PPP: Hamas plans to impose new penal code on Gaza

March 29, 2014 Saturday

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian People's Party said in a statement Saturday that it opposes Hamas' attempts to change the penal code in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas movement that governs Gaza is attempting to impose a new penal code on the Strip, one that is inconsistent with basic the Palestinian law that has been applicable in the West Bank and Gaza since 1936, the PPP statement said.

Citing comments from the secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza and the chief of the council's legal committee, the PPP said that Hamas-affiliated lawyers were preparing to replace the 1936 penal code with a new one.

"Hamas and its parliamentarian bloc do not have the right to pass such a law in the name of the Palestinian parliament," the PPP statement said, adding that changing the penal code in Gaza would further divide Fatah and Hamas.

A legal adviser from the Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq said that the new penal code in Gaza would include regulations from Shariah law.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=685656.

Thousands of Hamas supporters rally in Gaza

March 23, 2014

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged the streets of downtown Gaza City on Sunday, a show of strength at a time when the Islamic militant group faces its deepest crisis since seizing power seven years ago.

Hamas is dealing with a severe financial shortfall, caused by heavy pressure from both Israel and Egypt. But leaders stressed that the group remains opposed to Mideast peace efforts and is ready for battle against Israel at any time.

"The resistance is stronger than you think, and our force has doubled and our arsenal has doubled," Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, told the crowd. "What is hidden from you is bigger than you think."

Hamas staged Sunday's rally to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the death of its spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in an Israeli airstrike, and the assassinations of other top figures a decade ago. But a series of events in recent days, including Israel's discovery of a tunnel stretching from Gaza into Israel, presumably to carry out militant attacks, and the killing of a top Hamas operative in the West Bank by Israeli forces, gave the rally an extra sense of defiance.

"From under the ground and above the ground, we say it loud: Occupiers go out. You do not have a place to stay on the land of Palestine," Haniyeh said. Hamas, an armed group committed to the destruction of Israel, took control of Gaza in 2007 after overrunning the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Since then, the Palestinians have been divided between two governments, the Hamas regime in Gaza and Abbas' Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. In contrast to Hamas, Abbas favors a negotiated peace agreement with Israel and has been engaged in U.S.-brokered negotiations for the past eight months.

Hamas has fallen onto hard times since its key ally, Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, was ousted in a coup last July. Egypt's new military government has cracked down on a system of smuggling tunnels along the border with Gaza, robbing Hamas of a lifeline that provided consumer goods, weapons and a key source of tax revenue. Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza since 2007, restricting imports and exports and controlling the territory's coastline and airspace.

The dual Israel-Egyptian blockade has plunged Hamas into its worst economic crisis since taking power. The group has struggled to pay its thousands of workers and has begun to face some discontent, even among core supporters.

In another setback for the group, Israel on Friday said it had discovered a new sophisticated tunnel stretching from Gaza into Israel. It was the largest in a series of tunnels Israel has found recently that it says are meant to carry out deadly attacks or kidnappings. On Saturday, Israeli forces in the West Bank killed a top Hamas operative after a standoff in the town of Jenin.

The financial crunch forced Hamas to call off its annual anniversary celebration late last year. Sunday's rally was also scaled back due to budget woes. Unlike past rallies, Hamas did not provide buses to bring in supporters, and it refrained from putting up large displays and decorations.

Even so, the rally was meant to send a message that Hamas remains firmly in control. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets, including schoolchildren in military fatigues and women wearing veils. Waving Hamas flags into the air, the crowd turned downtown Gaza City into a sea of green. Hamas security forces carefully maintained order and diverted traffic from the area.

Hamas battled Israel during eight days of intense fighting in November 2012, firing some 1,500 rockets into Israel before Egypt brokered a truce. Since then, the group has largely refrained from direct confrontation with Israel, though smaller armed groups have continued to fire rockets.

Israel says it holds Hamas responsible for any attacks emanating from the territory. Top leaders of Islamic Jihad, a smaller group responsible for much of the rocket fire, sat in the front row of Sunday's rally.

It was an unusually high profile role for the radical movement in a Hamas event, signaling that Hamas is at the least turning a blind eye to — if not actually supporting — the rocket attacks. Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas official in Gaza, said Israel should not be fooled by the period of calm.

"We are not interested in an escalation with the occupation," he told Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV station. "However, if they dare to launch aggression on Gaza, our response will be more painful than what we did in 2012."

Chechnya leader inaugurates new mosque in Israel

March 23, 2014

ABU GHOSH, Israel (AP) — The president of Russia's republic of Chechnya has inaugurated a new, $10 million mosque in an Arab village in Israel.

Ramzan Kadyrov said on Sunday that it was an honor to visit "this good and holy land" during a stop in the village of Abu Ghosh. Isa Jabar, the village's mayor, says Chechnya donated $6 million for the mosque. He says some villagers trace their ancestry to 16th century Chechnya and the Caucus region.

The mosque was built in the Ottoman Turkish style, the favored architectural style in Chechnya. It features four minarets, making it the only mosque of its kind in Israel. Abu Ghosh, near Jerusalem, enjoys good ties with its Jewish neighbors and is a popular culinary destination for Israelis.

Thousands attend festival organized by Hamas in Gaza

Sunday, 23 March 2014

Thousands of Palestinian citizens will attend a festival organized by the Hamas government in Gaza Sunday under the title "loyalty and steadfastness on the path of martyrs".

Hamas is scheduled to hold a mass rally Sunday noon in commemoration of the assassination of the movement's founder Ahmad Yassin, and its leaders Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantisi and Ibrahim Al-Makadima.

Leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian factions, including the Islamic Jihad, will attend the event.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend the rally.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/10461-thousands-attend-festival-organised-by-hamas-in-gaza.

For Massacre-scarred Algeria village, peace is worth more than wealth

2014-04-17

By Amal BELALLOUFI - ALGIERS

In a village scarred by one of the bloodiest massacres of Algeria's civil war in the 1990s, residents turned out for Thursday's presidential election to vote for "peace, that's all".

The military-backed government's decision to cancel elections in 1991 that Islamists were poised to win sparked a decade of bloodshed, and the violence of the 1990s is never far from Algerians' minds.

"Peace is worth more than any amount of wealth," said Abdelkrim, a pensioner queuing to vote even before the polling station opened at 8 am (0700 GMT) in Rais, in Sidi Moussa district south of nearby Algiers.

"We are voting for peace, that's all we want," said Khadija, a widow in her 50s from the same village.

Her husband was killed in August 1997 along with nearly 100 others in Sidi Moussa in an overnight attack blamed on the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which carried out civilian massacres in its battle against the government, sometimes wiping out entire villages.

That night, men from the GIA entered Rais and indiscriminately killed men, women and children, shooting them dead or cutting their throats.

With only her kohl-rimmed eyes visible through her Muslim veil, Khadija is overcome with emotion talking about the tragedy.

But "everything has changed" in the village of 8,000 people, said Kheira, another veiled resident.

"We can now go out and come back to our homes without feeling this fear that ate away at us for years.

"Some of us still have nightmares. But we are learning to patch up our wounds," she added, with a faint smile.

In the school serving as one of the village's 12 polling stations, voting official Mohamed Kelouaz insisted the election was free and fair.

"Everything here is transparent, no fraud is possible," he said, pointing at a board in the courtyard.

Fraud, the "incurable sickness" of Algeria's elections according to the press, has been a recurrent theme of the election campaign.

"All the information is posted on this board: the number of voters in each station, the names of the station's directors, the observers chosen by the candidates," he said.

"I want everything to work."

On Thursday morning, the representatives of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his main rival Ali Benflis were at Rais's voting centre, but not those of the other four candidates.

Bouteflika, who came to power in 1999 and is seeking a fourth term, is credited by many Algerians with helping to end the "black decade" of conflict, through his policy of national reconciliation.

"Even if I have my own personal preferences, I must never let them show as the director" of the center, said Kelouaz.

- Haunting memories -

On Wednesday, the district commissioner visited the voting centers with the village's mayor, with police posted nearby since Tuesday.

After a former Algerian wali, or governor, alleged fraud, Benflis, who also ran against Bouteflika in 2004 elections, used a religious argument to urge officials to put an end to the practice.

Benflis said in televised remarks on Wednesday that "fraud is 'haram'," punishable under Islam, prompting Bouteflika to accuse him of "terrorism via the television".

But for 44-year-old Redouane, the fraud allegations had little bearing on his decision to vote.

"It's just a way to avert misfortune," he said.

"I am scared of instability, of reliving the horror of the 1990s. I don't want to think about that night," he added, referring to the massacre in Rais.

His sister Aisha, then 35, had taken her three children to spend the night with her brothers. She, along with three of her sisters-in-law, had their throats cut by the attackers.

"I was outside when the shooting started, I woke up my brothers and we fled without even considering that they might touch the women and children.

"The horror lasted from midnight until four in the morning," he said, his voice trembling and eyes full of tears.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65466.

An extraordinary meeting: Gulf ministers agree to end tension with Qatar

2014-04-18

JEDDAH - Gulf foreign ministers agreed a deal Thursday to end months of unprecedented tension between Qatar and other members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council over the Muslim Brotherhood.

At an extraordinary meeting in Riyadh, the ministers agreed that the policies of GCC member states should not undermine the "interests, security and stability" of each other, a statement said.

Such policies must also not affect the "sovereignty" of a member state.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar last month, accusing it of meddling in their internal affairs and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The three states said at the time that Doha had failed to comply with a commitment by Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, to non-interference, made during a summit in Riyadh last year with Kuwait's emir and the Saudi monarch. During the tripartite meeting in Riyadh in November, Kuwait's emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah sought to ease tensions between Saudi King Abdullah and Sheikh Tamim.

