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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Sudanese journalists protest for detained Al-Jazeera journalists in Egypt

2014-02-27

KHARTOUM - About 100 Sudanese journalists and activists staged a silent vigil on Thursday in support of a global campaign to support Al-Jazeera television journalists detained in Egypt.

"Working as a journalist is not a crime," said a banner held by the protesters who gathered on a street near the Qatar-based satellite channel's Khartoum office.

The channel's local staff was among the demonstrators, who carried pictures of the four detained Al-Jazeera staff including Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed.

They have been held since December in a case that has sparked an international outcry.

Their trial began in a Cairo court last week, against the backdrop of strained ties between Cairo and Doha, which backed deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Morsi was ousted by the army in July.

The government has designated the Brotherhood a "terrorist organization", although the group denies involvement in a spate of bombings since Morsi's overthrow.

The journalists are accused of supporting the Brotherhood and broadcasting false reports, charges denied by the television network.

A fourth Al-Jazeera journalist, Abdullah al-Shami, has been held since August.

Al-Jazeera declared Thursday a "global day of action" in support of its staff and for media freedom generally.

Unusually for a protest in Sudan, no police were seen near the Khartoum vigil, which dispersed peacefully after about an hour.

Sudanese reporters have previously demonstrated against a lack of freedom in their own country, which ranked near the bottom, at 170 out of 179, in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2013 World Press Freedom Index.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=64533.

PAKISTAN: Flood Fatigue Closes Eyes to New Disaster

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Oct 6 2011 (IPS) - Men and women wading through waist-deep water with infants straddling their sides; a convoy of donkey carts laden with entire families’ possessions moving towards dry land; people being rescued by uniformed men in rubber boats; ailing elderly carried on rope cots; bird’s-eye views of vast tracts of land submerged under water.

The televised images of such enormous devastation in Pakistan may well have been reruns from last year, but they aren’t. Rather, the glaring pictures of helplessness, starvation, disease and death captured this past month mark the second straight year of floods wreaking havoc on 17 of the Sindh Province’s 23 districts, leaving 11 of them completely inundated.

As water levels remain stagnant throughout much of the province, which experts say is facing worse flooding than last year, official figures estimate that eight million people have been affected and 600,000 homes totally destroyed.

The death toll has already hit 400 since the floods began in August.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the United Nations food agency, claims the rains have destroyed 73 percent of the region’s crops and 67 percent of food stocks.

“I foresee growing food insecurity in Pakistan as there has been significant damage to cotton and sugarcane; vegetables and fodder have been destroyed and it will not be possible to cultivate wheat in November either,” says Dr Bakshal Lashari, director of the Institute of Water Resources Engineering & Management at Mehran University in the Sindh’s Jamshoro district. “The rural economy of Sindh depends on agriculture and livestock and both have been severely affected,” he told IPS.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), over 94,000 heads of livestock have perished, with “many more at risk of dying if they don’t get fodder and are not vaccinated against disease,” said Lashari.

In the days to come, he added, this significant loss of agricultural land and livestock will impact not only the lives of those directly affected by the floods, but the whole country.

Yet the disaster has failed to move the international community or the people of Pakistan to dig deep into their pockets. The response towards the victims has been, at best, half-hearted. The United Nations effort to raise 357 million dollars has resulted in the collection of just 19 million dollars.

One possible explanation for this apathy could be the dearth of news reporting from the flood-affected areas, leading people to believe that the floods aren’t as bad as last year’s, which submerged a fifth of the South Asian country and directly affected 21 million people.

“People are simply not aware how bad it is as the media is not highlighting it…floods don’t sell,” said Faisal Kapadia, a young entrepreneur, talking to IPS. Now, he says the “trust factor” has decreased because the “mainstream media, instead of encouraging private and public philanthropic ventures, choose to focus on incidents of corruption and (mismanagement) of relief efforts in Pakistan, (even though) this takes place everywhere in the world.”

Last week the private television channel DawnNews ran a four-hour telethon about the floods for two days, but Sophia Jamal, one of the program’s hosts, said the whole exercise was not only “quite painful” but futile: “People called in to chat or ask what the government was doing. I had half a mind to ask them what they were doing for their part,” she told IPS.

Beyond simple indifference to the plight of flood-affected victims, experts believe that the government’s mismanagement of the relief effort last year may have led some to turn their backs on the current crisis.

Speaking to IPS, Mubashir Akram, spokesperson for the UK-based charity Oxfam said experts developed an exhaustive plan for modern disaster risk reduction (DRR) steps after the 2010 floods, which the government failed to implement.

Among the nine priority areas identified by the NDMA were institutional and legal arrangements for disaster risk management (DRM), hazard and vulnerability assessment, setting up a multi-hazard early warning system, mainstreaming DRR into development, capacity development for post-disaster recovery, training, education and awareness.

“The measures would have required spending just 30 million dollars then and would have saved billions of dollars now,” he said.

The NDMA has reported that the government still has 56.8 million dollars left from last year’s fund, which it failed to release when people needed it most. Former NDMA chairman Nadeem Ahmed said “bureaucratic hitches” led to the non-utilization of the funds.

Naeem Sadiq, Karachi-based businessman was among the many urbanites who “saw the destruction and helplessness of inundated millions on such a large scale” for the very first time with his own eyes. Along with a few prominent philanthropists, he formed a group that conducted flood relief and rehabilitation work until the onset of the floods this year.

He too has observed a significant waning of enthusiasm or a “tragedy burnout”. “Some level of desensitisation and some fatigue, which is natural, have crept in this time,” Sadiq told IPS.

“Donor fatigue is a major issue,” agreed Kapadia. “People are tired of one disaster after another hitting this land. The economic conditions are very bad so people are donating less this time than last year, simply because they have less.”

But not everyone is feeling the dip in enthusiasm. Businessman Salim Tabani and his like-minded friends remain are working to provide immediate relief. In 2010 they distributed rations to 150,000 people over a period of three months. “In addition we finished building 1,000 wooden homes and 30 concrete ones for those whose homes were completely destroyed last year,” he said.

This year the group has collected about 20 percent of what they had gathered in 2010, primarily from the same donors. He finds “the excitement is less this year. I guess people are now used to these natural crises.”

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/10/pakistan-flood-fatigue-closes-eyes-to-new-disaster/.

Afghans protest in Kabul to demand foreign troops to leave

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- Afghans gathered on the streets of Kabul on Thursday to protest and demand foreign troops to withdraw immediately from the Asian country. The protests came a day before the U.S.-led military operation reaches its 10th year.

Protesters attending the demonstration chanted slogans against the United States, but also against Iran, Pakistan, the Taliban and the Karzai government, the Pajhwok Afghan News agency reported. There were no significant incidents, but the protest ended with the burning of a U.S. flag while protesters called the Afghan government a U.S. puppet.

The protests were led by the relatively small left-wing National Solidarity Party, which has around 30,000 members but a high following in different parts of the country, including Kabul, Farah, Kunar, and Nangarhar, among other provinces.

Demonstrators claimed insecurity, violence and corruption had all risen during the past ten years despite the presence of foreign troops in the country. Some of those protesting went on to allege that the Taliban is being supported by the United States.

Angry protesters called on all international forces to withdraw immediately from the country, arguing that the strategic agreement signing, which would allow permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan, would dishonor its history.

There are currently more than 130,000 NATO-led foreign troops in Afghanistan, including some 90,000 U.S. troops and more than 9,500 British soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama previously ordered a drawdown of 10,000 American troops later this year, with another 23,000 U.S. troops to return home next year.

Friday marks the tenth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/news/afghans-protest-in-kabul-to-demand-foreign-troops-to-leave.html.

From Riyadh to Beirut, fear of Syria blowback

February 28, 2014

BISARIYEH, Lebanon (AP) — The once-tranquil, religiously mixed village of Bisariyeh is seething: Two of its young men who fought alongside the rebels in Syria recently returned home radicalized and staged suicide bombings in Lebanon.

The phenomenon is being watched anxiously across the Mideast, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where authorities are moving decisively to prevent citizens from going off to fight in Syria. The developments illustrate how the Syrian war is sending dangerous ripples across a highly combustible region and sparking fears that jihadis will come home with dangerous ideas and turn their weapons against their own countries.

In Lebanon, where longstanding tensions between Sunnis and Shiites have been heightened by the conflict next door, the fear of blowback has very much turned into reality. The social fabric of towns and villages across the country is being torn by conflicting loyalties and a wave of bombings carried out by Sunni extremists in retaliation for the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah's military support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In the past few months, at least five Sunni men have disappeared from Bisariyeh, an impoverished, predominantly Shiite village in south Lebanon, and are believed to have gone to fight in Syria. Two of them — Nidal Mughayar and Adan al-Mohammad — returned and blew themselves up outside Iranian targets in Beirut. The blasts, by Mughayar on Feb. 19 and al-Mohammad on Nov. 18, killed scores.

"He was a good man with a good heart, but it seems that people who have no conscience brainwashed him," Hisham al-Mughayar said of his 20-year-old son. As news spread in the village that Nidal was one of the bombers, angry Shiite residents marched to his parents' home and set it on fire along with the family's grocery and four vehicles.

