful Christian politicians in Mindanao are regarded as potential deal breakers, while others elsewhere may see political advantage in opposing the deal to appeal to some Catholics ahead of the 2016 national elections.

The deal is also likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court, which in 2008 struck down a planned peace deal the MILF had negotiated with Aquino's predecessor, Gloria Arroyo.

Islamic militants opposed to the peace deal are another threat, and could continue to create enduring violence in Mindanao.

Among the potential spoilers is the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), an MILF splinter group of a few hundred militants that has carried out deadly attacks in the south in recent years.

"We will continue to fight against the government of the Republic of the Philippines because we are for independence and nothing else," BIFF spokesman Abu Missry Mama told AFP by phone from his southern hideout.

The MILF leadership has committed to working with the government to neutralize the threat of the BIFF.

However the MILF will not give up its arms or the identities of its fighters until the basic law has been passed, highlighting the fragility of Thursday's peace deal.

In his speech, Aquino warned militant and political foes alike that he was prepared to crush any challenge to the peace deal.

"I will not let peace be snatched from my people again," Aquino said to applause.

"Those who want to test the resolve of the state will be met with a firm response based on righteousness and justice."

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Philippines_Muslim_rebels_seal_historic_peace_deal_999.html.