Azerbaijan jails investigative journalist

December 06, 2014

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Azerbaijan has detained a prominent investigative journalist whose reporting has often featured the business dealings of top politicians in the country.

A court in Baku, the capital, ordered the jailing on Friday of Khadija Ismayilova, a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the United States government. She must remain behind bars pending a trial on charges of driving a man to suicide, a crime that carries up to seven years in prison.

The treatment of Ismayilova — who also has reported on alleged corruption and human rights abuses, including the persecution of opposition figures in Azerbaijan — has sparked widespread condemnation from rights groups abroad. Amnesty International condemned it as a "move to silence independent media voices in the country."

Nenad Pejic, the editor-in-chief of Radio Free Europe, said: "The arrest and detention of Khadija Ismayilova is the latest attempt in a two-year campaign to silence a journalist who has investigated government corruption and human rights abuses in Azerbaijan."

Ismayilova has been targeted for her reporting before. In 2012, after a series of damaging articles on the ruling family's role in lucrative construction projects, she was warned in a letter that her reputation could be compromised, and later a video of her having sex with her boyfriend was published online.

On Thursday, the Azerbaijan government released a lengthy memo criticizing the modern-day "colonialism" of the United States and accusing journalists at Radio Free Europe's local service of working to promote foreign interests in the country. Azerbaijan has been a staunch military ally of the U.S. and contributed troops to missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined to comment on the specific case, but said Friday that the United States is "deeply troubled by restrictions on civil society activities, including on journalists in Azerbaijan."

Many activists and independent journalists in this energy-rich Caspian Sea nation have been jailed since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, including two rights activists in August.

AP correspondent Matthew Lee contributed from Washington.

Turkey bans entry to more than 7,000 foreign fighters

05 December 2014 Friday

More than 7,000 suspected foreign fighters travelling to Iraq and Syria have been banned from entering Turkey, the country's Foreign Minister has announced.

Mevlut Cavusoglu's comments came on Friday as counter-terrorism methods took center stage on the final day of a two-day ministerial council meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Basel, Switzerland.

Cavusoglu said: "Our 'no enter' list of suspected foreign terrorists has now more than 7,200 names and we have deported more than 1,050 since 2011.

"Yet we still observe the flow of terrorist fighters ... and in some cases, those we deport end up at our border gates again."

He said that terrorism should not be associated with any religion, belief, culture or ethnic groups, and called for a multi-sectorial approach, including civil society, to tackle the problem.

'Extinguish this fire'

He said: "The issue of foreign terrorist fighters is a global threat. We have seen these symptoms in the past in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Tunisia, Chechnya and Somalia.

"Now we see them not only in Syria or Iraq, but also in eastern Ukraine and in other parts of the world."

He added: "Today, the threat we face in Syria or Iraq cannot be isolated from the past and we should make use of the lessons learnt.

"We cannot prevent this threat by diverting the smoke coming out of the big fire in Iraq and Syria. We have to extinguish this fire."

Turkey maintains the international community's inaction to the crisis in Syria and the sectarian policies of the Shia-led former Iraqi government has prepared the ground for al-Qaeda to re-emerge in Iraq and Syria.

'No blame games'

Cavusoglu said: "It (the ISIL) grows stronger under the name of 'Daesh' in a symbiotic relationship with the regime in Syria."

He said "Daesh" had attracted individuals from more than 80 countries through its propaganda, based on the exploitation of religion by use of social media, adding that more than half of the Daesh fighters were locals.

"Only addressing the foreign fighters would not solve the problem - we need a comprehensive strategy that includes rehabilitation, de-radicalization ... nation- and state-building, in addition to the military and law-enforcement measures," he said.

He called for "timely, tangible" intelligence and information-sharing to combat terrorism adding: "International cooperation requires trust and fair burden-sharing. Blame games should be avoided."

The ISIL has captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria and killing thousands of people and displacing millions more.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/149989/turkey-bans-entry-to-more-than-7000-foreign-fighters.