"He destroyed himself and destroyed us with him," said the father, as he took an Associated Press reporter on a tour of his torched, two-story house, much of its furniture reduced to ashes. Concern about such radicalization has sent Mideast governments scrambling into action.

After years of often turning a blind eye to jihadists taking up arms abroad, Saudi Arabia is enacting new laws and backing a campaign to stop its citizens from joining Syria's civil war. The intention is to send a clear message that those who defy the law are to fight to the death and are not welcome back.

The move, in part, reflects pressure from Saudi ally the U.S., which wants to see the overthrow of Assad but is alarmed by the rising influence of hard-line foreign jihadists — many of them linked to al-Qaida — among the rebels.

Many Saudis have been easy recruitment targets for jihadist organizations. Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi. The oil-rich kingdom was among several nations that backed the anti-communist mujahedeen forces fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Saudi fighters have traveled to other Muslim hotspots around the world since then.

More recently, at the urging of Saudi preachers and even judges, thousands of fighters from Saudi Arabia — home to a strict, puritanical strain of Sunni Islam — have joined the 3-year-old uprising against Assad, whose government is dominated by members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Saudi officials said fewer than 3,000 Saudis are believed to be fighting in Syria, but analysts and other estimates put the figure as high as 15,000. While Saudi Arabia continues to support opposition groups in Syria with weapons and other aid, King Abdullah issued a decree in the past month: Any citizen who fights abroad faces three to 20 years in prison. And anyone who incites people to join foreign wars can get five to 30 years.

"The Saudis are very much concerned about a repeat of the 2004 jihadist insurgency inside the kingdom, led at the time by Osama Bin Laden," said analyst Bilal Saab, referring to a wave of militant attacks inside the country.

"It took time and a considerable amount of resources to counter the insurgency then. If it were to happen again in today's regional environment where radicalization is on the increase, Saudi counterterrorism efforts will face even more formidable challenges," added Saab, a senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.

History is rife with examples of militants returning home from wars with radical intentions. Thousands of Muslims worldwide who went off to Afghanistan during the 10-year Soviet occupation returned home fired with the fervor of jihad and sought to overthrow their own, sometimes secular-leaning governments. Many established radical groups in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Caucuses and elsewhere.

The shift to criminalize fighting abroad is gaining traction in the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt's military leadership has taken a stricter stand, and Bahrain is drawing up legislation. Tunisia said it has prevented 8,000 from going to Syria and is putting together a database to monitor hundreds of fighters who have returned.

Tens of thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Syria to take part in the war to topple Assad. Thousands of Shiites, including Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, have rushed to Assad's defense. A perpetually troubled country with a weak central government, Lebanon has been a prime victim of the spillover violence.

In Bisariyeh, Hisham al-Mughayar has moved in with his parents. His daughters have stopped going to school, and his other son is no longer going to work for fear of more reprisals. "Had I known where my son was, I would have gone and got him. We are innocent of all he did," he said. "This is a catastrophe that struck us, although we have nothing to do with it."

Batrawy reported from the United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon in Kabul, Paul Schemm in Morocco, and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

Dahlan, exiled Palestinian leader, builds comeback

February 28, 2014

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Fueled by millions in Gulf aid dollars that are his to distribute, an exiled Palestinian operative seems to be orchestrating a comeback that could position him as a potential successor to aging Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

In a phone interview from London, Mohammed Dahlan spoke of his aid projects in the Gaza Strip, his closeness to Egypt's military leaders and his conviction that the 79-year-old Abbas has left the Palestinian national cause in tatters.

If staging a successful return, Dahlan, a former Gaza security chief once valued by the West for his pragmatism, could reshuffle a stagnant Palestinian deck. Some caution that Dahlan has made too many enemies in Abbas' Fatah movement and will continue to be ostracized by those planning to compete for the top job in the future.

Dahlan, 52, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he is "not looking for any post" after Abbas retires, but called for new elections and an overhaul of Fatah. "Abbas will leave only ruins and who would be interested to be a president or vice president on these ruins?" Dahlan said. "What I am interested in is a way out of our political situation, not a political position."

In the past, he and Abbas were among the leading supporters of negotiations with Israel as the preferred path to statehood. Dahlan now believes the current U.S.-led talks "will bring nothing for the Palestinian people," alleging Abbas has made concessions that his predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat, would not have.

Abbas aide Nimr Hamad and senior Fatah official Jamal Muhaisen declined to comment Thursday on Dahlan's statements. Last week, Muhaisen said anyone expressing support for Dahlan would be purged from Fatah.

A bitter feud between Abbas and Dahlan seems mostly personal, but also highlights the dysfunctional nature of Fatah, paralyzed by incessant internal rivalries, and Abbas' apparent unwillingness to tolerate criticism.

Abbas banished Dahlan in 2010, after his former protege purportedly called him weak. Dahlan has since spent his time between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Before the fallout he was one of a few Palestinian leaders who saw themselves as potential contenders for succeeding Abbas.

Dahlan grew up poor in a Gaza refugee camp, but as a top aide to Arafat became the territory's strongman in the 1990s, jailing leaders of rival Hamas which was trying to derail Arafat's negotiation with Israel through bombing and shooting attacks.

Dahlan was dogged by corruption allegations at the time, like Arafat and several other senior Palestinian politicians, but has denied wrongdoing and was never charged. In exile, he has nurtured political and business ties in the Arab world.

Dahlan said this week that he has been raising millions of dollars from business people and charities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere for needy Palestinians. Last year, he said he delivered $8 million to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

"In Gaza, I do the same now," he said. "I'm collecting money for desalination in Gaza. It's unbearable. Fifty percent of the water in the houses is sewage water. Hamas and Abbas are doing nothing to solve the real problems of the Gazans."

When asked if he was buying political support with Gulf money, he said: "This is not political money." He added that the UAE also provides financial aid to Abbas. Dahlan's relationship with Gaza and former arch-enemy Hamas is particularly complex.

Security forces under Dahlan lost control of Gaza in a brief battle with Hamas gunmen in 2007. The defeat cemented the Palestinian political split, leading to rival governments, one run by Hamas in Gaza and the other by Abbas in parts of the West Bank, and was seen as perhaps the biggest blot on Dahlan's career.

However, there are now signs of a possible rapprochement between Dahlan and the Islamic militants — apparently because of Dahlan's close ties to Egyptian military chief, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Dahlan said he has met el-Sissi several times and supported last year's coup — he called it the "Egyptian revolution" — against the country's ruling Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Gaza offshoot of the Brotherhood.

Since the coup, el-Sissi has tightened a closure of Gaza's border with Egypt. That blockade has squeezed Hamas financially, and the Islamic militants have been looking for ways to pry the border open.

In January, Hamas allowed three Fatah leaders loyal to Dahlan to return to the territory. The Fatah returnees and Hamas officials formed a committee to oversee construction of a new Gaza town to be funded by the UAE, said a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the contacts.

Senior Fatah officials accuse Dahlan of trying to split the movement. "Dahlan has created an alliance with Hamas," Nabil Shaath, an Abbas aide, has told Palestine TV. Dahlan loyalists in Gaza "have distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars without having the movement's permission," he said.

Underlying Fatah's fears about a return of Dahlan is the open question of succession. Abbas was elected in 2005, but overstayed his five-year term because the Hamas-Fatah split has prevented new elections. Abbas has not designated a successor and there is no clear contender.

The only other Palestinian politician with broad support according to polls is Marwan Barghouti, an uprising leader who is serving multiple life sentences in Israeli prison. Analyst Hani al-Masri said regional support has boosted Dahlan, but that he's not a serious challenger yet because he has not offered any plans.

Palestinians "won't support a specific leader without being convinced of his political platform," he said.

Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Hamas making feature film on Shalit's capture

2014-02-28

By Adel ZAANOUN - GAZA CITY

A young Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants and held for five years before being traded for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners is the subject of an ambitious low-budget film being made by his captors.

The fate of Gilad Shalit, a corporal captured in a deadly cross-border raid when he was just 19, transfixed Israel for years as his captivity in an unknown location challenged what most Israelis see as the state's sacred duty to bring its soldiers home.

But for the Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza, his capture and eventual exchange for more than 1,000 prisoners was a triumph for the "resistance," an epic worthy of a blockbuster feature -- even if produced on a shoestring budget.

A shortage of funds has drastically slowed the production, and even its director said it may not live up to the high-quality epic envisioned.

Entitled "Fleeting Illusion," the 90-minute film promises revelations about Shalit's capture and top-secret captivity "about which neither Shalit nor the resistance have spoken before," director and screenwriter Majed Jundiyeh said.

Jundiyeh, who says he is not a member of Hamas, made the 2009 biopic "Emad Akel" about a commander of Hamas' military wing who headed Israel's hit list until he was killed in 1993.

Filming on his latest work began in December, and the first of the film's two parts was to have been ready for the eighth anniversary of Shalit's June 2006 capture by Hamas and two other militant groups, whose fighters tunneled into Israel and attacked a border post.

Shalit was eventually released in October 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians.

Gilad's father Noam Shalit, who was long the public face of the campaign for his release, declined to speak about the film, saying he did not want to "engage in a dialogue with Hamas."

"The story is behind us," he said.