On Thursday, the foreign ministers met for more than two hours at a Riyadh air base and agreed on an "implementation mechanism" to the November agreement, the GCC statement said.

Tensions rose because Doha supported Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi while most Gulf countries hailed his overthrow by the army last July.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have long been hostile towards Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, fearing that its brand of grass-roots activism and political Islam could undermine their authority. Tensions that had been simmering for months peaked in early February when Abu Dhabi summoned Doha's ambassador to protest against "insults" to the UAE by Egypt-born cleric Yusef al-Qaradawi, a Qatari citizen.

The coverage of the influential Doha-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel, seen by critics as biased in favor of the Brotherhood, has also increased tensions between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors.

The other GCC member states are Kuwait and Oman.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65470.

40 years after revolution, Portugal is angry

April 25, 2014

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Euphoria gripped Portugal during the 1974 Carnation Revolution, when junior army officers swept away a four-decade dictatorship. The almost bloodless coup brought what for the Portuguese were novelties — the right to vote, universal health care, public education, old-age pensions and labor rights.

On the coup's 40th anniversary Friday, the prevailing mood among the Portuguese is anger at how their government is now stripping away those cherished entitlements amid a financial crisis. "Many people are feeling very cheated," said Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, a former army captain who masterminded the pre-dawn military takeover. "What we're living through now, it's like it's signing the death warrant of the hopes and values of (the revolution)."

As commemorations began, around 2,000 people listened to speeches given by some of those who participated in the upheaval four decades ago. April 25, an annual public holiday, has this year provided a lightning rod for those keen to voice their discontent at austerity measures. It's a sentiment also encountered in other European Union countries feeling the pain of public spending cuts aimed at defusing a recent debt crisis.

Portugal, like Greece and Ireland, had to ask for an international bailout in 2011, needing 78 billion euros ($107.8 billion) to avoid bankruptcy. It became a ward of foreign creditors, who have compelled the country of 10.5 million people to slash social programs and job protection laws established in the revolution's aftermath.

The Carnation Revolution, which saw a million people fill the streets in a mass celebration, is regarded as one of the glorious moments of Portugal's 20th-century history. It is named for the red flowers — in season and plentiful at the time — which people stuck in the barrels of soldiers' rifles on that landmark day. Within a year, elections were held.

For most Portuguese under 50 years old, the revolution is a milestone they learned about at school. But with youth unemployment at 35 percent, the anniversary has struck a chord with many young people. Nationwide commemorations include dozens of protest events organized on social media.

Miguel Januario, a 33-year-old street artist painting a commemorative mural on a wall of Lisbon's New University, said he held dear the changes brought by an event he didn't live through, "but since then we've allowed new forms of dictatorship — in this case financial — to take over."

Portuguese of all ages have plenty to complain about after three straight years of recession. Budget cuts have, for example, forced the closure of local health centers and reduced subsidies for prescription drugs. High schools have seen staff levels fall and the purchase of new equipment postponed. New laws have made it easier and cheaper to hire and fire workers.

The government has cut the salaries of government workers, lowered old-age pensions, and introduced what the finance minister conceded was a "brutal" increase in income tax. Meanwhile, unemployment reached a record 17.7 percent last year, though it has now slipped back to 15.3 percent.

The scrapping of rent controls — another bailout demand — has left many in danger of losing their homes. Conceicao Pequito, a sociology researcher at the University Institute of Lisbon and co-author of a study examining public attitudes amid the crisis, says people feel their rights have been "confiscated."

"There's a lot of pessimism about what living in a democracy means these days," she said. Just as in the revolution, when only four people were killed, there has been little violence despite the upheaval.

A small — and muted — number express nostalgia for Antonio Salazar's long dictatorship. They note that he kept the country's public finances in order and wasn't guilty of the kind of brutality witnessed under Gen. Francisco Franco during his almost simultaneous dictatorship in neighboring Spain.

But even those people don't want a return of Salazar's secret police, political prisons and censorship.

Ukraine moves against insurgents in the east

April 25, 2014

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia announced new military exercises Thursday involving ground and air forces near its border with Ukraine, swiftly responding to a Ukrainian operation to drive pro-Russia insurgents out of occupied buildings in the country's tumultuous east.

The Ukrainian move, which killed at least two people, brought new threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who denounced it as a "punitive operation." "If the Kiev government is using the army against its own people, this is clearly a grave crime," Putin said.

Putin's statement and the announcement of new military maneuvers sharpened anxiety over the prospect of a Russian incursion into Ukraine. Russia's foreign minister warned a day earlier that any attack on Russian citizens or interests in eastern Ukraine would bring a strong response.

Secretary of State John Kerry quickly denounced the Russian actions, and in unusually blunt language warned that unless Moscow took immediate steps to de-escalate the situation, Washington would have no choice but to impose additional sanctions.

"Following today's threatening movement of Russian troops right up to Ukraine's border, let me be clear: If Russia continues in this direction, it will not just be a grave mistake, it will be an expensive mistake," Kerry said. "The window to change course is closing,"

Accusing Russia of fomenting unrest and separatist sentiment in eastern Ukraine following its annexation of the strategic Crimean Peninsula, Kerry added: "Nobody should doubt Russia's hand in this." "What is happening in eastern Ukraine is a military operation that is well-planned and organized, and we assess that it is being carried out at the direction of Russia," the U.S. secretary of state said.

Animosity between Moscow and Kiev has been high since the ouster of Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych in February in the wake of months of protests. Russia contends the government that took over consists of nationalists who aim to suppress the large Russian-speaking population in Ukraine's east.

In March, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula after its residents voted to split off from Ukraine. Russian troops backed up local militias that blocked off Ukrainian military bases in the run-up to the referendum.

Ukraine's acting president accused Russia of backing the separatists in the east and demanded that Moscow stop its intimidation campaign, and leave his country alone. Oleksandr Turchynov said in an address to the nation Thursday that Russia was "coordinating and openly supporting terrorist killers" in eastern Ukraine, where government buildings in at least 10 cities have been seized by pro-Russia gunmen.

Turchynov said Russia must pull back its troops from the Ukrainian border and "stop the constant threats and blackmail." His foreign minister, on a visit to Prague, also blasted the Russian decision to start new military maneuvers and said his country would fight any invading troops.

"We will now fight with Russian troops if ... they invade Ukraine. Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian army are ready to do this," Andriy Deshchytisa told The Associated Press. Russia already has tens of thousands of troops stationed in regions along its border with Ukraine. The latest Russian military exercises involve ground troops in the south and the west and the air forces patrolling the border, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

Ukraine and Russia reached a deal in Geneva last week to defuse the crisis, but pro-Russian insurgents in the east — and nationalist militants in Kiev — have defied calls for all sides to disarm and to vacate the buildings they are occupying.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow sharply criticized Russia for making "veiled threats" and said Russia should pull its troops back to their barracks. The Ukrainian government and the West worry that Putin would welcome a pretext for a military intervention in eastern Ukraine. Putin denies that any Russian agents are operating there, but insists he has the right to intervene to protect the ethnic Russians who make up a sizeable minority in the east.

Earlier in Tokyo, President Barack Obama accused Moscow of failing to live up to "the spirit or the letter" of last week's deal to ease tensions in Ukraine. If that continues, Obama said, "there will be further consequences and we will ramp up further sanctions."

With no appetite in the U.S. for a military response, Obama is largely banking on Putin caving under a cascade of economic sanctions targeting his closest associates. But the success of that strategy also depends on European nations with closer financial ties to Moscow taking similar action, despite their concerns about a boomerang effect on their own economies.

"I understand that additional sanctions may not change Mr. Putin's calculus," Obama said. "How well they change his calculus in part depends on not only us applying sanctions, but also the cooperation of other countries."

Meanwhile, an American journalist who had been held by insurgents in the eastern city of Slovyansk was freed Thursday. Simon Ostrovsky of Vice News told the AP in a brief telephone call that he had been freed and was heading to Donetsk, the largest city in the region. He did not give details of his seizure or his release.

Ostrovsky went missing early Tuesday in Slovyansk. A spokeswoman for the insurgents later said he was being held at a local Ukrainian security service that had been seized earlier. Slovyansk, located 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the Russian border, has emerged as the focus of the armed insurgency.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said military and special police forces killed "up to five terrorists" while destroying three checkpoints north of Slovyansk on Thursday. One government security service member was wounded, it said.

Stella Khorosheva, a spokeswoman for the Slovyansk insurgents, said two pro-Russia fighters were killed at a checkpoint in the village of Khrestyshche, six miles north of the city. She said checks were being made at hospitals to see if there were other casualties.

The situation was quiet in Slovyansk itself, but checkpoints inside the city were abandoned and it was unclear where the pro-Russia insurgents manning them had gone. Khorosheva said the pro-Russia militia later regained control over the checkpoints where the clashes took place. By Thursday afternoon, an AP reporter confirmed that some of those checkpoints were back in the hands of insurgents.

Khorosheva declared that the fighters were ready to repel any attack by government troops. "We will defend ourselves to our last drop of blood. We are ready to repeat Stalingrad," she told the AP, invoking the memory of the Soviet army's victory over German forces in 1942-43.

At least 10 Ukrainian government armored vehicles were seen on the road north of Slovyansk and two helicopters circled over the area. Troops ordered residents to keep away during the operation. Near the town of Makatikha, several miles north of Slovyansk, pro-Russia militia set fire to rows of car tires in an apparent attempt to reduce the visibility from the air. An AP reporter saw about two dozen militiamen manning checkpoints along the road earlier in the day.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said his forces had cleared city hall in Mariupol of the pro-Russia protesters who had been occupying it for more than a week. He provided no details of the operation in the city, which sits along the main road between mainland Russia and Crimea.