Replacement battalion of peshmerga arrive at Kobani

07 December 2014 Sunday

A replacement battalion of 150 Kurdish peshmerga troops joined the fighting against the ISIL on Saturday, a Kurdish commander said on Saturday.

The peshmerga battalion reached the ongoing battle in the besieged border town Kobani, by traveling through Turkey.

"We have launched an operation against ISIL militants overnight with the support of US-led coalition's warplanes," said peshmerga Commander Farhat Abdollah.

Abdollah also said the Kurdish groups cleared some streets of militants, and that the airstrikes were continuing to support their battle in the field.

Shaban Ramazan, a captain of the peshmerga forces, said the ISIL fighters attacked their position from Kobani's southern and eastern sections with heavy arms in the early hours of the morning. The peshmerga forces met the fire with the same kind of attack.

"Street clashes still continue, and the international coalition continues to hit the ISIL targets without pause," Ramazan said. The ISIL fighters were forced to retreat from some positions as they suffered heavy losses.

The second group of peshmerga forces, a convoy of seven minibuses, replaced the first group on Tuesday that had reached Kobani in October by passing through Turkey.

Kobani, also known as Ayn al Arab, has seen fierce battles between ISIL militants and Kurdish fighters since mid-September.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/middle-east/150070/replacement-battalion-of-peshmerga-arrive-at-kobani.

Women jailed for teaching Quran in Uzbekistan

04 December 2014 Thursday

In Uzbekistan's capital city of Tashkent, in the district of Yangiyul, a group of Muslim women have been arrested on charges of “radicalism” for teaching the Quran.

According to state television, a group of women who were teaching children Quran at home was arrested. The report said that "the group leader" who named Hanife Mirganieva and a few other women managed to escape from the police. Uzbek officials say its very likely that the women would have sought refuge in Turkey.

According to “Ozodlik” radio, the women’s husbands were previously caught as Hizbut Tahrir members.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/149895/women-jailed-for-teaching-quran-in-uzbekistan.

Hong Kong democracy protest camp shutdown looms

December 09, 2014

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have until Thursday morning to leave a sprawling protest camp that's blocked traffic in the Chinese financial hub for more than two months before authorities clear it out, a lawyer said Tuesday.

Authorities are set to move in after a court order authorized the removal of barricades, tents and other obstructions from the Admiralty district, site of the protesters' main camp downtown, setting the stage for one last showdown with activists demanding greater democracy.

Workers will dismantle the protest camp starting at 9 a.m., said Paul Tse, a lawyer for the bus company that took out the injunction. "What I would like to do now is to perhaps make a public plea to the students to stay away from the scene when there is plenty of time," he told reporters, adding the company wanted to give protesters enough time to pack their belongings and leave the site.

He said the court order, which was published in newspapers Tuesday, would be posted at the Admiralty site in the afternoon. About 3,000 police officers would be deployed for the operation, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported, citing unidentified police sources.

The student-led protesters have been occupying streets for 73 days to press their demands for greater democracy. Another protest site in the rough-and-tumble Mong Kok neighborhood was shut down late last month by authorities enforcing a separate court order. The aggressive police operation sparked several nights of violent clashes in the neighborhood's tight grid of streets, resulting in about 160 arrests.

The South China Morning Post said the third and smallest protest site, in the Causeway Bay district, is also expected to be dismantled Thursday, although it is not covered by any court order. The semiautonomous Chinese city's Beijing-backed leader, Leung Chun-ying, said officers would use "minimum force" in assisting court workers to shut the site down. Earlier this week he said they were expected to encounter "fierce resistance."

Organizers said as many as 200,000 people joined the protests early on, but numbers have since dwindled and only dozens now remain at the Admiralty camp, next to city government headquarters. Options are narrowing for the student protest leaders as the government maintains an apparent strategy of waiting them out.

The Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the groups organizing the protests, said last week it's mulling a retreat but has not yet made a decision. The group had earlier led a failed bid to surround the headquarters complex that resulted in a night of violent clashes in a desperate last-minute push to pressure the government over Beijing's requirement to screen candidates in the inaugural 2017 election for the city's top leader.