The first scenes of the film were shot in a small room at the ministry of prisoners' affairs, depicting a dark Israeli cell where Hamas fighter Mustafa Muammar is being questioned after his capture by Israeli troops on the eve of the Shalit raid.

Muammar's interrogators, played by fellow Gazan actors, plunge his head into a bucket of water to try to make him cough up information that could compromise the operation planned for the next day.

"I dream that this film on Shalit will make me known in the world," says the actor playing Muammar, 21-year-old Mohammad Radhi, a journalism student by day.

His interrogator is played by Mohammad Abu Qumsane, son of a militant killed by Israel.

"I love being an actor because it is a way of expressing the issue of prisoners with humanity," he says.

Most of the cast of 40, among them 12 women, are amateurs, says Jundiyeh, who himself plays an Israeli officer.

He says that Mohammad Qarara, cast in the role of Shalit, gets paid "no more than 2,000 shekels ($570, 400 euros) a month."

- A low-budget production -

The film will by necessity be a low-budget affair, in part because Shalit's capture prompted Israel to impose a blockade on Gaza that remains to this day, though some of the restrictions have been eased in recent years.

The initial budget for the film, produced by the Hamas government's culture ministry, was slated at $2.5 million, but Jundiyeh eventually had to settle for a frugal $320,000.

"It could show in the (film's) quality," he admitted.

"The Iranian ministry of culture had been expected to finance the film but its support stopped because of deteriorating relations between Iran and Hamas over the situation in Syria," Jundiyeh said.

Tehran supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Hamas, which long maintained a Damascus headquarters, turned on the regime following the 2011 uprising.

But Gaza's culture minister, Mohammad al-Madhun, insists that bridges with Iran have not been burned and that there is a joint project under way to make a feature film about the devastating 22-day Israeli campaign against Hamas launched in December 2008.

He said the Shalit film captures "the special atmosphere of keeping watch on Shalit, his concealment and relaxed moments on a Gaza beach illustrating civilized and humane treatment of prisoners."

Gaza resident Noha Nassar said he would like to see the film and learn how Shalit's captors kept him hidden for so long in the narrow coastal strip, which is nearly surrounded by Israeli forces and closely monitored by aerial drones.

But with Gaza's cinemas having been destroyed by Islamists several years ago, the film is likely to be screened only by the few cultural institutions still functioning, before being broadcast on local TV.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=64543.

Algerian police break up Bouteflika protest

March 01, 2014

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Police used clubs to break up a small demonstration Saturday by Algerians opposed to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decision to run for a fourth term in elections next month.

Around a hundred people waving signs reading "No to a fourth term" and "No to the humiliation of Algeria" were prevented from gathering in front of a university in the capital by police, one of the organizers, Hakim Raissi, told The Associated Press.

Bouteflika, 76, has not appeared in public for two years and is visibly weaker since suffering a stroke last year. Even so, he is expected to win the election with the backing of the powerful state apparatus.

Several opposition parties have already called for a boycott of the election, saying its results would be a foregone conclusion.

Ex-PM: Bouteflika regime not good for Algeria

2014-02-28

Hamrouche calls for 'peaceful' change of regime which he says is no longer capable of running Algeria.

ALGIERS - Former Algerian premier Mouloud Hamrouche Thursday called for a "peaceful" change of the regime, which he said was no longer capable of running the country, joining a growing chorus of dissent.

Hamrouche said April's presidential election, in which ailing leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika is expected to seek a fourth term after his candidacy was announced last week, was "pointless", whether or not his mandate is renewed.

"The factors paralyzing (Algeria) are still there," he told reporters at a press conference in Algiers.

"This regime has crumbled and will fall (which is why) I want to see it fall in a peaceful way, not in a wave of violence," added Hamrouche, a pro-reform prime minister between 1989 and 1991 whose government was credited with the emergence of Algeria's private press.

"The crisis goes beyond this election... which is pointless... My feeling is that this regime is not good for Algeria."

His comments come amid growing concern about Bouteflika serving a fourth term, given the physical state of the president, in power for 15 years and who turns 77 on Sunday.

Bouteflika's health woes had made his chances of contesting the poll appear highly unlikely.

He was hospitalized in Paris for three months after suffering a mini-stroke last year, has chaired just two cabinet meetings since returning home in July, and has not spoken in public for nearly two years.

His effective absence comes despite numerous social and security challenges facing the oil-rich North African country.

Hamrouche, one of the six candidates to withdraw from the 1999 presidential poll that brought Bouteflika to power citing electoral fraud, said the Algerian military should play a role in any change of regime.

"There's no chance of democracy emerging without the support of the army," he said.

"I'm not calling for a military coup. I'm not calling for the army to prevent Bouteflika from taking part in the elections. I'm calling on it to save Algeria from this impasse."

Another well-known political figure to speak out against Bouteflika this week was Said Sadi, the respected former leader of the secular opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy party.

He urged Algerians to "delegitimise" the upcoming elections, while calling for a political transition similar to the one that took place last month in Tunisia.

Sadi, who co-founded the RCD in 1989 and stepped down as its leader in 2012 "to make way for young people", was speaking after his party, alongside the Islamist MSP and Ennahda, encouraged Algerians to boycott the presidential poll, calling it a "masquerade" whose results were already known.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=64540.

South Korea joins Japanese ban on U.S. wheat imports after shocking GMO contamination announcement by USDA

Sunday, June 02, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) News about the GMO contamination of U.S. wheat crops seems to be spreading faster than the GMOs themselves. On Friday, South Korea joined Japan in announcing a halt on imports of U.S. wheat due to the USDA's recent announcement that commercial wheat grown in the USA is contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered wheat.

Some Americans may still not realize this, but GMOs are outlawed or shunned nearly everywhere around the world. Only in the USA have GMOs managed to avoid being labeled or outlawed -- and that's primarily due to Monsanto's financial influence over lawmakers.

Monsanto shares plummeted 4 percent on Friday following the announcement by South Korea. This is completely in line with predictions made here at Natural News, where I said earlier in the week, before Japan and South Korea announced their wheat boycotts:

All wheat produced in the United States will now be heavily scrutinized -- and possibly even rejected -- by other nations that traditionally import U.S. wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for U.S. farmers and agriculture.

How much of the U.S. wheat supply is now contaminated with GMOs?

"...the mysterious appearance of the Monsanto wheat has raised questions about how the strain traveled there and whether it is lurking in the commercial wheat crop," reports the Washington Post.

WashPo goes on to report that Monsanto, "is still testing strains of gene-altered wheat in Hawaii and North Dakota."

In truth, nobody knows how much of the wheat is contaminated. Every more shockingly, food companies don't bother testing wheat for GMOs, either!

Until now, that is. All of a sudden, food importers all around the world are wondering whether they are inadvertently buying U.S. wheat that's contaminated with GMOs. Consumers, too, are asking the question, "Have I been eating GMO wheat without even knowing it?" These Monsanto wheat experiments, after all, have been taking place since 1998.

Is Monsanto lurking in your Wheaties?

U.S. farmers suddenly seeing the economic damage that Monsanto can do

The real issue in all this, however, is an economic issue. Suddenly U.S. farmers are seeing the kind of economic destruction that can be caused by Monsanto's genetic engineering experiments.

Thanks to Monsanto and the USDA -- which approved the open-field experiments -- every U.S. farmer who grows wheat is now at high risk of losing enormous sums of money on a food crop that's increasingly being rejected around the world. This means Monsanto is pushing U.S. farmers toward bankruptcy while harming America's exports and GDP. Monsanto has become a force of economic destruction in America.

Will Monsanto reimburse all these farmers who suffer an economic loss? Not without being sued, of course. Perhaps it's time for a nationwide class-action lawsuit against Monsanto, supported by all commercial farmers who hope to be able to protect their crops from market-crushing GMO contamination.

Nobody wants GMOs except Monsanto!

Consumers don't want GMOs, farmers don't want GMOs, foreign nations don't want GMOs and food companies don't want to deal with the hassle of GMOs either. The only entity that still wants GMO in America is the very company making money off GMO: Monsanto.

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/040604_GMO_contamination_wheat_South_Korea.html.

North Korea fires three short-range missiles

Sun May 19, 2013

(Reuters) - North Korea fired three short-range missiles from its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's Defense Ministry said, prompting Western powers to urge Pyongyang to exercise restraint.

Launches by the North of short-range missiles are not uncommon but, after recent warnings from the communist state of impending nuclear war, such actions raise concerns about the region's security.

"North Korea fired short-range guided missiles twice in the morning and once in the afternoon off its east coast," an official at the South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman's office said by telephone.

The official declined to speculate on whether the missiles had been fired as part of a drill or training exercise.

"In case of any provocation, the ministry will keep monitoring the situation and remain on alert," he said.

A Japanese government source noted the three launches, but said none of the missiles had landed in Japan's territorial waters, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has subsided in the past month, having run high for several weeks after the United Nations Security Council imposed tougher sanctions against Pyongyang following its third nuclear test in February.

The North had for weeks issued nearly daily warnings of impending nuclear war with the South and the United States.

The United States declined to comment directly on the reported launches but said it was monitoring the situation.