Yulia Lasazan, a spokeswoman for Mariupol's police department, told the AP about 30 masked men armed with baseball bats stormed the building before dawn Thursday and started beating the pro-Russia protesters. Five people were taken to a hospital, she said.

Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Moscow and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Poland holds 1st big security exercise in decades

April 23, 2014

JASCE, Poland (AP) — In imaginary emergency drills, Polish security forces evacuated the Interior Ministry and rescued foreigners supposedly injured in a cross-border helicopter crash as part of Poland's first nationwide security exercises for decades.

Responding to reports of a helicopter crash, police and firefighters rushed to rescue people playing the roles of two pilots and a passenger injured when they crashed in the woods near the village of Jasce.

The three-day exercise involves the police, military, firefighters, border guards and medical services. It's being held at a time of conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which both border Poland. The goal is to test Poland's reaction to life-and-death scenarios and identify areas for improvement. The emergency services are being challenged with 30 fictional threats, including renegade aircraft and radiation leaks. About 3,000 people are involved.

"Naturally, for some time now Poland has been getting ready for the worst scenarios," said Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, who ordered Poland's first large-scale, multi-service emergency drills since early 1970s. He arrived in Jasce after the simulated crash-scene rescue had finished.

He said the drills were not connected to the turmoil in neighboring Ukraine, and the security situation on Poland's border was calm. Earlier, workers in Sienkiewicz's own government ministry building were evacuated over reports of a package containing anthrax — another fictional threat to test the emergency services' response.

The scenarios can be deliberately challenging, even bewildering. The Jasce "crash" involved a foreign helicopter crossing the border carrying explosives and illegal drugs. So not only did emergency workers have to deal with three injured, they also had to deploy sniffer dogs to find the weapons and narcotics and search for eight other passengers who fled on foot.

Kosovo lawmakers clear way for EU war crimes court

April 23, 2014

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Lawmakers in Kosovo cleared the way Wednesday for the creation of a European Union-backed court that will investigate crimes committed by ethnic Albanian rebels during the country's 1998-99 war of independence from Serbia.

The move, in an 89-22 vote, follows years of diplomatic pressure by the EU and United States for Kosovo to open a state investigation into civilian killings committed by the rebel side. Suspected crimes include the killing of about 400 civilians, chiefly Serbs, and allegations that a handful of victims were slain specifically to harvest their organs for sale on the black market.

The war crimes court, to be headquartered officially in Kosovo but conduct its work chiefly in the Netherlands, will be staffed by international judges and prosecutors. Many details of its powers and penalties remain to be agreed between Kosovo and EU authorities, but it is expected to operate along similar lines to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which has stopped taking new cases and is slated for eventual closure.

EU sponsorship of the new probe reflects the reality that many crimes from the rebel side of the Kosovo war have yet to be aired in court. A two-year investigation led by a U.S. prosecutor, expected to conclude in June, will form the basis for any indictments.

The rebels enjoyed NATO backing in a war that left about 10,000 dead and millions homeless. The West then staunchly supported Kosovo in its efforts to emerge from the conflict as an independent state. As Kosovo's statehood has settled, the ethnic Albanian majority has faced rising pressure to identify and punish their own war criminals.

Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's prime minister and the wartime rebel commander who has been linked in a 2010 EU report to the illegal trafficking of victims' organs, told lawmakers to support a bill that would permit the court's creation. Thaci said he expected the tribunal to vindicate his own position.

"Certain elements of the international community have put serious doubts on the integrity of our war," he said. "We must have faith that right is on our side, and this will again be proven by any court."

Also Wednesday, experts started excavating a mass grave in Serbia believed to contain at least 250 bodies of ethnic Albanians killed by Serbian security forces.

Associated Press reporter Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

The UK solar strategy lays ground for a stable future

by Josefin Berg, Senior Analyst - Solar Research, IHS
Englewood CO (SPX)
Apr 25, 2014

The recently published second part of the UK Solar Strategy breeds optimism among participants in the UK PV market. However, the document remains vague on exact support measures to spur the commercial rooftop segment. Some key barriers are inherent in the nature of the UK real estate sector, such as the relation between tenants and owners, as pointed out in the strategy document.

IHS has raised its near-term forecasts for the UK, as the strategy document along with signs of high developer activity indicate continued growth. By 2018, IHS forecasts the UK to have 16 GW of installed PV capacity. This would put the UK on track to overshoot the government's 20 GW by 2020 ambition, which may result in a revised support environment.

Based on the 922 MW of utility-scale systems that IHS estimates were installed in Q1 2014, IHS forecasts utility-scale installations to peak in 2014 at a total of 1.5 GW. From 2015 onwards the ground-mount segment is set to decline gradually as the incentive scheme changes and the focus shifts towards commercial rooftops.

The government's explicit focus on rooftop PV systems addresses the public concerns for the use of land, which have haunted the on-shore wind sector. In counties like Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, where IHS estimates that 25% of the ground-mount PV capacity is installed, the impact of PV on the landscape may lead to rising concerns. The installation of PV systems on commercial roofs, on the other hand, faces little risk of opposition.

As for the competitive landscape, IHS considers the UK less fragmented than other European PV markets. Based on IHS' PV project database, the five largest EPC companies installed 46% of the utility-scale projects in Q1 2014. These five were Conergy, British Solar Renewables, Martifer Solar, Grupotec and Isolux Corsan.

The largest investor remains Lightsource Renewable Energy, owning 190 MW of the utility-scale projects installed so far in 2014. In wake of the solar strategy, these companies will need to successfully address the rooftop market in order to retain market share after 2015. In fact, Lightsource Renewable Energy has already announced the opening of a rooftop PV division highlighting the expected change in PV demand in the UK and the need for companies to diversify away from ground-mount projects in order to remain successful...

Source: Solar Daily.
Link: http://www.solardaily.com/reports/The_UK_solar_strategy_lays_ground_for_a_stable_future_999.html.

Spacious new Heathrow Terminal 2 set for opening

April 23, 2014

LONDON (AP) — The rundown, overcrowded Terminal 2 at London's sprawling Heathrow Airport is long gone, about to be replaced by a spacious new building built to handle 20 million passengers each year.

The new facility was hailed as a cornerstone of Heathrow's revitalization when shown to reporters Wednesday ahead of the June 4 opening. Lead architect Luis Vidal said its extensive use of natural light and high quality acoustics should make it a calm space for travelers accustomed to high anxiety at dark, noisy airports.

"If you make it intuitive, pleasant, joyful, you can take away a completely different memory of the terminal," he told The Associated Press. "You can never completely erase your memory of the former Terminal 2, because it was a dreadful experience. This will be completely the opposite. This will be a destination. People will want to come here."

Part of the rebranding strategy calls for the new Terminal 2 to be known as "The Queen's Terminal." The plan has Queen Elizabeth's blessing — and she plans to officially open the facility, just as she did when the original Terminal 2 opened in 1955.

The 2.5 billion pound ($4.2 billion) building, in conjunction with the relatively new Terminal 5 that opened in 2008, gives Heathrow two modern terminals. The major construction is part of an 11 billion pound refurbishment designed to keep Heathrow competitive with other major European hubs including Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris.

It will host 26 airlines, including United, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines and others that are part of the global Star Alliance, and offer flights to 51 destinations. Planners chastened by the rocky opening of Terminal 5 — when the luggage handling system broke down badly, leaving thousands of passengers without their bags — are planning a "soft" opening of Terminal 2.

Only one flight is planned the first day, so that even if things go awry, the number of people affected will be small. It will take six months for the facility to reach full capacity. Heathrow officials say they are still pushing to build a controversial third runway, which is opposed by London Mayor Boris Johnson and influential environmental groups.

John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow's development director, said the completion of the new terminal shows Heathrow has complied with the last Labor government's directive that Heathrow should improve without growing.

"Our challenge now is to make the case to expand," he said, admitting that getting permission would be "politically complex." Holland-Kaye said private money is available to pay for a third runway, which would greatly add to Heathrow's capacity.

He also claimed the new Terminal 2 would reduce the "stacking" problem over Heathrow that often causes delays as planes await permission to land. There will be no shortage of restaurants and pricey shops. Officials say Terminal 2 will be the first in the world to offer a "complimentary personal shopping lounge where trained stylists will present a curated range of products for each client."

Sweden to arm fighter jets with cruise missile 'deterrent'

Stockholm (AFP)
April 24, 2014

The Swedish government defended plans Thursday to equip fighter jets with cruise missiles capable of striking targets in Russia, days after announcing a military spending hike linked to the Ukraine conflict.

"In the future the ability to combat longer range targets can be important," Defense Minister Karin Enstroem told public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, adding that the missiles would have "a high precision which acts as a deterrent".

"So it would raise our collective defense capabilities and thus raise the threshold effects of our defense."

On Tuesday the center-right government announced plans for a 5.5 billion kronor (604 million euros, $835 million) rise in annual defense spending by 2024 -- on top of the current annual budget of close to 50 billion kronor -- including an additional 10 Swedish-made Saab Gripen fighter jets, bringing an air force fleet upgrade to 70 planes.

In a statement the government referred to the "deeply unsettling development in and around Ukraine" and Russia's occupation of "parts of a sovereign state".

The Swedish defense forces have argued for longer range missiles to deter Russia from destroying Swedish weapons from a distance. The new missiles -- to be fitted on Gripen jets -- would have double the current range at 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

"It shows a potential opponent that we can fight at long distances and therefore we believe it is a deterrent," Colonel Johan Hansson told Sveriges Radio.