Joshua Wong, a teenager who has become the protest movement's most prominent leader, abandoned a hunger strike on the weekend after nearly five days on doctor's orders. Of the four other members of his Scholarism group who had joined him, only one is still refusing food.

Far right party wants removal of Serb President

07 December 2014 Sunday

A nationalist party has launched on Saturday a campaign for the dismissal of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic for what it claims is a violation to the constitution, according to a party official.

Miljan Damjanovic, an official of the far right Serbian Radical Party, cites as one of the reasons for the campaign the university degree President Nikolic allegedly bought.

After Nikolic was elected president of Serbia on Aug. 31, 2012, he was accused of buying a Master's Degree from the faculty of management at University of Novi Sad, without attending a class or taking an exam.

Damjanovic also accuses Nikolic of favoring the foundation led by his wife Dragica Nikolic, of which the center is in the Serbian presidential building.

Miljan Damjanovic says the party plans to collect 30,000 signatures, which would initiate a procedure in the Serbian Assembly for the removal of Tomislav Nikolic.

The Serbian Radical Party, or SRS, has no presence in the National Assembly.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/150064/far-right-party-wants-removal-of-serb-president.

Scotland's Salmond to run for UK Parliament seat

December 07, 2014

LONDON (AP) — Weeks after his party lost an independence referendum and he quit as the Scottish leader, Alex Salmond has his eye on a seat in the British Parliament and a return to major political influence.

Salmond will contest a northeast Scotland seat in Britain's general election in May as a candidate for the Scottish National Party, which he led until last month. "With so much at stake for Scotland, I think it's impossible to stand on the sidelines," Salmond told supporters Sunday in the town of Ellon.

Under Salmond, nationalists came close to realizing their dream of making Scotland an independent country. In a Sept. 18 referendum, 45 percent of Scottish voters backed independence but 55 percent said no.

The London-based British Parliament is elected by voters in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Polls suggest the election is too close to call, and smaller parties such as the SNP and the anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party could end up holding significant power.

Salmond said a strong group of SNP lawmakers in London would be able to "rumble up" British politics and secure more powers for Scotland. "In that Westminster difficulty, there lies an opportunity for Scotland," Salmond said.

The major parties have already agreed to grant Scotland new control over taxation and spending in a bid to make good on promises of more autonomy made during the referendum campaign. Salmond and other nationalists, however, say the powers do not go far enough.

Salmond, 59, previously served in the British Parliament between 1987 and 2010, and also sits in Scotland's Edinburgh-based legislature. He said if elected to both parliaments he would donate one of his salaries to charity.

Greek govt gambles on early presidential vote

December 08, 2014

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's conservative-led government on Monday called for a key vote in parliament for the country's new president late this month — in a surprise move that will determine its survival in the recession-weary country.

Government spokesman Sofia Voultepsi said the vote would be held Dec. 17, with possible later rounds held in the following 12 days. The vote had not been expected to be held until late February. The government needs the support from opposition lawmakers to avoid a stalemate and a snap general election, but is trailing in opinion polls to the anti-bailout Syriza party and facing widespread public discontent after a six-year recession.

The move was announced within an hour of Eurozone bailout lenders backing a Greek request to extend the rescue lending program for another two months. Voultepsi said the presidential vote was shifted so Greece would be in a stronger position to negotiate with the lenders, who have provided €240 billion ($294 billion) in rescue funds in return for draconian spending cuts.

"The political uncertainty must end now," Voultepsi said. Under voting rules, parliament requires a super-majority to elect a president, whose role is largely ceremonial, for a five-year term. A presidential candidate must receive 200 votes in the 300-seat parliament to get elected, with a second round that would be held on Dec. 23 still requiring 200 votes, and a final third round on Dec. 29 needing 180.

Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' pro-bailout coalition has 155 lawmakers. It hasn't yet named a candidate to succeed 85-year-old Karolos Papoulias, whose second term expires in March. "We are not surprised with this move. The government is running out of options, and wants to hide more austerity being demanded by (lenders) from the people," Syriza spokesman Panos Skourletis told the AP.