"We continue to urge North Korea to exercise restraint and take steps to improve its relations with its neighbors," the State Department and the Pentagon said in a statement.

Britain's Foreign Office said: "We have been clear to North Korea that its long-term interests will not be served by threatening the international community and increasing regional tensions."

North Korea conducts regular launches of its Scud short-range missiles, which can hit targets in South Korea.

It conducted a successful launch of a long-range missile last December, saying it had put a weather satellite into orbit. The United States and its allies denounced the launch as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead.

During the weeks of high tension, South Korea reported that the North had moved missile launchers into place on its east coast for the possible launch of a medium-range Musudan missile. The Musudan has a range of 3,500 km, putting Japan in range and possibly the U.S. South Pacific island of Guam.

(Reporting by Jane Chung; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/19/us-korea-north-missiles-idUSBRE94H04P20130519.

S. Korea to withdraw workers from Kaesong complex in N. Korea

April 26, 2013

SEOUL, April 26 (UPI) -- South Korean workers will be pulled from a factory zone in North Korea because it rejected the South's offer to discuss problems at the complex, officials said.

The decision to pull the workers, announced Friday by Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, raised questions about what will happen to the jointly run Kaesong Industrial Complex, which has been basically idle since North Korea withdrew its laborers in early April, Yonhap reported.

"We made the decision to withdraw all workers in light of mounting difficulties they face at the complex," Ryoo said.

As of Friday, 175 South Koreans were at the factory zone, down from 800, Unification Ministry officials said. On April 9, North Korea withdrew its 53,000 laborers who work for South Korean companies, virtually shuttering the complex.

Ryoo accused North Korea of turning its back on its obligations and agreements it had reached with South Korea to open the zone in 2004.

South Korea announced its decision several hours after North Korea turned down Seoul's proposal for government-level dialogue. South Korea had warned it could take "grave action" of its own regarding the industrial zone.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/04/26/S-Korea-to-withdraw-workers-from-Kaesong-complex-in-N-Korea/UPI-83371366975233/.

How Crimea differs from the rest of Ukraine

March 01, 2014

The Crimean peninsula, the main flashpoint in Ukraine's crisis, is a pro-Russia part of Ukraine separated from the rest of the country geographically, historically and politically. It also hosts Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine has accused Russia of invading it. Here's some key information about the region:

ON THE BLACK SEA The Crimean Peninsula juts into the Black Sea, all but an island except for a narrow strip of land in the north connecting it to the mainland. On its eastern shore, a finger of land reaches out almost to Russia. It's best known in the West as the site of the 1945 Yalta Conference, where Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sealed the postwar division of Europe.

WHY IT'S PART OF UKRAINE It only became part of Ukraine when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the peninsula to his native land in 1954. This hardly mattered until the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 and Crimea ended up in an independent Ukraine. Despite that, nearly 60 percent of its population of 2 million identify themselves as Russians.

THE BLACK SEA FLEET On Crimea's southern shore sits the port city of Sevastopol, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and its thousands of naval personnel. Russia kept its half of the Soviet fleet, but was rattled in 2009 when the pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko warned that it would have to leave the key port by 2017. Shortly after pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych was elected president in 2010, he agreed to extend the Russian lease until 2042. Russia fears that Ukraine's new pro-Western government could evict it.

THE TATARS The 1991 fall of the Soviet Union also brought the return of the Crimean Tatars, the native hosts of the land that fell to Russia under Catherine the Great in the 18th century. They were brutally deported in 1944 under Stalin. The Crimean Tatars, who now make up about 12 percent of its population, have sided with the anti-Yanukovych protesters in Kiev who drove his government from power.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE British nurse Florence Nightingale was celebrated for treating wounded soldiers during the Crimean War of the mid-19th century, which Russia lost to an alliance that included Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. She is now considered the founder of modern nursing.

Crimean leader claims control, asks Putin for help

March 01, 2014

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The pro-Russian prime minister of Ukraine's restive Crimea claimed control of all military, police and other security services in the region Saturday and appealed to Russia's president for help in keeping peace there. President Barack Obama warned Moscow "there will be costs" if it intervenes militarily.

In a statement reported by local and Russian news agencies, Sergei Aksenov declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards will answer only to his orders. He said any commanders who don't agree should leave their posts.

Ukraine has accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" — a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis. "Understanding my responsibility for the life and security of citizens, I appeal to the president of Russia Vladimir Putin for assistance in guaranteeing peace and calmness on the territory of the autonomous republic of Crimea," Aksenov, the head of the main pro-Russia party on the strategic peninsula, said in his statement.

Ukraine's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support.

Crimea, a southeastern peninsula of Ukraine that has semi-autonomous status, was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. It became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

Aksenov was appointed by the Crimean parliament on Thursday as tensions soared over Crimea's resistance to the new authorities in Kiev, who took power last week. Armed men described as Russian troops on Friday took control of key airports and a communications center in Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based.

In a hastily arranged statement delivered from the White House, Obama called on Russia to respect the independence and territory of Ukraine and not try to take advantage of its neighbor, which is undergoing political upheaval.

"Any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing," Obama said. Such action by Russia would not serve the interests of the Ukrainian people, Russia or Europe, Obama said, and would represent a "profound interference" in matters he said must be decided by the Ukrainian people.

"Just days after the world came to Russia for the Olympic Games, that would invite the condemnation of nations around the world," Obama said. "The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine."

He did not say what those costs might be. Earlier Friday, Ukraine's fugitive president resurfaced in Russia to deliver a defiant condemnation of what he called a "bandit coup." Appearing for the first time since fleeing Ukraine last week, Viktor Yanukovych struck a tone both of bluster and caution — vowing to "keep fighting for the future of Ukraine," while ruling out seeking Russian military help.

"Any military action in this situation is unacceptable," Yanukovych told reporters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, near the border with Ukraine. Then, seeking to make a firm point, he tried — and failed — to break a pen.

At the United Nations, the Ukrainian ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said that 10 Russian transport aircraft and 11 attack helicopters had arrived in Crimea illegally, and that Russian troops had taken control of two airports in Crimea.

He described the gunmen posted outside the two airports as Russian armed forces as well as "unspecified" units. "Some of them identified themselves as Russians. We know specifically some of the units," Sergeyev said. He also said the Russians had captured the main air traffic control center on Crimea.

Serhiy Astakhov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border service, said eight Russian transport planes landed in the Crimea Peninsula with unknown cargo. He told The Associated Press that the Il-76 planes arrived unexpectedly and were given permission to land, one after the other, at Gvardeiskoye air base, north of the regional capital, Simferopol. Astakhov said the people in the planes refused to identify themselves and waved off customs officials, saying they didn't require their services.

Russia kept silent on claims of military intervention, even as it maintained its hard-line stance on protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea, a territory that was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires and has played a symbolic role in Russia's national identity.

Earlier Friday, AP journalists in Crimea spotted a convoy of nine Russian armored personnel carriers on a road between the port city of Sevastopol, where Russia has a naval base, and the regional capital, Simferopol. Later in the day, the airspace was closed over the peninsula, apparently due to tensions at the two airports.

Russian armored vehicles bearing the nation's tricolor rumbled across Crimea and men described as Russian troops took position at airports and a coast guard base. Oleksandr Turchynov, who stepped in as president after Yanukovych fled Kiev last weekend, urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop "provocations" in Crimea and pull back military forces from the peninsula. Turchynov said the Ukrainian military would fulfill its duty but would not be drawn into provocations.

In Kiev, Ukraine's newly named interior minister accused Russia of military aggression. "I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation," Arsen Avakov wrote in a Facebook post. In recent conversations between U.S. and Russian officials, including a lengthy telephone conversation between Obama and Putin just last week, Obama said the U.S. has made clear that Russia can be part of an international community's effort to support the stability and success of Ukraine.

But, he said Friday, "we are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine." U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power told reporters that the United States was proposing an urgent mediation mission to help resolve the crisis.

Russia is supposed to notify Ukraine of any troop movements outside the Black Sea Fleet naval base it maintains in Sevastopol under a lease agreement with Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the military vehicles were deployed to ensure the security of its base and didn't contradict the lease terms.

A duty officer at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it had no information about the vehicles' movements. AP journalists approaching the Sevastopol airport found the road leading to it blocked by two military trucks and a handful of gunmen wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying assault rifles.

A car with Russian military plates was stopped at the roadblock. A man wearing a military uniform with a Russian flag on his sleeve got out of the car and was allowed to enter on foot after a brief discussion with the gunmen.

Meanwhile, Ukraine International Airlines said it had canceled flights to and from the Simferopol airport on Friday evening and Saturday because of the closure of the airspace over Crimea. The announcement did not say who had ordered the closure.

At the airport, dozens of armed men in military uniforms without markings patrolled the area. They didn't stop or search people leaving or entering the airport, and refused to talk to journalists. One man who identified himself only as Vladimir said the men were part of the Crimean People's Brigade, which he described as a self-defense unit ensuring that no "radicals and fascists" arrive from other parts of Ukraine. There was no way to verify his account.