"If we are detected early we must be able to have a firing range that is much longer than what we've previously been used to."

The new approach by the government marks a departure from the traditional defensive stance by the non-aligned and previously neutral country.

As late as late 2013 Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote that cruise missiles had never been considered part of the country's defense.

Sweden's second opposition party, the Greens, criticized the announcement, warning that it marked a departure from the country's defensive stance that could "influence other parties" and encourage rearmament in the region.

However the shift towards a more offensive military force had the support of Sweden's largest opposition party the Social Democrats, who sought to play down speculation of a confrontation with Russia.

"We have no such ambitions. In an acute situation there can be a need for different options, but we are not a country that is out to attack anyone else," Peter Hultqvist, the Social Democrat chairman of the parliament's defense committee, told news agency TT.

Russia caught the Swedish military off-guard in a simulated air strike exercise with fighter planes over the Baltic Sea in March 2013, sparking a heated debate on national defense.

At the time the head of the armed forces controversially claimed that Sweden could not defend itself in a military attack that lasted more than a week.

A major review of the country's defenses is due for completion in mid-May.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Sweden_to_arm_fighter_jets_with_cruise_missile_deterrent_999.html.

Baltic states lead push to cut Russia gas reliance

April 25, 2014

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Later this year, a ship the size of an aircraft carrier will arrive at Lithuania's port of Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea. The 300-meter (984-foot) vessel is not a warship, but a floating natural gas import terminal — aptly named "Independence" — that will be key to the Baltic region's plan to reduce its reliance on Russia's energy supplies.

The countries in this northeastern corner of the European Union are among the most dependent on Russia to keep their homes warm and industries running. The three Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania get all their gas from Russia and lack connections to the wider European pipeline system that would allow them to import from elsewhere. Poland meets 70 percent of its energy needs with Russian supplies.

As a result, the states, which still have fresh memories of domination by Moscow during the Cold War, have been among the swiftest countries in Europe to act to reduce that dependence. Moscow's use of gas supplies as a means of putting pressure on Ukraine — like the Baltics, once part of the Soviet Union — has driven new urgency into projects to diversify energy supplies in the region, even as the full 28-member EU has struggled to come up with a united approach.

Historical factors help make Poland and the Baltic states particularly skeptical about Moscow's intentions. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union during World War II, and thousands were deported to labor camps. During the Cold War, Poland was ruled by communists installed and backed by Moscow.

The choice of a floating gas terminal is a sign of the urgency felt in the region. It was two years faster to build than on land, and at $330 million, was some 50 percent cheaper. It will be able to handle 4 billion cubic meters (141 billion cubic feet) of gas a year — well above Lithuania's annual needs for 3 billion cubic meters — when it becomes operational in January. The ship, owned by Norway's Hoegh LNG and leased to Lithuania's SC Klaipedos Nafta terminal operator, has already undergone sea trials after being built at a shipyard in Korea.

Meanwhile, neighboring Poland is working on a new liquid natural gas terminal on its Baltic Coast that is slated to come on line early next year. The terminal at Swinoujscie will enable Poland to buy some of its gas from Qatar.

And Estonia and Finland are talking about building two new gas terminals at their end of the Baltic, as well as an undersea pipeline that would connect the two countries. Other EU countries have been slower about establishing new projects. Germany has stalled on a proposal to set up a liquid natural gas terminal at Wilhelmshaven, on the North Sea.

Although the Baltics are leading Europe in the effort to diversify their energy sources, the solutions are not easy. Seaborne liquid gas — called liquid natural gas, or LNG — can be expensive, costing as much as 50 percent more in energy-hungry Asian markets. That's because it needs to be cooled to minus 165 degrees Celsius (minus 265 Fahrenheit) to make it liquid and shrink it to one-six hundredth of the original volume. Insulated tankers can then take it overseas.

As a result of such costs, analysts say, the Baltic states and Poland will likely not become completely independent of Russian imports. Rather, the new import capacity will serve as partial insurance against any cut-off threats. More to the point, it will also give the countries leverage in negotiating prices with Gazprom, Russia's state gas monopoly. Russia raised the price of gas for Ukraine to $485 per thousand cubic meters from $268.50, and President Vladimir Putin has said Russia may start demanding payment in advance — heavy burdens for a country whose finances are near collapse.

Building the new gas terminals "now means you have alternatives," said Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk, head of the energy project at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. "Diversity always increases security of supply."

Other ways to diversify energy supplies are in the works, often supported by EU funds. These solutions include changing pipelines so they can run west-east and not only east-west. German energy company RWE began such "reverse-flow" supplies on April 1 and says it will sell Ukraine 1 billion cubic meters a year — a symbolic amount, but a start.

The three Baltic countries are working on a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania to replace power lost after the EU forced Lithuania to shut down its Soviet-designed reactor over safety concerns. That project has been slowed by lack of cooperation from Latvia and Estonia, which missed out on hosting the reactor and the jobs that go with it.

Analyst Gawlikowksa-Fyk says the Ukraine crisis and concern from the EU's executive commission, may raise the pressure to change that. "The external situation, as well as the commission, may incentivize those countries to cooperate," she said.

Associated Press writers Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Jari Tanner in Vilnius contributed to this report.

Chicago high school to be named after President Obama

By Aileen Graef
April 25, 2014

CHICAGO, April 25 (UPI) -- Chicago is naming a new Near North Side high school after President Barack Obama, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel announced Thursday.

Barack Obama Preparatory High School will be built as a selective public high school, meaning that students will need high test scores and grades to be accepted for enrollment. The $60 million for the school will come from tax increment funding.

Obama lived in Chicago while he served as senator and still has his private home there.

The school will open in the Fall of 2017 with about 300 students in the Freshman class.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/25/Chicago-high-school-to-be-named-after-President-Obama/1881398432107/.

Holder cancels speech to Oklahoma police recruits amid threatened protests

By Frances Burns
April 25, 2014

OKLAHOMA CITY, April 25 (UPI) -- A conservative state lawmaker claimed victory when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder canceled a speech to graduating Oklahoma City police recruits.

About 75 protesters showed up outside the First Church in Oklahoma City, where the ceremony was held. Police Capt. Dexter Nelson said as many as 300 had been expected but many apparently decided to stay home when they learned Holder would not be there.

“I think it was very understood that people could come together using their First Amendment right to assemble and speak, and that’s what we did,” Republican state Rep. Paul Wesselhoft said. “We had a direct impact on the highest law official in America. That’s not small stuff.”

U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange replaced Holder, addressing the class of 42 graduating recruits.

Holder, the first black head of the U.S. Justice Department, is a former U.S. attorney and federal judge. He has become a lightning rod for conservatives because of his support for gay rights and the Obama administration's efforts to reduce prison sentences for some drug offenders.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Holder's associates in the Justice Department say he plans to remain in the administration until after the midterm elections but does not want to stay on the job through President Obama's second term. There had been speculation he would leave before the midterms because confirming a successor would be more difficult if the Republicans win a Senate majority.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/25/Holder-cancels-speech-to-Oklahoma-police-recruits-amid-threatened-protests/6441398431050/.

Ecuador expels US military group

April 25, 2014

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador has ordered all 20 Defense Department employees in the U.S. Embassy's military group to leave the country by month's end, The Associated Press has learned.

The group was ordered to halt operations in Ecuador in a letter dated April 7, said embassy spokesman Jeffrey Weinshenker. The AP was first alerted to the expulsions by a senior Ecuadorean official who refused to be identified by name due to the information's sensitive nature.

President Rafael Correa had publicly complained in January that Washington had too many military officers in Ecuador, claiming there were 50, and said they had been "infiltrated in all sectors." At the time, he said he planned to order some to leave.

Weinshenker said the military group had 20 Department of Defense employees, not all of them uniformed, and that Washington had provided $7 million in security assistance to Ecuador last year, including technical training for maintaining aircraft and cooperation in combating drug trafficking, human trafficking and terrorism.

Weinshenker said U.S. military cooperation in Ecuador dates back four decades and that "all the activities we have carried out have had the explicit approval of our Ecuadorean counterparts." U.S. relations with Ecuador have been strained in recent years, even before Correa provided asylum in 2012 to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose organization published troves of leaked U.S. military documents and diplomatic cables highly embarrassing to Washington.

Correa had previously expelled at least three U.S. diplomats including then-Ambassador Heather Hodges in 2011 in response to a cable divulged by WikiLeaks that suggested Correa was aware of high-level police corruption.

In November, Correa's government said it was asking the U.S. Agency for International Development to end operations in the country, accusing it of backing the opposition. USAID is to end operations in September when programs it is funding have run their course.

Shortly after first taking office in 2007, Correa purged Ecuador's military of officers deemed to have close relations with U.S. counterparts. He also ended an agreement with Washington that allowed U.S. drug interdiction flights to be based at the Ecuadorean airfield in Manta.

Correa is popular at home for his poverty-fighting programs but widely criticized for stifling civil liberties and using criminal defamation law against journalists.

Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.

South Sudan deploys troops to guard UN compound

Fri Apr 18, 2014

South Sudan deploys the army to guard a United Nations base in the center of the country a day after an attack at the base killed about 60 people.

"The army has come in now. They have been ordered to protect UNMISS (the UN Mission in South Sudan) so there will be no attack from anybody," media outlets quoted Ateny Wek Ateny, President Salva Kiir's spokesman, as saying.

The troop deployment came on Friday after armed men attacked people sheltering inside the UN peacekeeping base in violence-wracked Jonglei state. The deadly attack took place on Thursday in the town of Bor at the camp where some 5,000 civilians are seeking refuge.

The UN base is home to thousands of refugees who have fled their homes due to the ongoing violence in the country.