"They haven't got the 180 votes. And an earlier general election is welcome for us," Skourletis said. "Basically, the government just took a jump off the cliff."

AP Writer Demetris Nellas in Athens contributed.

Protests turn violent in 2 Greek cities

December 07, 2014

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A march by thousands of people through central Athens to mark the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of an unarmed teenager quickly turned violent Saturday, as marchers damaged storefronts and bus stations and set fire to clothes looted from a shop.

Clashes continued late into the night in the neighborhood of Exarchia, a haven for extreme leftists and anarchists, with youths ambushing police forces with firebombs and rocks thrown from balconies. Police said they detained 211 people.

Clashes also broke out between police and demonstrators marching in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades after a crowd beat up two plainclothes policemen. The marches were commemorating the Dec. 6, 2008, police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the capital, which led to two weeks of the most violent rioting Greece had seen in decades. Grigoropoulos and friends were in an argument with two police officers when one officer went to his patrol car, retrieved his gun and shot the youth.

Grigoropoulos' killer, police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas, is serving a life sentence. On Saturday, about 5,000 people marched in Athens, passing the Greek Parliament and heading toward the spot where Grigoropoulos was killed, police said. At one point, people broke into a Zara clothes shop, took racks of clothes into the street and burned them.

The clashes were soon confined to Exarchia neighborhood. Police cordoned off the neighborhood's central square, firing tear gas and pepper spray. The marches come at a time when nearly nightly violent protests are being held by supporters of one of Grigoropoulos' friends, jailed anarchist and convicted bank robber Nikos Romanos, 21. He was present when Grigoropoulos was killed and is now on a hunger strike, demanding prison leave to attend lectures after he passed university entrance exams.

Romanos, currently hospitalized under police guard, has been on the hunger strike since last month, and doctors have said his health is failing. He was jailed with three young men following a February 2013 bank robbery in which they took a hostage as they tried to escape. He was sentenced in October to 15 years and 11 months for the robbery and faces two more trials as an alleged member of an armed anarchist group.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will meet with Romanos' parents on Monday following a request made through their lawyer on Saturday, the government said.

Costas Kantouris contributed to this report from Thessaloniki.

Right-wing Dresden protests met with counter demo

December 08, 2014

DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — Thousands of people demonstrated in downtown Dresden on Monday night in a rally organized by a group calling itself "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West," while thousands more protested against them.

Police in the eastern city said the 10,000-strong rally by the group known by its German acronym PEGIDA, and the counter-demonstration by about 9,000 others, were peaceful. The Monday-night demonstrations PEGIDA has organized in Dresden have grown in the past two months from around 200 at the initial match.

Past protests have drawn praise and support from neo-Nazi groups, but speakers sought to distance themselves from that, saying they were protesting against Islamic extremism and perceived abuses to Germany's asylum system, but not against asylum seekers or Muslims in general.

On PEGIDA's Facebook page, organizers urged supporters to "bring your friends and neighbors and let us show the counter-demonstrators that we are not anti-immigrant and not anti-Islam." Related demonstrations attracted fewer demonstrators, with about 600 protesters and 500 counter-protesters showing up at a rally in Berlin, and about 450 protesters and 700 counter-protesters at another in Duesseldorf, police said. No significant incidents were reported in either city.

EU offers 180 million euros for refugees in Lebanon, Jordan

2014-12-04

BRUSSELS - The EU offered 180 million euros Thursday to help Lebanon and Jordan cope with a massive influx of refugees from Syria, where there is no end in sight to the civil war.

The European Commission said the aid package would help deal with the longer-term problems of the 1.1 million refugees in Lebanon and 630,000 in Jordan.

Some of the funds will also go to Syria itself where the conflict has displaced around half of the population -- nearly 11 million people.

As the conflict rages, with the death toll mounting steadily to now some 200,000, there is little prospect that the more than three million Syrians who have fled to neighboring countries and beyond will be able to return home any time soon.

The package "addresses in particular the education of children and young adults... as well as measures to improve the resilience of the refugees as well as the communities hosting them through economic development activities," a Commission statement said.