In Kiev, the prosecutor-general's office said it would seek Yanukovych's extradition to Ukraine, where he is wanted on suspicion of mass murder in violent clashes last week between protesters and police that left more than 80 people dead.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's telecom provider, Ukrtelecom JSC, said unknown people seized several communications centers in the Crimea late Friday, knocking out the company's ability to connect the peninsula with the rest of the country. The statement on the company's website said there were almost no landline, Internet or mobile services operating in the Crimea.

Ritter reported from Kiev. AP reporters Laura Mills in Rostov-on-Don, Russia; Ivan Sekretarev in Simferopol, Ukraine; Maria Danilova in Kiev; Nataliya Vasilyeva and Jim Heintz in Moscow; and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

At heart of Ukraine drama, a tale of two countries

March 01, 2014

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — In the afternoon, when the shift ends at the coal mine and the miners walk out into the cold and past the old concrete statue of Lenin, they often head to a tiny corner store a block away. There they'll stand in the parking lot for a while, drinking little bottles of the vodka called "Truthful."

They know what is happening in Kiev, the capital city that can seem so far away. They've seen pictures of the democracy protesters shot dead in Kiev's streets, and the TV reports on the mansions of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, the one-time thug and pro-Russia politician who grew up in this far-eastern city. They watched from afar this week as protesters, many from western Ukraine, helped form the country's new government.

They don't like it at all. "I have always felt that we are so different," said a miner who gave his name only as Nikolai, a thickset 35-year-old who went from high school directly into the mines. People speak Russian across most of Ukraine's east, and worship in onion-domed Orthodox churches. They were shaped by 70 years of Soviet rule and its celebration of socialist industrialization, and by the Russian empire before that. To them, the government is now being run by outsiders who care little for this side of the country. "If they try to pressure us, our region will revolt."

His words are echoed — except for a few key words — in a conversation 800 miles (1,250 kilometers) to the west, in a medieval cobblestoned city, Ukrainian-speaking residents and houses displaying the EU flag and its yellow stars.

"We are simply different people from those living in the East," said Ludmila Petrova, a university student in Lviv, a hotbed of support for Ukraine's pro-democracy forces and opposition to Yanukovych. "They don't know what the West is. We have a different history. Maybe it is better that we separate once and for all."

If Ukraine looks neatly delineated on maps, its often-bloody history is a tangle of invasions and occupations, peoples and beliefs. It is a place that has been struggling for centuries to define itself. And now it finds itself so sharply divided — between support for Russia on one side of the country and loyalty to the West on the other — that it often seems more like two countries than one.

On opposite sides of Ukraine, two cities, each of about 1 million people, illustrate that divide. The eastern city of Donetsk can seem like a cliche of post-Soviet grimness, a place of Stalinist-era apartment blocks, tin-roofed shacks and loyalty to Russia. In the west, Lviv has emerged as a center for Ukrainian artists and writers, a huge draw for European tourists and a city desperate for closer ties to the West.

To the fiercest pessimists, as well as to extremists on both sides, the cities are already in different nations. "The country is already separated," said Ivan Reyko, a 30-year-old factory worker from Donetsk who joined a recent demonstration of about 100 people in the city's main plaza, Lenin Square, where a 30-foot-tall statue of the Soviet hero gazes proudly toward the horizon. "There is no way back to a united Ukraine."

A recent series of ominous signs has diplomats warning the region could easily stumble into widespread violence. Among them: military drills just across the border by 150,000 Russian soldiers, and the seizure of the parliament building in the Russian-speaking region of Crimea by unidentified gunmen, who flew the Russian flag and chanted "Crimea is Russia."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been long dreaming of pulling Ukraine, a sprawling country of 46 million seen as the ancient cradle of Slavic civilization, closer to Moscow. In Lviv, though, a bookish, soft-spoken mayor is dreaming of something else.

Andriy Sadovyi has been a powerful symbol of resistance to Yanukovych, as well as regional powerbroker who cut ties to the central government even before the president was forced from power. Sadovyi, who insists he only wants regional autonomy in Ukraine, has called repeatedly for unity.

"Ukraine is strong only if it is united," he said a couple days after Yanukovych fled the presidential compound. "Any division would destroy Ukraine." Modern Lviv sees itself at the core of Ukrainian hopes for a more open, democratic government. But the area, once part of neighboring Poland and long a wealthy agricultural region, also saw the rise of a series of nationalist movements in the 1930s. When Germany invaded Ukraine during World War II, some residents cooperated with the Nazi occupiers, who were seen as liberators from the hated Soviets. Tens of thousands of the region's Jews disappeared into Nazi camps or were gunned down in their homes by death squads.

When the war ended, Moscow exacted its revenge: nationalist fighters who fought Red Army soldiers were purged and sent to prison gulags, along with Roman Catholic and nationalist leaders who could challenge Russian authority. The city was transformed from a cosmopolitan center into a decaying backwater. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, political groups from Lviv were key in fighting for Ukraine's independence.

For two decades, anti-Russian feelings quietly burned across the region, along with anger at Yanukovych. Even today, thousands of people in western Ukraine, a handful even wearing Nazi-themed uniforms, hold rallies every year honoring men who fought Stalin's forces during World War II.

Fierce historical loyalties helped drive the support that has poured from Lviv into Kiev and the capital's Independence Square, epicenter of the anti-Yanukovych protests, which began late last year. For months, Lviv residents have donated food, medicine and clothing for the protesters, and many have joined them. The city's churches serve as warehouses for aid for the demonstrators, who continue to occupy the square, fearing the return of the former president or his supporters.

Over the months, western Ukraine became virtually independent as Yanukovych focused his attention on the Kiev uprising. Then, a few days ahead of Yanukovych's disappearance, central rule all but disappeared in Lviv, when masked youths stormed the city's police headquarters, looted weapons and set fire to a number of municipal buildings. With policemen nowhere to be seen, order in the city fell to unarmed "voluntary citizen patrols" in bright yellow vests.

A handful of regional leaders also began talking about changing the country's laws, so that Russian is no longer recognized as an official language. This terrifies some in Donetsk, which is in the heart of a region where Russian has been the main language for generations.

Alexander Kravtsov, a top official in Donetsk and member of Yanukovych's political party, says he believes most people in the region still believe in a united Ukraine, but warned that the number who identify with Russia will grow significantly if they feel threatened.

"People are scared of what has happened in Kiev," he said. Talk to the pro-Russia protesters at Donetsk's Lenin Square, and the list of those blamed for the changes in Kiev ranges from Ukrainian fascists to Jews to Masons to the U.S. government.

Out by the mines entrance, though, few have the energy to protest. Donetsk was built directly over a maze of mines, and the city's working-class neighborhoods sit beside mountains of reddish slag that can rise 10 stories high. They are places where stray dogs are blackened by the dust that fills the air and where you can never escape the oily smell of coal. The little houses, with their leaning plaster walls and central chimneys, look like something out of the 19th century. They are filled with people who say they can barely feed their families between paychecks, and who are far too frightened to give their names to a reporter.

They may not like what is going on in Kiev, but most are simply focused on keeping their jobs. "I don't go to political meetings, I don't go to protests," said a somber, fifty-something miner with exhausted eyes and bad teeth. The idea of war, or of a divided country, frightens him more than anything else.

"All of us are Ukrainian. All of us," he said. "We are one people."

Sullivan reported from Donetsk and Stojanovic from Lviv.

Ukraine gets look at fugitive leader's documents

February 28, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians are getting an unfiltered look at the opulent lifestyle and alleged machinations of fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych and his top officials from thousands of documents being posted online by journalists who say it's more important to record their country's history — and document possible crimes — than hold them back for their own scoops.

Visitors to the YanukovychLeaks.org website can browse what appear to be the expense payments for running the sprawling compound just outside Kiev that reportedly was Yanukovych's home. The website had 1,581 documents online by Friday afternoon after attracting more than 300,000 visitors a day for several days this week.

"The recovered documents are being published on this website to make them available to journalists and citizens around the world," the site said. "The investigations based on these documents will also be published here and in Ukrainian media."

The documents include a payment of over $115,000 for a shooting range with a moving wild boar and $2.3 million for a tea room. Many other payments seem routine, such as money for roads and gardening, and $150 for tennis balls. There were payments to six cooks and three waiters.

New Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk has said the country is almost broke and that billions had been taken out of the country. Three Alpine nations moved Friday to block assets that Yanukovych and some of his associates might have stashed away there, and Swiss authorities opened a money-laundering investigation into Yanukovych and his son. Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein all have banking systems that have in the past been favored by investors as a place to hide funds. All are at pains to prevent their banks being used to hide and launder ill-gotten funds.

Yanukovych's residence in Mezhyhirya Park, about 140 hectares (345 acres) of forested hills along the Dnipro River, has become for many Ukrainians a symbol of a corrupt administration. The president said Friday that he had bought a 620-square-meter (6,675-square-foot) house for $3.2 million at the site and rented some other land and facilities nearby.

The paperwork was scooped out of a pond by volunteer divers and then dried and scanned or photographed by journalists. They entered the property along with the public after Yanukovych's administration dissolved in the face of mass protests and the deaths of more than 80 people, mostly demonstrators calling for his removal.

Vlad Lavrov, one of 16 journalists involved in the project, said the first impulse among the group was to hold the documents back for analysis and then publish articles based on them. "That was the first thought, but then we realized the public needs to know what is going on," said Lavrov, who works for the English-language Kyiv Post.