Officials said at least 58 people were killed in the attack. The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.

UN officials blame the attack on armed mobs in civilian clothes. But the government accuses the UN peacekeepers of provoking the shootout and sheltering supporters of the former vice president, Riek Machar.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the attack on the UN compound.

Ban said in a statement on Thursday that the attack amounted to a “war crime”.

"Any attack on the United Nations peacekeepers is unacceptable and constitutes a war crime," the UN chief said in the statement issued hours after the attack.

The fighting between troops of Kiir, who is from the Dinka ethnic group, and Machar, a Nuer, erupted around the capital Juba on December 15 last year.

The armed conflict has claimed thousands of lives and forced over a million to flee their homes over the past months.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/18/359161/s-sudan-deploys-troops-to-guard-un-base/.

South Africa's defense minister admits military meltdown

Johannesburg (AFP)
April 23, 2014

South Africa's military is in urgent need of investment to ensure it can meet its international commitments after two decades of budget cuts have left it under-equipped, the defense minister said Wednesday.

In 1998, it was assumed South Africa would only deploy a single battalion to foreign missions, but by 2006 the country had committed to four to missions across Africa, overstretching its resources.

There is "an urgent need to comprehensively capacitate and equip" the South African National Defense Force (SANDF), which is underfunded and lacks enough working equipment, said minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

The force's "shortcomings must be addressed to prevent the steady decline of the SANDF and the potentially disastrous consequences that could follow," she added.

A recent report by a government-appointed panel of experts said the military is in a "critical state of decline" due to chronic underfunding and warned that it may take up to a decade to get it back into shape.

It found that the meltdown has threatened the army's defense capacity at home and its ability to take part in foreign peacekeeping operations.

The army is "finding it increasingly difficult to sustain the deployment of its soldiers in the various peace missions across the continent," said the report, released last month.

South Africa's once feared and respected defense force has been hit by budget cuts and much of its equipment is no longer fit for purpose.

Defense expenditure stands at around 1.1 percent of GDP, which Mapisa-Nqakula said is below the 2.0 percent usually spent by a developing country during peacetime.

Funding problems have been caused by the post-apartheid government prioritizing spending on the South Africa's previously neglected poor, particularly in black communities, she said.

"Commitments in Africa far (also) exceeded what was anticipated in the aftermath of the advent of democracy in 1994," the defense minister added.

As one of Africa's military powerhouses, South Africa has deployed troops to peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Sudan's Darfur.

It previously sent troops to Burundi, Lesotho and Central African Republic. Its navy has also recently begun patrolling the waters off neighboring Mozambique to ward off pirates.

South Africa is also among 10 countries that have said they would contribute to Africa's planned rapid-deployment emergency force, which is being created to swiftly intervene in crises.

"What this means is that South Africa is almost certain to increase its commitment on the continent," said the minister.

South Africa's increasing commitments justify "that defense expenditure be set slightly above two percent of GDP", argued the minister.

Source: Africa Daily.
Link: http://www.africadaily.net/reports/South_Africas_defence_minister_admits_military_meltdown_999.html.

Kazakh satellite to be launched into orbit

Paris (AFP)
April 24, 2014

Kazakhstan's first-ever Earth observation satellite is to be fired into orbit next week from the European spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana, launch company Arianespace said.

The 830-kilogram (1,829-pound) orbiter will provide Kazakhstan with data for mapmaking and security, monitor changes in nature and agriculture, and provide support for rescue operations in case of natural disaster, it said in a statement.

The satellite, dubbed KazEOSat-1, will take off on a lightweight Vega launcher overnight on Monday, Kourou time.

It will orbit the Earth at about 700 kilometers (435 miles) and remain in service for seven years.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Kazakh_satellite_to_be_launched_into_orbit_999.html.

First Earth-sized planet found in 'habitable zone': NASA

Washington (AFP)
April 17, 2014

The hunt for potential life in outer space has taken a step forward -- an international team of researchers has discovered the first Earth-sized planet within the "habitable zone" of another star.

The exoplanet dubbed Kepler-186f was first spotted by scientists using NASA's Kepler telescope, according to research published Thursday in the US journal Science.

The exoplanet, located some 500 light years from Earth, orbits in what is seen as the sweet spot around its star: not too close and not too far, so it could have liquid water, considered a crucial component to possibly hosting life.

"The discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

The planet is "the right size and is at the right distance to have properties that are similar to our home planet," said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, the lead author of the paper published in Science.

"We can now say that other potentially habitable worlds, similar in size to Earth, can exist. It's no longer in the realm of science fiction," she said, speaking at a press conference.

Kepler-186f is around 1.1-times the size of Earth -- which researchers say is key to predicting the composition of the surface and its atmosphere.

When planets are 1.5 times the size of Earth or larger, many of them seem to attract a thick hydrogen and helium layer that makes them start to resemble gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn.

Kepler-186f is the fifth and outermost planet orbiting the Kepler-186 star, right on the far edge of that solar system's habitable zone, meaning the surface temperature might not be warm enough to stop water from freezing.

"However, it is also slightly larger than the Earth, and so the hope would be that this would result in a thicker atmosphere that would provide extra insulation," explained San Francisco State University astronomer Stephen Kane, another member of the team behind the discovery.

- Tracking 'transits' -

Scientists using the NASA's Kepler telescope first discovered it by tracking "transits" -- shadows that cross in front of the star.

The finding was confirmed by observations from the W.M. Keck and Gemini Observatories.

But current technology does not allow astronomers to see the celestial body directly or do any analysis to determine its atmosphere or composition.

"Some people call these habitable planets, which of course we have no idea if they are," said Kane. "We simply know that they are in the habitable zone, and that is the best place to start looking for habitable planets."

Solar systems like Kepler-186, with an M-Dwarf star at its center, may be the best chance for finding a habitable planet, because there are so many of such stars and because many are very nearby.

However, because M-dwarfs are cooler, smaller and dimmer than our sun, they interact differently with planets, the researchers said.

Kepler-186f is therefore "more like an Earth cousin than an Earth twin. It has similar characteristics but a different parent," Tom Barclay, researcher at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at Ames, said at the NASA press conference.

And whether Kepler-186f is actually habitable would depend largely on the planet's surface temperature, which would be linked to whether it has an atmosphere and what that atmosphere was like, Barclay explained.

Future missions are being designed to characterize the planets around M Dwarfs in more detail, he said.

However, because its star is quite dim, Kepler-186f may not be suitable for follow-up studies, Quintana had explained earlier.

"However, our research tells us that we should be able to find planets around bright stars that will be ideal targets to observe" with telescopes like NASA's Webb orbiting telescope, currently under construction, she said in a press release.

Of nearly 1,800 planets detected over the past 20 years, only around 20 orbit within the so-called "habitable zone" -- and all appear to be larger than Earth, which makes it harder to tell whether or not they are gas giants.

The Kepler space telescope, launched in March 2009, observes some 150,000 stars, a few thousand of which have been found to have possible planets.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/First_Earth-sized_planet_found_in_habitable_zone_NASA_999.html.

SpaceX Cargo Mission Launches to Space Station

Washington DC (AFP)
Apr 18, 2014

Private US firm SpaceX launched its unmanned Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on Friday, its third trip carrying supplies and equipment to the orbiting lab.

After three earlier delays, the Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon capsule finally blasted off as planned at 3:25 pm (1925 GMT) from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

About 10 minutes after liftoff, the capsule separated from the second stage of the rocket before going into orbit.

"THAT. WAS. AWESOOMEEE," one person with the handle Petar Le Grand wrote after watching the launch live on SpaceX's website.

It marks the California-based company's third commercial resupply mission and fourth visit to the ISS, where it is due to deliver 2.2 tones of cargo.

Dragon is due to meet up with the space station on Sunday at 2314 GMT.

The mission had originally been scheduled for mid-March and was delayed due to a helium leak.

In all, SpaceX is due to complete 12 missions for the US space agency NASA.

Its first successful pilot launch, completed in May 2012, marked the first time a private vessel had docked at the ISS. It was followed by the company's first cargo mission in October 2012.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/SpaceX_Cargo_Mission_Launches_to_Space_Station_999.html.

Cambodia rules out extraditing Russian businessman

April 25, 2014

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia's highest court ruled Friday that a prominent Russian property developer wanted in his homeland for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars cannot be extradited. Sergei Polonsky expressed satisfaction with the ruling and said he will spend up to $100 million developing an island he purchased off Cambodia's southern coast.

Supreme Court Judge Kim Sothavy said Cambodian law does not allow for sending Polonsky back to Russia because the two countries do not have an extradition treaty. The real estate tycoon was charged in Russia in June last year with embezzling more than 5.7 billion rubles ($175 million) from 80 property investors. He was arrested by Cambodian authorities in November after Russian authorities had him added to an Interpol list of wanted criminals, but was released on bail in January this year after a preliminary ruling against extradition.

Polonsky did not attend Friday's hearing. His Cambodian lawyer, Benson Samay, told reporters that the threat of extradition was now over, and his client has the right to stay in Cambodia. Polonsky, speaking to reporters later at his lawyer's office, said he would reveal in the next few months his master plan for developing the island he bought, with facilities to include housing and a school. He said he received permission to develop the island from the Cambodian government a year and a half ago.

He insisted he was innocent of embezzlement charges, and claimed to have owned property worth as much as $4 billion. He described the case against him as extortion carried out by people who wished to put him in prison so they could take control of his holdings.

"Thank you to the Cambodian government, the king, the royal family, the lawyer and my team," Polonsky said. Polonsky first came to public attention in Cambodia in December 2012, when he allegedly attacked the crew of a boat during a cruise off Cambodia's southern coast, near his island. He was jailed for more than three months on assault charges before reaching an out-of-court settlement.