The announcement comes after the UN's World Food Program said Wednesday it was halting food aid to some 1.7 million Syrian refugees because of funding shortfalls.

The WFP said it needed $64 million (51 million euros) to fund its food voucher program for December alone and that "many donor commitments remain unfulfilled".

The EU is a major humanitarian aid donor in the region. It has provided about 1.5 billion euros since the conflict erupted in 2011 while the 28 member states have separately provided about 1.4 billion euros, according to Commission figures.

"We are ready and willing to bring a continued support to the people of Syria and to the neighboring countries hosting Syrian refugees," EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said.

"We are determined to play our role to the full and bring a lasting political solution to this regional crisis," Mogherini said.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69193.

Britain to boost military presence in Persian Gulf

December 06, 2014

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Britain has signed a deal with Bahrain that will bolster the United Kingdom's military presence in the island nation and give it permanent naval base in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, officials announced Saturday.

The agreement marks a strategic shift for Britain, which formally withdrew from its major Gulf military bases in 1971. It comes as the U.K., the United States and their allies seek to push back Islamic State group militants that have taken over large parts of Iraq and Syria and as world powers work to forge a lasting nuclear deal with Iran, which sits just across the Gulf from Bahrain.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond emphasized his country's historic links to the Gulf in announcing the plans at a security conference in the Bahraini capital, Manama. "In a globalized world, our domestic security and prosperity depends on developments beyond our shores," Hammond said. "Your security concerns are our security concerns."

Tiny Bahrain already hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is responsible for operations around the Arabian Peninsula as well as parts of the Indian Ocean. The deal ensures a permanent footing for the Royal Navy in the oil-rich Gulf, Hammond said. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the Gulf's only exit and is bounded by Iran and Oman, is the route for 30 percent of world oil supplies carried by tanker ships.

The agreement will create Britain's first fixed Gulf base since it pulled out of former imperial outposts commonly referred to as being "east of Suez" over four decades ago. It calls for improved onshore facilities at Bahrain's Mina Salman port that officials say will give the Royal Navy a base to plan, store equipment and house military personnel.

Defense Secretary Michael Fallon described the 15 million pound ($23 million) facility as "a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy's footprint" that will ensure Britain can send more ships and bigger vessels into the Gulf.

"This is a permanent naval presence that will benefit both sides to the agreement. It will give Bahrain the extra security of knowing that Britain is here now, is back for the long term, is back east of Suez for the first time in over 40 years," Fallon told The Associated Press in an interview in Manama.

Four British mine-hunter warships are already based in Bahrain, and other British ships rely on facilities in the kingdom. Those operations were carried out on an ad hoc basis, and left personnel relying on "frankly very poor temporary accommodation," Hammond said.

The base is expected to open in 2016.

Guantanamo prisoners start new lives in Uruguay

December 08, 2014

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Six men who were locked away for more than 12 years on the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay spent Monday in the seclusion of a military hospital in Uruguay's capital, speaking to family by phone, getting medical check-ups and preparing for a gradual introduction to their new lives in this South American country.

All but one of the former prisoners milled about a suite of rooms behind the marble columns of the Central Hospital of the Armed Forces, said Michael Mone, a lawyer who was with them. Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a Syrian thin and pale after a prolonged hunger strike at Guantanamo, was apparently too weak to spend much time out of bed.

"The other men are all up on their feet. They have big smiles on their faces and they are very happy to be in Uruguay after 12 plus years of incarceration," said Mone, a Boston-based lawyer for one of the men, Ali Hussein al-Shaaban, also from Syria.

Mone, accustomed to his client being shackled and strictly monitored during meetings in Guantanamo, said it was an emotional experience to see al-Shaaban experiencing freedom for the first time in years. Al-Shaaban spoke by phone with his parents, who are in a refugee camp in a country Mone declined to identify, fleeing the turmoil of their homeland.