"This is not really a situation where you can have exclusives," he said. "This is a turning point in history. And these documents are a way to ensure full prosecution of the crimes that were committed."

Other journalists listed as taking part represent organizations including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Ukraine's STB television channel, the hromadske.tv video news website, svidomo.org website, and the SCOOP investigative journalists' network managed by the Danish Association of Investigative Journalism.

Two high-volume scanners have been running almost around the clock. Documents that were too damaged to be scanned were instead photographed. Members of the public offered food and their own equipment, with one person bringing over satellite equipment when the group's Internet service went down.

The last of the documents was to be put on line by the end of Friday. Lavrov said the documents would ultimately be left for the police to secure. Other document troves are getting attention as well. Protesters said they took documents from the villa of former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka. In this case, too, the approach has been to post first and analyze and publish later.

One document posted on Ukrainian news sites is a purported appeal from Pshonka to Yanukovych to impose a state of emergency to crack down on protesters, calling them "a real threat to the security of people and to the constitutional order."

Prominent Ukrainian investigative journalist Mustafa Nayem said on his Facebook page that he was reviewing documents from the prosecutor's office that included a list of parliament members to be prosecuted and investigative measures to be taken after police cleared protesters from Kiev's Independence Square — which never happened.

Associated Press writers Valery Kulik in Kiev and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.

Ukraine says Russian forces control Crimea airport

February 28, 2014

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops took control of the two main airports in the strategic peninsula of Crimea, Ukraine's interior minister charged Friday, as the country asked the U.N. Security Council to intervene in the escalating conflict. Russian state media said Russian forces in Crimea denied involvement.

No violence was reported at the civilian airport in Crimea's capital of Simferopol or at the military airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, also part of Crimea. At the Simferopol airport, a man claiming to speak for the camouflage-clad forces patrolling the airport described them as Crimean militiamen.

Any Russian military incursion in Crimea would dramatically raise the stakes in Ukraine's conflict, which saw the pro-Russian president flee last weekend after three months of anti-government protests. Moscow has vowed to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Crimea, where it has a major naval base, and Ukraine and the West have warned Russia to stay away.

"I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation," Ukraine's new interior minister, Arsen Avakov, wrote in a Facebook post Friday. Avakov said the airports were controlled by Russian navy troops. Associated Press journalists approaching the Sevastopol airport found the road leading up to it blocked by two military trucks and a handful of gunmen wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying assault rifles.

A car with Russian military plates was stopped at the road block. A man wearing a military uniform with a Russian flag on his sleeve got out of the car and was allowed to enter on foot after a brief discussion with the gunmen.

At the airport serving Simferopol, commercial flights were landing and taking off despite the armed men. In Kiev, Ukraine's parliament adopted a resolution demanding that Russia halt steps it says are aimed against Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and called for a U.N. Security Council meeting on the crisis.

The Russian foreign and defense ministries had no comment. Russia's state RIA Novosti and Interfax cited an unnamed official from the Russian Black Sea Fleet denying involvement, saying Russian servicemen stationed in Crimea have not moved into the airports and denying that the Russian military was in control there.

The Kremlin, in a statement published late Thursday, said President Vladimir Putin had instructed the government to "maintain contacts with the counterparts in Kiev in what concerns trade and economic ties between Russia and Ukraine."

Putin also asked the government to "hold consultations with foreign partners including the (International Monetary Fund) and the G8 nations to provide financial aid to Ukraine." At the airport in Simferopol, dozens of armed men in military uniforms without markings were patrolling with assault rifles Friday morning. They didn't stop or search people leaving or entering the airport, and refused to talk to journalists.

One man who identified himself only as Vladimir said they were part of the Crimean People's Brigade, which he described as a self-defense unit ensuring that no "radicals and fascists" arrive from other parts of Ukraine.

The airport seizures came a day after masked gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles seized the parliament and government offices in Simferopol and raised the Russian flag. Ukrainian police cordoned off the area but didn't confront the gunmen.

The events in Crimea have heightened tensions with neighboring Russia. Moscow scrambled fighter jets on Thursday and put most of its troops in western and southern Russia on combat readiness exercises that it said were unrelated to the Ukraine conflict. The moves were reminiscent of Cold War brinksmanship.

Moscow has been sending mixed signals about Ukraine but pledged to respect its territorial integrity. Putin has long dreamed of pulling Ukraine, a country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization, closer into Moscow's orbit.

Russia also granted shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, state media reported. They said he would give a news conference Friday in southern Russia, near the Ukrainian border. Yanukovych has not been seen publicly since Saturday when he was still in Ukraine, and he declared Thursday in a statement that he remains Ukraine's legitimate president.

The prosecutor-general's office in Kiev said it would seek Yanukovych's extradition to Ukraine, where he is wanted on suspicion of mass murder in last week's violent clashes between protesters and police, in which over 80 people were killed.

Meanwhile, Swiss prosecutors announced they had launched a criminal investigation against Yanukovych and his son Aleksander over "aggravated money laundering." They said police and Geneva's chief prosecutor conducted a search and seized documents Thursday at the premises of a company owned by Aleksander Yanukovych. The nation's governing Federal Council announced that it decided to block all assets Yanukovych and his entourage might have in Switzerland.

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday elected a new government led by a pro-Western technocrat who promptly pledged to prevent any national break-up. Ukraine's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support.

Crimea, a southeastern peninsula of Ukraine, was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, and was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires. It became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

In a bid to shore up Ukraine's fledgling administration, the International Monetary Fund has said it is "ready to respond" to Ukraine's bid for financial assistance. The European Union is also considering emergency loans for a country that is the chief conduit of Russian natural gas to western Europe.

Ukraine's finance ministry has said it needs $35 billion over the next two years to avoid default.

__ AP reporters Dalton Bennett in Sevastopol, Maria Danilova and Karl Ritter in Kiev and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.

Fugitive Ukrainian president said to be in Moscow

February 27, 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — Ukraine's fugitive president may be enjoying VIP treatment under Moscow's protection, said to have been spotted at an opulent five-star hotel and a Kremlin country retreat. But beneath the surface, the embrace has been chilly: State-run TV has portrayed him as a coward who betrayed those who stood by him.

The conflicting messages indicate that while Russia still considers him the legitimate president of Ukraine, it is far from happy with his handling of Ukraine's crisis. Yanukovych made his appeal for protection in a written statement released simultaneously by two Russian state news agencies: "I have to ask Russia to ensure my personal safety from extremists," he wrote. Shortly afterward, the same agencies quoted an unidentified government official as saying that the request had been "satisfied on the territory of Russia." The ITAR-Tass and RIA Novosti news agencies often are used by the government to issue official statements.

With President Vladimir Putin largely silent, the Kremlin's tone on Ukraine has been set by Russian state television, which has denigrated the Ukrainian leader for failing to stand up to the protesters and taking flight, betraying those who stood by him.

Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center said the descriptions of Yanukovych in state media leave little doubt how he's seen by Moscow. "I think he simply failed in expectations that had been placed on him at the time that Putin was giving him large amounts of financial support, of which $3 billion are in danger of being never returned to Russia," Trenin said in a conference call with journalists.

"The relationship between Putin and Yanukovych is well-known to have been a very bad one, with the Russian leader not having much respect for his Ukrainian counterpart," the political scholar said. "So I think that they will give him protection, but he is not going to be an active element in any Russian strategy vis-a-vis Ukraine in the near future."

Since he was driven out of Ukraine's capital nearly a week ago after three months of protests, Yanukovych had been on the run. His last public appearance was Saturday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where he declared in a video address that he was still president and would not leave the country.

The opposition leaders who suddenly found themselves in charge of the country, however, said Yanukovych then promptly tried to fly out from Donetsk, also in eastern Ukraine, but was stopped by the border service. He then showed up on the Crimean Peninsula, where Russia has a naval base, according to the acting interior minister, who said Yanukovych and his remaining loyal guards were last seen driving away in three cars early Monday.

Yanukovych arrived in Moscow early Tuesday and checked into the Hotel Ukraina, according to the reliable RBK business daily, which said the information initially came from one of Russia's wealthy businessmen and was confirmed by a government official.

By Wednesday, Yanukovych had moved to the Barvikha Sanitorium, a well-guarded compound just outside the city with a hotel, cottages and medical center run by the presidential administration's property department, the report said. The spokesman for this department, Viktor Khrekov, told The Associated Press that he had no information about this.

RBK, however, cited an unidentified official in the presidential administration as saying that he had seen Yanukovych at Barvikha and he looked haggard and had lost weight. The report, written under the bylines of respected journalists with high-level contacts in business and government circles, could not immediately be confirmed.

A security guard turned away two AP journalists on Thursday as they approached the entrance to Barvikha. The gated compound was built in Soviet times as a place where ailing government officials could rest and receive medical care. Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet president, stayed there often as his health declined.

At the Hotel Ukraina, security was unusually heavy late Wednesday, with police watching from parked vehicles outside. Security guards posted at the door and throughout the opulent lobby tracked visitors and guests.