The Russian news agency Interfax reported earlier this month that new fraud charges had been brought against Polonsky, but it was unclear if they had been communicated to Cambodian authorities.

Tiny Pacific Nation Sues 9 Nuclear-Armed Powers

April 24, 2014 (AP)
By CARA ANNA Associated Press

The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is taking on the United States and the world's eight other nuclear-armed nations with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding that they meet their obligations toward disarmament and accusing them of "flagrant violations" of international law.

The island group that was used for dozens of U.S. nuclear tests after World War II filed suit Thursday against each of the nine countries in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. It also filed a federal lawsuit against the United States in San Francisco, naming President Barack Obama, the departments and secretaries of defense and energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Marshall Islands claims the nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals instead of negotiating disarmament, and it estimates that they will spend $1 trillion on those arsenals over the next decade.

"I personally see it as kind of David and Goliath, except that there are no slingshots involved," David Krieger, president of the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told The Associated Press. He is acting as a consultant in the case. There are hopes that other countries will join the legal effort, he said.

The countries targeted also include Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The last four are not parties to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but the lawsuits argue they are bound by its provisions under "customary international law." The nonproliferation treaty, considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament efforts, requires negotiations among countries in good faith on disarmament.

None of the countries had been informed in advance of the lawsuits.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said he was unaware of the lawsuit, however "it doesn't sound relevant because we are not members of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty."

"It sounds like it doesn't have any legal legs," he said about the lawsuit, adding that he was not a legal expert.

The Marshall Islands were the site of 67 nuclear tests by the United States over a 12-year period, with lasting health and environmental impacts.

"Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities," the country's foreign minister, Tony de Brum, said in a statement announcing the lawsuits.

The country is seeking action, not compensation. It wants the courts to require that the nine nuclear-armed states meet their obligations.

"There hasn't been a case where individual governments are saying to the nuclear states, 'You are not complying with your disarmament obligations," John Burroughs, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, part of the international pro bono legal team, told the AP. "This is a contentious case that could result in a binding judgment."

Several Nobel Peace Prize winners are said to support the legal action, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Iranian-born rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.

"We must ask why these leaders continue to break their promises and put their citizens and the world at risk of horrific devastation," Tutu said in the statement announcing the legal action.

The Marshall Islands is asking the countries to accept the International Court of Justice's jurisdiction in this case and explain their positions on the issue.

The court has seen cases on nuclear weapons before. In the 1970s, Australia and New Zealand took France to the court in an effort to stop its atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific.

The idea to challenge the nine nuclear-armed powers came out of a lunch meeting in late 2012 after the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation gave the Marshall Islands foreign minister a leadership award, Krieger said.

"I've known Tony long time," he said. "We both have had a strong interest for a long time in seeing action by the nuclear weapons states."

Frustration with the nuclear-armed states has grown in recent years as action toward disarmament appeared to stall, Burroughs and Krieger said.

"One thing I would point to is the U.S. withdrawal in 2002 from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; that cast a shadow over future disarmament movement," Krieger said. The treaty originally had bound the U.S. and the Soviet Union. "One other thing, in 1995, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty had a review and was extended indefinitely. I think the nuclear states party to the treaty felt that once that happened, there was no longer pressure on them to fulfill their obligations."

In 1996, the International Court of Justice said unanimously that an obligation existed to bring the disarmament negotiations to a conclusion, Burroughs said.

Instead, "progress toward disarmament has essentially been stalemated since then," he said.

Some of the nuclear-armed countries might argue in response to these new lawsuits that they've been making progress in certain areas or that they support the start of negotiations toward disarmament, but the Marshall Islands government is likely to say, "Good, but not enough" or "Your actions belie your words," Burroughs said.

The Marshall Islands foreign minister has approached other countries about filing suit as well, Krieger said. "I think there has been some interest, but I'm not sure anybody is ready."

—————

Associated Press reporters Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: ABC News.
Link: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tiny-pacific-nation-sues-nuclear-armed-powers-23450535?singlePage=true.

Lebanon parliament soon to elect new president

2014-04-16

BEIRUT - Lebanon's parliament is to convene on April 23 to elect a new president to succeed Michel Sleiman, whose term ends on May 25, the National News Agency reported Wednesday.

"Parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri has called for a session on Wednesday April 23 to elect a new president of the republic," the official news agency said.

Lebanon's president, who must come from the country's Maronite Christian community, is elected by a vote in the parliament.

Michel Moussa, a member of Berri's parliamentary bloc, said he hoped there would be a quorum for the session.

"In period between now and the end of the president's mandate we need to hold a session and there is near-total agreement that the best time in is the second half of April," he said.

"I hope that the parliamentary blocs will keep their word and there will be a quorum," he added.

Moussa is one of three MPs tasked by Berri with meeting the parliamentary blocs to secure agreement on a date for the presidential vote.

Berri is hoping to avoid a repeat of the situation in 2007, when MPs refused on multiple occasions to attend sessions he called for the presidential vote because of political differences.

Even with a date set for the session, there are no guarantees that a president will be chosen on April 23.

So far just one political figure, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, has announced his candidacy.

But he is not expected to run unopposed, and other candidates are likely to announce their own campaigns in coming days.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65441.

Syria war deepens fears for Lebanon's missing

April 11, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — For 22 years, Mary Mansourati has been waiting for her son, Dani, to come home. His shirts are ironed and hanging in his closet. His trousers, neatly folded, are stacked on the shelves next to his bed in the family's Beirut apartment.

Dani was 30 when he was detained by Syrian intelligence and has not been heard from since. He is among an estimated 17,000 Lebanese still missing from Lebanon's civil war or the years of Syrian domination that followed.

The war in Syria has added new urgency to the plight of their families. Hundreds of Lebanese were detained by the Syrians, and their relatives are convinced they are still alive. Now they fear they will be lost in Syria's labyrinth of overcrowded jails and detention facilities or be killed in the ongoing mayhem.

The war in Syria has also added a new generation of names to the already long rolls of the missing. There are no exact figures, but human rights organizations say tens of thousands of Syrians have vanished in the three years since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began.

Elsewhere in the region, nearly 70,000 Iraqis are still missing from three wars over the past three decades, including sectarian bloodletting that was unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to government figures.

There's never been any truth or reconciliation process that might uncover the fates of these missing. In both Lebanon and Iraq, few efforts have been made to examine what happened during the countries' wars, mainly because many of those involved in killings and kidnappings have become politicians, some even serving in government.

The 82-year-old Mansourati believes her son is alive in a Syrian prison, despite having no concrete evidence or word that anyone has seen him. A fighter with an anti-Syrian Christian militia, he was arrested in 1992, two years after the civil war ended.

"We need our sons back," she told The Associated Press in an interview at her home in east Beirut, where she cares for her gravely ill husband. Friday marked the ninth anniversary of a permanent protest tent Mansourati and other families of the missing have erected in downtown Beirut. Every day, relatives sit at the tent, sometimes spending the night. Photos of the missing and slogans calling on Assad to explain their fate line the sides of the tent.

"We are tired of going back and forth to the tent. We are getting old," Mansourati said. Like many relatives of the missing, she believes Lebanese officials, some of whom led militias during the civil war and fought on behest of the Syrians, are complicit in covering up their loved ones' fates.

Rights groups speak of a "conspiracy of silence," with officials withholding information out of concern they could be implicated in wartime atrocities. The Taif Accord ended the war in 1990 by enshrining a sectarian-based political system that leaves all major decisions in the hands of a small group of people, many of whom gained political power by commanding a powerful militia during the conflict.

There has been no serious state-led documentation that would produce an official record with the numbers of dead, injured, missing and forcibly displaced. Lebanon went into "collective amnesia" after the war, the International Center for Transitional Justice said in a recent report documenting the country's failure to examine and deal with its complex past.

A year after the Lebanese civil war ended, the government declared there were no detainees being held by rival militias. Four years later, in 1995, the government passed a law declaring any person missing for more than four years legally dead, advising families looking for their vanished loved ones to move on.

Most of the thousands missing likely are dead. They disappeared after being kidnapped by rival Lebanese militias during the war, which saw multiple sectarian massacres, and there's little chance any Lebanese faction could keep someone secretly detained for nearly a quarter century. Still, even uncovering suspected locations of mass graves where the missing might be is considered too politically explosive.

When the families persisted in demanding the truth, the government said it couldn't help because digging too deep into the past could inflame old hostilities and unleash another war. "The official discourse was, if peace is to prevail we need to forget the past and move on into the future," said Lebanese lawyer Nizar Saghieh, who has represented hundreds of families seeking to discover the fate of their missing relatives.

But the families of those who disappeared after being detained by Syria are far less convinced by the government's death declaration. Rights groups estimate they number between 300 and 600 Lebanese. Majida Hassan Bashasha's brother, Ahmed, was picked up by Syrian troops at a checkpoint near Beirut in 1976, the year Syrian forces entered Lebanon to help quell the sectarian fighting. Ahmed was 18 when he vanished, and his sister says he was not a militant.

Like Mary Mansourati, 59-year-old Bashasha believes her brother is alive, languishing in a Syrian prison. She has been campaigning relentlessly to bring him home, attending annual rallies of the families of the disappeared in front of the local U.N. headquarters in Beirut. A few years ago, several former detainees came to the protest tent and recognized her brother from a picture she was holding. They said they shared a cell with him in a Damascus prison.