"He's relaxed, he's not flinching every time there's a knock on the door or the close of a gate," the lawyer said. "He just seems so much more alive than when I used to see him in Guantanamo." The four Syrians, one Palestinian and a Tunisian arrived in Uruguay over the weekend as refugees, the first prisoners from the U.S. base in Cuba to be sent to South America.

Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro welcomed them to settle with a reference to the passion for soccer for which Uruguay is known. He told local radio Carve that he expects the six to find "a job, work to put bread on the table, bring the family, live in peace and sit in the stands of a stadium, becoming a fan of some soccer team."

Within days, the men are expected to move to a residential facility to study Spanish, learn about Uruguayan culture and society and gradually get used to their new home before setting off on their own, Mone said.

"As soon as Ali is ready, we talked about maybe going out and going for a walk," Mone said. "I know he's really looking forward to that, taking a long walk." All six were detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda in 2002 but were never charged. They had been cleared for release since 2009 but could not be sent home and the U.S. struggled to find countries willing to take them.

While recent polls indicated most Uruguayans opposed asylum for the men, reaction to their arrival was muted. Sen. Ope Pasquet of the opposition Colorado Party said on Twitter that he agreed with the asylum for humanitarian reasons, but he added that Congress should have been consulted.

One of the men, Abedlhadi Omar Faraj, released a letter thanking Uruguayans for accepting the group, and even said he'd already become a fan of the country's national soccer team. The Syrian described himself as an innocent man from a modest background who had worked as a mechanic and butcher before he was captured and turned over to U.S. forces in Pakistan for ransom and then sent to Guantanamo as a suspected terrorist.

"Were it not for Uruguay, I would still be in the black hole in Cuba today," said the letter released by his attorney, Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York. "It is difficult for me to express how grateful I am for the immense trust that you, the Uruguayan people, placed in me and the other prisoners when you opened the doors of your country to us.

"We cannot thank you enough for welcoming us in your land." Uruguayan President Jose Mujica agreed to accept the men as a humanitarian gesture and said they would be given help getting established in a country of 3.3 million people that has a total Muslim population of perhaps 300.

Uruguay already had taken in 42 Syrian civil war refugees, who arrived in October, and has said it will take about 80 more. They are coming to what may be the only country in the Americas without an Islamic mosque, said Tamar Chaky, director of the Islamic Cultural Organization of Uruguay. He promised that the local Muslim community would welcome them.

The U.S. has now transferred 19 prisoners out of Guantanamo this year, and 136 remain, the lowest number since shortly after the prison opened in January 2002. The U.S. now holds 67 men at Guantanamo who have been cleared for release or transfer but, like the six sent to Uruguay, can't go home because they might face persecution, a lack of security or some other reason.

This weekend's transfer was the largest group sent to the Western Hemisphere. Four Guantanamo prisoners were sent to Bermuda in 2009 and two were sent to El Salvador in 2012 but have since left.

Associated Press Leonardo Haberkorn reported this story in Montevideo and Ben Fox reported from Miami. AP writers Nedra Pickler in Washington and Luis Andres Henao in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.

Six Guantanamo prisoners sent to Uruguay for resettlement

07 December 2014 Sunday

Six men held for more than a decade at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were sent to Uruguay for resettlement on Sunday, the Pentagon said, the latest step in a slow-moving effort by the Obama administration to close the facility.

The release of the four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian, who were flown to South America aboard a U.S. military plane, represented the largest single group to leave the internationally condemned U.S. detention camp since 2009.

President Barack Obama took office nearly six years ago promising to shut the prison, citing its damage to America's image around the world. But he has been unable to do so, partly because of obstacles posed by the U.S. Congress.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/150094/six-guantanamo-prisoners-sent-to-uruguay-for-resettlement.

Zimbabwe's president alleges US plot against him

December 06, 2014

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday accused his vice president of plotting with the United States Embassy to remove him.

In a massive tent in an open field in the capital Harare, Mugabe told about 12,000 members of the ruling Zanu-PF party that his spies had followed Vice President Joice Mujuru to the U.S. Embassy, where he said she held secret meetings to plan his assassination.