RBK, citing the presidential administration official, said Ukraine's former prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka, was still at the hotel and had checked into the presidential suite. On the hotel's website, the suite is described as meeting "the highest standards for security" and lists for about 340,000 rubles ($9,700) per night.

If he needs a new car, the hotel has a Rolls-Royce dealership on the ground floor. Ukraine's acting government has warrants out for the arrests of Yankovych and Pshonka in the shooting deaths of dozens of protesters in Kiev last week.

Anatoly Kucherena, a Kremlin-connected lawyer, said Yanukovych's life was in danger in Ukraine and that Russia had no choice but to grant his request for protection, but it did not necessarily mean that he still had the Kremlin's support.

Kucherena, who spoke to the Interfax news agency, also represents Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency systems analyst evading U.S. espionage charges who has sought asylum in Russia, and often comments on legal issues. He has no known connection to Yanukovych.

In his statement asking for protection, Yanukovych said he still considers himself the president of Ukraine. His future plans may become clearer Friday, when news agencies reported that he will give a press conference in Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Moscow.

Protesters scuffle with riot police in Athens

February 28, 2014

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Scuffles broke out Friday between demonstrators and police outside the finance ministry in central Athens, as Greece's international debt inspectors met with ministers to discuss the pace of fiscal reforms.

The demonstrators, mainly finance ministry cleaning ladies, school guards and municipal workers, were protesting job cuts required under Greece's bailout agreement. They attempted to block a major avenue in the capital's main Syntagma Square outside the ministry and jostled with riot police, who used small amounts of pepper spray.

Earlier, authorities had detained more than a dozen protesters who attempted to enter another nearby government ministry. Since mid-2010, Greece has been dependent on billions of euros in rescue loans from other European Union countries that use the euro and from the International Monetary Fund. In return, it has had to overhaul its economy, slashing public spending and repeatedly raising taxes to reduce its mountainous debt and narrow the budget deficit.

While the fiscal numbers have been improving, and Greece's economy seems poised to return to growth this year after a six-year recession, the financial crisis has taken a massive social toll on the country. The economy has contracted by a quarter, and unemployment has spiraled to 28 percent.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the improving figures and the primary surplus — which excludes interest payments on outstanding debt — are proof Greece was on the mend. "I think what we've done - losing 25 percent of GDP ... shows we had the courage to do exactly what was necessary," he said after a meeting with Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, who was on a visit.

"What we need now is a growth orientation," he said. "I think there is more than enough evidence to our European partners that we are on the right track."

UK's anti-Europe party seeks gains in EU election

March 01, 2014

LONDON (AP) — Fruitcake-free and ready to roll: That was the message from the upstart United Kingdom Independence Party as it finished a two-day conference Saturday focused on winning more seats in the European Parliament.

Consider the irony. A party that wants to pull Britain out of the European Union, and fortify its borders against migrants from Europe, is seeking increased leverage in a parliament based in Belgium and France.

But UKIP leader Nigel Farage, a politician happy to admit he is uncomfortable with the multitude of foreign languages heard on London public transportation, sees May's vote as a mischief-making prospect too rich to pass up.

"These elections, in many ways, will be an opportunity for us to tell the political class where to go," Farage told his followers. UKIP already has 13 members in the 766-seat European Parliament, with hopes of gaining more of the United Kingdom's 73 spots. The May 22 election comes roughly a year before elections to the UK's own House of Commons, where UKIP has yet to win any seats.

Farage is banking on anti-EU and anti-immigrant sentiment among voters who believe that Britain has ceded too many decision-making powers to European bureaucrats. Citing new official figures showing that the number of migrants arriving in Britain has far exceeded targets set by the Conservative-led government, Farage predicted that the country's largest-ever "migratory wave" was still to come and charged that Britain's three main political parties were doing nothing to prevent it.

Previous UKIP conferences have been overshadowed by distinctly off-message comments: the parliamentarian who described some women in the party as "sluts," or another who blamed the legalization of gay marriage for causing Britain's epic flooding. This year's event proved gaffe-free.

The change has not gone unnoticed. Political analyst Ann Treneman wrote in The Times of London that the conference constituted "UKIP's first post-fruitcake" gathering. She made it sound as if the party was sailing into the mainstream.

And the Conservative-friendly Daily Telegraph used its lead editorial to assert that events seemed to be boosting Farage at the expense of Prime Minister David Cameron, the Conservative leader. Under the headline "Cameron can't match Farage's simple message," the newspaper envisioned panic in British political circles should UKIP top the vote in May.

The Daily Telegraph said Cameron's hopes of renegotiating significant aspects of Britain's relationship with the EU — a cornerstone of his 2015 re-election strategy — suffered a blow when German leader Angela Merkel told British lawmakers this week that fundamental agreements would not be altered.

It said the latest migration figures supported Farage's case and described his message that "you cannot control your own borders and remain a member of the EU" as extremely clear. Back in 2006, Cameron dismissed UKIP as a collection of "fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists," but he appears to be taking the party more seriously as the 2015 vote looms.

Seeking to steal UKIP's thunder, he has pledged to hold a 2017 referendum on Britain's EU membership if the Conservatives retain power. Cameron's government also has introduced a series of bills to make it tougher for immigrants to access British welfare benefits. Payments for unemployment, housing and health care all will be harder to get if the proposals become law, although some EU officials have cautioned that some of the proposed new rules would be discrimatory and violate EU law.

Yet UKIP's popularity is rising in recent polling. At a by-election last month for an empty parliamentary seat in northern England, the UKIP candidate finished second — ahead of the Conservatives.

CEO: Apple plans celebration of Steve Jobs' life

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) -- Technology giant Apple is planning to soon hold a celebration of former CEO Steve Jobs' life after he died in California on Wednesday, the company said.

Apple's Board of Directors and Jobs' family confirmed in two separate statements released earlier that Jobs, the iconic entrepreneur who co-founded Apple in the 1970s, died in California on Wednesday. A brief statement said he died peacefully while surrounded by his family.

In an email sent to all Apple employees following Jobs' death, new Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company has lost a "visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor."

Cook said the company is planning a celebration for Apple employees of Steve's 'extraordinary' life which will take place soon. "Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple," he said.

He added: "No words can adequately express our sadness at Steve's death or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with him. We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much."

Steve Jobs was 56.

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/news/ceo-apple-plans-celebration-of-steve-jobs-life.html.

U.S.: Battle Escalates Against Genetically Modified Crops

By Kanya D'Almeida

WASHINGTON, Oct 1 2011 (IPS) - Home to a fast-growing network of farmers’ markets, cooperatives and organic farms, but also the breeding ground for mammoth for-profit corporations that now hold patents to over 50 percent of the world’s seeds, the United States is weathering a battle between Big Agro and a ripening movement for food justice and security.

Conflicting ideologies about agriculture have become ground zero for this war over the production, distribution and consumption of the world’s food.

One camp – led by agro giants like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – define successful agriculture and hunger alleviation as the use of advanced technologies to stimulate yields of mono-crops.

The other side argues that industrial agriculture pollutes, destroys and disrupts nature by dismissing the importance of relationships necessary for any ecosystem to thrive.

At the heart of this struggle is the debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which were given the green light in 1990 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated, “(We) are not aware of any information showing that GMO foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”

But a report released Wednesday by the Washington- based Food and Water Watch (FWW) on the destructive impacts of GMOs added fuel to a two-decades-long fight by farmers, economists and experts against the FDA’s conclusions.

“Genetically Engineered Food: An Overview” details how the genetic engineering of seeds, crops and animals for human consumption is not the foolproof answer long championed by agribusiness and biotechnology industries to feeding the world.

To the contrary, the study found that genetically engineered/modified (GE/M) organisms do not out-perform their natural counterparts, and their proliferation into vast tracts of cropland have caused a slew of environmental and health crises, and actually increased poverty by forcing millions of farmers to “buy” patented seeds at exorbitant prices.

The report also says that three U.S. federal agencies – the FDA, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – are complicit in these crises due to shoddy oversight, weak enforcement of regulations and a complete absence of coordination.

It found that Big Agro spent half a billion dollars between 1999 and 2009 on lobbying to ease GE regulatory oversight, push GE approvals and prevent GE labeling.

This, after attorney Steven Druker in 1999 obtained 40,000 pages of FDA files containing “memorandum after memorandum warning about the hazards of (GE) food,” including the likelihood that they contained, “toxins, carcinogens or allergens” and testified that GE foods violated “sound science and U.S. law”.

Ceci King, a member of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, told IPS that in 2011, an estimated “60 to 70 percent of all processed foods in the U.S. contain at least one GE element.”

Unstoppable proliferation?

According to the report, over 365 million acres of GE crops were cultivated in 29 countries in 2010 alone, representing 10 percent of global cropland.

“The United States is the world leader in GE crop production, with 165 million acres, or nearly half of global production,” Patty Lovera, assistant director of FWW, told IPS.

“From only seven percent of soybean acres and one percent of corn acres in 1996, GE cultivation in the U.S. shot up to 94 percent of soybean and 88 percent of corn acres in 2011,” she added.

The bulk of these crops came from seeds owned by Monsanto.