"I am his big sister and my heart tells me he is still alive," Bashasha said, holding a black-and-white photo of a young man she said was Ahmed. Initially, when the conflict started in Syria she feared that her brother and other Lebanese detainees would be forgotten. But now, as she watches Assad's agents fill Syria's prisons with a new generation of government opponents, she holds out some hope that any Lebanese being held in Syria will be released.

"They don't need them in prison anymore," Bashasha said.

Lebanon registers 1 million Syrian refugees

April 03, 2014

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — Yahya was trapped in his hometown for two years by Syria's civil war, moving from house to house to avoid shells and bullets. His father was killed by a sniper. His family then fled to another town that came under a fierce government offensive.

When the teenager finally made it out of the country with his mother and two sisters, he became the latest sad statistic of the sectarian conflict: the one-millionth refugee to register in Lebanon. The United Nations' refugee agency, which invited reporters to witness Yahya's registration and allowed them to interview the 19-year-old, described the 1 million figure as a "devastating milestone" for Lebanon.

There are many more Syrians inside Lebanon than those officially registered, with the Lebanese government itself estimating that at least a half-million are unregistered. The UNHCR says it is registering an average of more than one refugee a minute in Lebanon, a country of 4.5 million that is seeing its resources strained by the new arrivals.

"I feel sad because this means that 1 million fled here before me to suffer together," Yahya said as he waited to register with the UNHCR in the northern city of Tripoli. "A million is a big number for Syria and a big number for Lebanon," he added. Yahya asked to be identified only by his first name because he feared that Syrian authorities would retaliate against his relatives who are still there.

Yahya told a harrowing story of how his family became caught up in the violence between troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebels seeking his ouster. Their house in the central city of Homs was on the front line of the conflict that began in March 2011, forcing them out.

They moved frequently for their safety, Yahya said, but his father was shot to death by a sniper in September of that year. They were finally evacuated from Homs earlier this year by the U.N., and traveled to Yabroud, a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border that soon came under government attack.

On March 8, the family crossed into Lebanon, first looking for shelter for a few days in the overcrowded border town of Arsal. They moved farther west to an informal settlement outside Tripoli. "We didn't know where to go. We just wanted to get away from all the shelling and fighting," Yahya said.

The conflict in Syria, which had a population of 23 million before the civil war, has killed more than 150,000 people. The U.N. estimates there are more than 2.5 million Syrians registered in neighboring countries — nearly 670,000 in Turkey, nearly 590,000 in Jordan and about 220,000 in Iraq. More than 47,700 are awaiting registration.

Lebanon has the highest per-capita concentration of refugees recorded anywhere in the world in recent history, the UNHCR said. "For us, the one-millionth refugee is a devastating marker," said Ninette Kelley, UNHCR representative in Lebanon. She said that in publicizing Thursday's milestone, the U.N. agency wants "the world to see what it means to individuals, being torn apart by the Syrian conflict," but also to "show what a tremendous burden the Lebanese people are bearing."

The Lebanese government provides none of the facilities and land that Turkey, Jordan and Iraq have allocated for the refugees. Many Syrians in Lebanon live in appalling conditions, finding shelter in slums, tents and tin shacks strung with laundry lines and wedged between farms.

On a casual walk in Beirut, Syrians can be seen sheltering in underground parking garages, under bridges and in old construction sites with no running water, sanitation, electricity or protection from the weather. Nearly half of the refugees are children.

The World Bank estimates that the Syria crisis cost Lebanon $2.5 billion in lost economic activity in 2013 and threatens to push 170,000 Lebanese into poverty by the end of this year, the UNHCR said. Along with the social and economic strain, Syria's sectarian war has also frequently spilled into Lebanon with deadly clashes between factions supporting opposing sides in the fighting.

Militants from Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah are fighting alongside Assad's forces in Syria, while many among Lebanon's Sunni population support the rebels. The U.N. and its partner agencies have mounted an unprecedented appeal to raise funds for both refugees and Lebanese host communities. The U.N. has asked for $1.89 billion in 2014, but only $242 million has been received so far, Kelley said.

For Yahya and his family, there was no place to go but Lebanon. "We were looking around to go somewhere else in Syria, but no place is safe," he said. While he is relieved his family made it out of Syria, the prospect of being dependent on U.N. food aid to survive is daunting for Yahya. After his father's death, he became the sole provider for the family, and jobs are hard to find.

He and his relatives get $30 a month each, which is barely half the $250 rent he has to pay for a shack in an informal settlement in nearby Dinniyeh. "Every day in Lebanon it's going from bad to worse," Yahya said. "We can't even hope that tomorrow will be better."

Lebanon sends army to Syria border as rebels flee

March 17, 2014

NABI OTHMAN, Lebanon (AP) — The Lebanese army sent commandos to the tense border area with Syria on Monday, bracing for another spillover of the conflict next door as Syrian rebels continued to flee into Lebanon after the fall of their stronghold to President Bashar Assad's forces.

Since Yabroud fell on Sunday, Lebanon has been on edge. Syrian rebels have been fleeing into the Lebanese Sunni-dominated town of Arsal, which is surrounded by Shiite villages that are guarded by Hezbollah militants.

Lebanese troops, including commandos in beige, desert-style army uniforms, were seen patrolling the rugged, hilly border area on foot on Monday, fingers on the trigger of their automatic rifles. On one patrol, near the northeastern village of Fakiha, Lebanese troops came across an abandoned vehicle and blew it up as a precaution, firing a rocket-propelled grenade that turned the SUV into a fireball and left a four-meter (yard) crater on the ground.

"We took the decision to blow is up immediately, without searching it," an officer told The Associated Press at the scene, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations. The fall of Yabroud — a frontier town and a strategic smuggling hub for the rebels trying to overthrow Assad — was a major gain for Syrian government troops and their Hezbollah allies. It was also the Syrian opposition fighters' last stronghold in the vital border area. Assad's forces have now consolidated authority in Syria's major cities, including the capital, Damascus.

Yabroud fell into Syrian government hands after months of fighting in the mountainous Qalamoun region between Assad's forces and Hezbollah fighters on one side and rebel groups, mostly Islamist militant groups, on the other.

The Hezbollah fighters have been instrumental to Assad's success on the battlefield, and support from the Iranian-backed fighters appears to have tipped the balance into the government's favor in Yabroud.

However, with opposition fighters fleeing into Lebanon, where Hezbollah is a major force, the conflict is likely further to spill into Syria's smaller neighbor. The civil war already has ignited polarizing sectarian tensions between Lebanon's Sunnis and Shiites.

In the past weeks, Sunni militants have carried out several suicide bombings and car bomb attacks in Shiite dominated towns and suburbs of Beirut that are Hezbollah strongholds, claiming they were revenge for the Iran-backed group's role inside Syria.

On Monday, a militant Sunni group claimed responsibility for a car bombing the previous night in Nabi Othman, a predominantly Shiite town in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley that also has a significant Christian community.

The Nusra Front in Lebanon said in a statement posted on its Twitter account that the attack, in which two people were killed and 14 were wounded, was in revenge for Hezbollah's support for Assad and "a quick response" for the fall of Yabroud into Syrian government hands.

The statement also said the Nabi Othman bombing was in retaliation for Yabroud and because of Hezbollah's "bragging about it." In footage broadcast live on state television in Damascus, Syrian army officers raised the national flag in Yabroud's main town square on Monday and covered rebel flag with posters praising Assad's troops.

Surk reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.

Shoes thrown at Jordan PM for 'raising prices'

2014-04-15

AMMAN - A Jordanian was arrested Monday after throwing his shoes at Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur and five cabinet ministers during a ceremony in the northern city of Jerash, an official said.

"The prime minister was talking about the economy, when Mefleh Mahasneh, 65, head of the Jerash countryside society that was attending the event, stood up and told the prime minister: 'You raised the prices'," the municipality official said.

"The mayor told Mahasneh to stop because it was not his turn to talk. Mahasneh, an army retiree, got angry and took off his shoe and threw it towards the stage on which the prime minister and the ministers were sitting."

He said Mahasneh then took off his other shoe and threw it in the same direction.

"The pair of shoes landed on a table on the stage. Police arrested Mahasneh," the official said, adding that he did not think he would be charged.

"I think he was detained for his own protection because some attendees threatened to take action against him," he said without elaborating.

In November 2012, Nsur's government raised fuel prices, including household gas, by up to 53 percent to help reduce a massive government deficit of 3.5 billion dinars (around $5 billion dollars), sparking a wave of violent nationwide protests as well as strikes.

Amid growing unemployment and poverty, Jordanians have held street protests to demand sweeping political and economic reforms as well as tougher anti-corruption efforts.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65403.

Jordan court sentences Syrian smugglers to five years in prison

2014-04-15

AMMAN - A Jordanian court on Tuesday sentenced three Syrians to five years in prison each for trying to smuggle 36 remote control detonators into their country to help anti-government rebels.

Civilian judges at the military state security court found the three men guilty of carrying out acts "that would harm Jordan's relations with another country, exposing the kingdom to the danger of reprisal acts," a judicial official said.

They were also found guilty of entering Jordan illegally.

"They were sentenced to five years in jail," the official said.

According to the charges sheet, after crossing into Jordan from Syria last July two of the men settled in the northern city of Irbid while the third sought shelter in the Zaatari refugee camp near Syria's border, which is home to more than 100,000 Syrian refugees.

They started to communicate with some members of the Free Syrian Army in order to smuggle 36 detonators across the border, before their arrest in "an ambush" in September.

Jordan, which is hosting more than 500,000 Syrian refugees, has tightened border security and jailed dozens of men convicted of trying to enter war-torn Syria to fight alongside rebel forces.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65409.

Jordan 'destroyed' combat vehicles entering from Syria

2014-04-16

AMMAN - Jordanian air force fighter jets destroyed a number of combat vehicles Wednesday as they tried to enter the kingdom from war-hit Syria by crossing the border, the army said.

"Royal air force jets fighters today at 10:30 am (0730 GMT) destroyed a number of vehicles that attempted to cross into Jordan from Syria," the Jordanian army said in a statement.

"The camouflaged vehicles tried to enter from an area with rugged terrain.

"The fighter jets fired warning shots, but they were ignored, promoting them to destroy the vehicles. The army will not tolerate such actions," said the statement.

A military official said that "they were three-wheeled vehicles which tried to enter the kingdom" near Ruwaished in northern Jordan.

Jordan's border guards in recent weeks clashed with and arrested several people as they attempted to cross into the kingdom from Syria, where a devastating conflict has been raging for more than three years.

The government in Damascus has regularly accused Jordan of assisting rebels fighting its forces.

But Amman denies this, saying it has tightened control of the border and jailed dozens convicted of trying to cross the frontier illegally.

The kingdom, home to more than 500,000 Syrian refugees, says arms smuggling across the border with Syria has risen by 300 percent in the past year.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=65443.

Jordanian envoy to Libya kidnapped

Tue Apr 15, 2014

Jordan’s ambassador to Tripoli has been kidnapped by unknown assailants.

Said Lassoued, the spokesperson for Libya’s Foreign Ministry, said that Jordanian ambassador to Libya Fawaz Aitan was kidnapped on Tuesday after masked gunmen attacked his car.

“The Jordanian ambassador was kidnapped this morning. His convoy was attacked by a group of hooded men on board two civilian cars,” he told AFP.

A security official said the ambassador's driver suffered gunshot wounds during the kidnapping.

The Jordanian government also confirmed the kidnapping, saying that they launched investigating into the incident.

“Jordan has initial information that the Jordanian ambassador in Libya, Fawaz Aitan, was kidnapped,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Sabah Rafi.

The kidnapping comes only two days after Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni resigned unexpectedly from his post following an armed attack on his family in a residential neighborhood in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

Abductions have been rife in Libya since the 2011 uprising that resulted in the toppling of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Officials are most often targeted, but diplomats and journalists have also been the target of kidnappings, threats and attacks in the African country.

Earlier in January, gunmen kidnapped five Egyptian diplomats in Tripoli and held them for several hours.

Nearly three years after the fall of Gaddafi, the country is still grappling with rising insecurity as former rebels refuse to lay down arms despite efforts by the central government to impose law and order.

The Libyan government said that the abduction was in retaliation for the arrest of a Libyan militia commander by Egyptian authorities.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/15/358640/jordanian-envoy-to-libya-kidnapped/.

Jordan Faces Looming and Complex Cancer Burden

By Elizabeth Whitman

AMMAN, Apr 10 2014 (IPS) - The concrete skeleton of a twin 13-storey complex towers over surrounding buildings on one of Amman’s busiest streets. The ongoing expansion of the King Hussein Cancer Center symbolizes progress as much as it portends a crisis.

After its completion, expected in 2015, the new buildings will more than double the KHCC‘s current capacity, increasing space for new cancer cases from 3,500 per year to 9,000. Yet even this 186-million-dollar project may be insufficient to shoulder Jordan’s growing cancer burden.

In Jordan, cancer is the leading cause of death after heart disease. Over 5,000 Jordanians annually are diagnosed with cancer, a figure projected to reach 7,281 by 2020, statistics that reflect global trends.

Cancer was once viewed as a first-world scourge. But in 2008, 56 percent of new cancer cases were in the developing world. And by 2030, the proportion will have climbed to 70 percent.

If Jordan fails to actively prepare for a continuing wave of cancer cases, “we won’t be able to cope with the increased number of patients and the increased cost of treatment,” leading to “less treatment and more mortalities,” Dr. Sami Khatib, a clinical oncologist who is president of the Arab Medical Association Against Cancer and former president of the Jordan Oncology Society, told IPS.

Jordan is fortunate to have the KHCC, a non-governmental organization run by the King Hussein Cancer Foundation that is the country’s only comprehensive cancer treatment center and the only cancer treatment facility in the Arab world to receive Joint Commission accreditation.

The KHCC has been a pioneer in cancer treatment in Jordan, transforming the process from disjointed visits with various specialists to comprehensive care with a treatment protocol.

But it is merely one center. About 60 percent of Jordan’s cancer cases are in Amman, according to the latest national statistics in cancer incidence, which are from 2010. Yet according to Khatib, around 80 percent of cancer treatment facilities in Jordan are in Amman.

For the half of Jordan’s population residing in Amman or its outskirts, this location is ideal. For residents of remote areas, reaching these facilities can be a major problem.

“Inequality of access is the major obstacle” in providing cancer treatment in a country where “the whole spectrum of cancer treatment is available,” concluded Dr. Omar Nimri, director of the Jordanian Cancer Registry at the Ministry of Health, in the 2014 World Cancer Report.

An island of care

Sitting on a plain bench in a waiting room at the KHCC one morning were Nisreen Harabi and Sana’ Iskafee, two wives of the same husband. Harabi rocked back and forth as if to distract herself from pain while Iskafee spoke.

To reach Amman from their home in the village of Luban one hour away, Iskafee said, the women had to take one or two affordable public buses or spend 15 dinars (21 dollars) on a taxi ride.

Nisreen has cancer in her lymph nodes, according to Sana’, and must go to the KHCC four times a week for radiation therapy.

“We started coming two months ago,” Sana said. “The hardest part for us is the transportation. We live so far away.”

That morning, they had left their home at 6:30 am for a noon appointment, as a variety of factors can often cause delays on public transportation in Jordan.

“The distribution [of cancer treatment facilities] is not fair, as a whole, for Jordan,” Dr. Jamal Khader, a radiation oncologist at the KHCC and president of the Jordan Oncology Society, told IPS.

Like Nisreen, about 60 percent of cancer patients will at some point go through radiology treatment, he pointed out. But they have to be in Amman daily for a 10 to 15-minute session, making for a lot of extra suffering for those living outside the capital.

“We don’t have a single medical oncologist or radio oncologist in the south” or other remote areas, Khader added. “The ideal scenario for a cancer patient is to be treated in a comprehensive center,” of which the KHCC is the only one. And specialized doctors and technology are primarily available in Amman.

Although all patients across Jordan receive “almost” the same quality treatment, no matter the health care facility they visit, Nimri told IPS in an interview, poorer patients or those who live far from Amman face extra difficulties.

“They have to rent a place, or stay in a hotel, or stay with relatives if they have any,” he said.

In that sense, Harabi is lucky to live one hour away.

Travel and accommodations require time and money, the latter of which is in especially short supply in a country where average annual per capita income is 5,980 dollars. Although societies and charities may help to cover costs, the system that remains in place is a centralized one that does not cater to impoverished patients living far from the capital.

“We need to build facilities…in the north and in the south of Jordan to better cover all the population,” Khatib said. He said the government had “a plan to start building facilities for the treatment of cancer in the different governorates of Jordan” and that “maybe they will start implementing it… soon.”

The situation is changing, albeit gradually. King Abdullah University Hospital in the northern city of Irbid has plans to get radio therapy machines, so that cancer patients residing in northern Jordan would not have to go to Amman for radiation therapy.

A national control plan for cancer is currently being developed as well, with the goal of outlining guidelines for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and beyond. Khader, the KHCC oncologist, hoped the plan would be finalized within a year and that it could help identify “what facilities are missing here and there.”

Cancer treatment is divided into several sectors, besides the KHCC. Members of the military and security services, and their families, are treated at military facilities; private hospitals are available for those who can afford them; and those who do not qualify or cannot afford to go elsewhere have public facilities run by the Ministry of Health.

Yet their capacity does not match that of the KHCC, with “variable cancer care across facilities,” a 2011 report by the Harvard Global Equity Initiative noted. Of 29 public hospitals, only one offers chemotherapy, it said.

Furthermore, a difference in quality in treatment does exist between public and private facilities, Khatib allowed. As is generally true in most countries, “I think it’s much better in the NGO and private sectors than in the public sector,” he said.

Most cancer patients have their treatment covered by the Ministry of Health or the royal court, Khader noted, since by law, every Jordanian can apply for free treatment. While this policy eases individual suffering, for the government, it will become a financial “crisis to cope with all the commitments,” he added.

Nimri calculated roughly that with 25,000 – 30,000 cancer patients and the average cost of cancer treatment at 20,000 dollars per patient per year, Jordan is spending annually at least half a billion dollars on cancer treatment.

A multi-factor disease

Forty-eight percent of men over the age of 15 in Jordan smoked cigarettes (compared to 5.7 percent of women), according to WHO statistics from 2009, while 63.3 and 70.4 percent of men and women, respectively, had a body mass index (BMI) over 25, or in other words were overweight.

Tobacco is the biggest risk factor for cancer, and the WHO estimates that its use causes 22 percent of cancer deaths and 71 percent of lung cancer deaths globally.

Another 30 percent of cancer deaths are due to behavioral and dietary risks overall, such as having a high body mass index, poor diet, or lack of exercise.

“Our population is growing and aging… without having embraced healthy lifestyles that may help prevent many non-communicable diseases such as cancer,” wrote Dr. Abdallatif Woriekat, then minister of health, in Jordan’s 2010 national report on cancer incidence.

“The unhealthy diet and potentially lethal habit of tobacco use in particular, unfortunately, remains highly common and acceptable among Jordanians, and will undoubtedly leave a large unwanted print with its strong contribution to the increasing incidence of cancer,” he concluded.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/04/jordan-faces-looming-complex-cancer-burden/.