“Eighty-four percent of GM crops in the world today are herbicide- resistant soybeans, corn, cotton or canola, predominantly Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ varieties that withstand dousing with herbicide,” Bill Frees, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and author of ‘Why GM Crops Will Not Feed the World’, told IPS.

“Pesticide and chemical companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer have bought up many of the world’s largest seed companies, and now call themselves biotech companies – this represents a historic merger of the pesticide and seed industries, which allows them to profit twice by developing expensive GM seeds that increase use of the company’s herbicide products,” he added.

Seed patents, an off-shoot of the “agro-biotech revolution” that also spawned GE/M, have had two negative consequences since their original issuance by the U.S. Patent Office in the mid-1990s, Frees told IPS: “They enticed pesticide companies to buy up seed firms; and they led to criminalisation of seed-saving.”

“Farmers have saved seeds from their harvest to replant the next year for millennia,” he added. “Monsanto is changing that. The company has already sued thousands of farmers in the U.S. for saving and replanting its patented seeds and won an estimated 85 to 160 million dollars from farmers, in lawsuits that have ruined farmers’ lives, and (partially explains) why we have ever fewer farmers in America.”

The pushback

Ray Tricomo, a mentor at the Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity in Minnesota, told IPS, “People of color must re-radicalize themselves and go on the offensive including the return to land bases, from Turtle Island to Africa and Asia.”

“Ancient knowledge systems are to be painstakingly recovered, even if it takes centuries,” he added.

And this is exactly what is happening.

Despite the deep pockets and aggressive efforts of Big Agro, a major pushback from a broad coalition of forces has limited 80 percent of GE/M planting to just three export-oriented countries: the U.S., Brazil and Argentina.

Nearly two dozen other countries, including the European Union and China, have passed mandatory GE/M labeling, and millions around the world are refusing seed patenting and developing seed banks to protect, share and preserve their seeds.

In Florida, the 4,000-strong Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is organizing to resist farm wage-slavery and “seed-servitude”. The Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil has organised 400,000 peasants to join forces with the nearly half-billion farms around the world that are responsible for producing 70 percent of the world’s food.

Navdanya, an organization in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, has united 500,000 farmers in their struggle to fight chemical dependency and save indigenous seeds, including preserving over 3,000 varieties of rice.

“For five years, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (CSD) had indigenous farmers from all over the globe come to speak against destructive farm practices and GMOs,” King told IPS.

“During the Indigenous People’s Permanent Forum, there were complaints about the harm caused by industrial agriculture and the acts in the name of agribusinesses. Farm workers like the (CIW) are protesting their fate,” she added.

“They are picketing companies like Trader Joes and Whole Foods, letting the public know that their tomatoes were picked from workers who are basically slave labor.”

“Third World Network is fighting back by exploring the problem of GMOs and publishing findings that scientists working on GMOs are capitalists using humans as guinea pigs in a global lab experiment,” she added.

“[Numerous] deaths and disabilities have been traced back to a GM product emulating tryptophan. It took nearly 20 years to find the source of the problem,” King told IPS.

“GM technology is antithetical to an agroecological approach to agriculture, our only hope for truly sustainable food production,” Frees told IPS.

“Without radical change we will continue to have famines,” he added. “Haiti is a good example of what happens when a country’s farmers are put out of business by cheap, subsidized imports from a rich producer nation (here the U.S.).”

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/10/us-battle-escalates-against-genetically-modified-crops/.

Sochi Paralympic officials monitor Crimea crisis

March 01, 2014

LONDON (AP) — The International Paralympic Committee says it is monitoring the tensions between Russia and Ukraine as athletes arrive in Sochi for the Paralympics.

The discord between the Slavic neighbors has escalated since the Sochi Olympics ended Sunday. Ukrainian officials have said armed men they describe as Russian troops took control Friday of key airports in Crimea, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.

The Paralympics open Friday further down the Black Sea in the resort of Sochi, and run until March 16. IPC spokesman Craig Spence told The Associated Press on Saturday that the situation is "on our radar."

With Paralympians arriving Saturday in Sochi, Spence said that "there is no change to our plans for the moment."

Russia approves use of military in Ukraine

March 01, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia executed a de facto military takeover of a strategic region in Ukraine as the parliament in Moscow gave President Vladimir Putin a green light Saturday to proceed to protect Russian interests. The newly installed government in Kiev was powerless to react to the swift takeover of Crimea by Russian troops already in Ukraine and more flown in, aided by pro-Russian Ukrainian groups.

Putin's move follows President Barack Obama's warning Friday "there will be costs" if Russia intervenes militarily, sharply raising the stakes in the conflict over Ukraine's future and evoking memories of Cold War brinkmanship. The explicit reference to the use of troops escalated days of conflict between the two countries, which started when Ukraine's pro-Russian president was pushed out by a protest movement of people who wanted closer ties to Europe.

"I'm submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country," Putin said in his request sent to parliament.

Putin's call came as pro-Russian demonstrations broke out in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, where protesters raised Russian flags and beat up supporters of the new Ukrainian government. Russia's upper house also recommended that Moscow recalls its ambassador from Washington over Obama's comments.

Ukraine had already accused Russia on Friday of a "military invasion and occupation" of the Crimea peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk called on Moscow "to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," according to the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine."

The crisis was sparked when Ukraine's deposed president, Victor Yanukovych, ditched a deal for closer ties to the European Union and instead turned toward Moscow. Months of protests followed, culminating in security forces killing dozens of protesters and Yanukovych fleeing to Russia.

Ignoring Obama's warning, Putin said the "extraordinary situation in Ukraine" was putting at risk the lives of Russian citizens and military personnel stationed at a naval base that Moscow has maintained in the Black Sea peninsula since the Soviet collapse.

Reflecting a degree of caution, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin who presented Putin's request to the upper house, told reporters that the motion doesn't mean that the president would immediately send additional troops to Ukraine.

"There is no talk about it yet," he said. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also said in remarks carried by RIA Novosti news agency that the president hadn't yet made a decision to use the Russian military in Ukraine. He added that Putin hasn't yet made a decision on recalling the ambassador either.

The U.N. Security Council called an urged meeting on Ukraine Saturday, and the European Union foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the crisis. Putin's motion loosely refers to the "territory of Ukraine" rather than specifically to Crimea, raising the possibility that Moscow could use military force in other Russian-speaking areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, where many oppose the new authorities in Kiev. Pro-Russian protests were reported in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern port of Odessa.

Ukraine's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea, a semi-autonomous region of Ukraine, is mainly Russian-speaking.

In Saturday's parliamentary session in Moscow, a deputy house speaker said Obama had insulted Russia and crossed a "red line," and the upper house recommended the Russian ambassador in Washington be recalled. It will be up to Putin to decide whether that happens.

In Crimea, the pro-Russian prime minister who took office after gunmen seized the regional Parliament claimed control of the military and police there and asked Putin for help in keeping peace, sharpening the discord between the two neighboring Slavic countries.

Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said the election of Sergei Aksyonov as prime minister of Crimea was invalid. Ukrainian officials and some Western diplomats said that a Russian military intervention is already well underway after heavily armed gunmen in unmarked military uniforms seized control of local government buildings, airports and other strategic facilities in Crimea in recent days.

Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union. The Soviet breakup in 1991 meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

Russia put pressure on Ukraine from another direction when a spokesman for state gas company Gazprom said that Ukraine owed $1.59 billion in overdue bills for imported gas. Sergei Kuprianov was quoted by the RIA-Novosti agency as saying the gas arrears would endanger a recent discount granted by Russia. The discount lowered the price to $268.50 per thousand from other $400. The Russian payment demand and loss of the discount would accelerate Ukraine's financial crisis. The county is almost broke and seeking emergency credit from the International Monetary Fund.

Russia has taken a confrontational stance toward its southern neighbor after Yanukovych fled the country. Yanukovych was voted out of office by parliament after weeks of protests ended in violence that left more than 80 people dead.

Aksyonov, the Crimea leader, appealed to Putin "for assistance in guaranteeing peace and calmness on the territory of the autonomous republic of Crimea." Aksyonov was voted in by the Crimean parliament on Thursday after pro-Russia gunmen seized the building and as tensions soared over Crimea's resistance to the new authorities in Kiev, who took office this week.

Obama called on Russia to respect the independence and territory of Ukraine and not try to take advantage of its neighbor, which is undergoing political upheaval. He said such action by Russia would represent a "profound interference" in matters he said must be decided by the Ukrainian people.

"The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine," he said. Obama did not say what those costs might be. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter that it was "obvious that there is Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Likely immediate aim is to set up puppet pro-Russian semi-state in Crimea."

At the United Nations, the Ukrainian ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said Friday that Russian transport aircraft and 11 attack helicopters had arrived in Crimea illegally, and that Russian troops had taken control of two airports in Crimea.

He described the gunmen posted outside the two airports as Russian armed forces as well as "unspecified" units. Russia has kept silent on claims of military intervention and has said any troop movements are within agreed rules, even as it maintained its hard-line stance on protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea.

Meanwhile, flights remained halted from Simferopol's airport. Dozens of armed men in military uniforms without markings patrolled the area. They didn't stop or search people leaving or entering the airport, and refused to talk to journalists.

Vladimir Isachenkov reported from Moscow.