The three-day party congress also formalized First Lady Grace Mugabe's position as leader of the Zanu-PF women's league. The party congress re-elected the 90-year-old Mugabe to another five-year term as party president and authorized him to personally choose his vice president and other top party posts.

"I am open to competition, but not when it involves taking me out the Kabila way," said Mugabe, referring to the former leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated by one of his bodyguards in 2001.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the "allegations made about the activities of the U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe are baseless and do not merit a response." "The United States remains a steadfast friend of the Zimbabwean people," she said.

Mujuru, once a freedom fighter in Mugabe's guerrilla army known by the nom de guerre "Spill Blood" in the local Shona language, is now a political outcast accused of conspiring with witches and foreign agents to remove the president.

"I met Joice when she was a young kid in the war," he said. "I strengthened her and even pushed her to get an education until she got a doctorate." Mujuru, who became a member of the cabinet at the age of 25 when Mugabe was elected president in 1980, was removed as the party's vice president during the congress.

Mugabe said his wife, Grace Mugabe, pushed him to appoint Mujuru as vice president in 2004. Mugabe said he plans to announce Mujuru's successor later this week and assured a cheering crowd that the vice president and her allies, including spokesman Rugare Gumbo, who was also suspended, will not be considered.

"There will be disappointments," he said. A front-runner is Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who suffered the same treatment as Mujuru a decade ago but is back in favor. Mujuru remains vice president of Zimbabwe, as Mugabe will need parliament's approval to remover her from government. She did not attend the party meeting.

Ghanaians embark on nationwide cleanup exercise

07 December 2014 Sunday

Thousands of Ghanaians on Saturday participated in a government-sponsored national cleanup exercise.

Known as the "National Sanitation Day", the event aims to inculcate in Ghanaians the spirit of cleanliness.

All across the ten regions of the country, people helped clean communities, streets and other public places.

Holding rakes, brooms and wheel barrows, participants scrubbed and swept. They cleared choked gutters and open drains that line most of Ghana's streets.

In doing this, participants were responding to an invitation by the Ministry for Local Government and Rural Development for Ghana's population of 25 million to help rid their country of "the filth engulfing it."

The cleanup takes place on the first Saturday of every month. The day was selected because it is the beginning of the weekend in Ghana.

Traders are required to leave their shops closed until the three to four-hour exercise comes to an end.

"My sisters and I woke up early in the morning and cleaned the whole house before coming out to help on the streets," Maame Sarfo, a resident of Old Fadama, a suburb of Accra, told The Anadolu Agency.

"I think it is a good thing because the rubbish is generated by us so there is nothing wrong with spending only one day out of the whole month to clear it," she added.

Bismarck Mensah, another campaign participant from the central Accra Kwame Nkrumah Circle, said he was simply obeying rules.\

“I have a shop," Mensah said. "They [the authorities] say I should not open until we finish cleaning, which means that I don't have a choice," he added.

Next to Godliness

A third participant believed that the cleanup campaign was an application of religious texts.

"Cleanliness, they say, is next to Godliness," 25-year-old Ewurabena said outside her house in Abelenkpe, a district of the Greater Accra Region.

"That is what the scripture says so I see nothing wrong with coming out with my neighbors to clean. What is the point in wearing a neat dress and living in a dirty environment," she asked.

At the Kaneshie Market, a trading center in Accra, traders, mostly women, used long brooms to clean.

Other people used short brooms to sweep the drains running through the market.

Asabea, a vegetable seller, said the cleanup campaign was good for her.

"I don’t like it when flies settle on my vegetables," the seller said. "I know they spread cholera and I get worried. If we clean the area, it is better for us," she added.

Her colleague who sells banku and soup (a rustic, traditional preparation common to Ghana and containing eggplant, okra and cassava-based dumplings) ordered all her workers to come an hour earlier so that they could finish work in time before cooking for the day.

Collaboration

Local sanitation companies, including Zoomlion and Jekora Ventures, deployed personnel to various parts of the country to assist with the exercise.

The Environmental Service Providers Association, an association of waste-management companies, had instructed its 27 members to fully participate in the campaign and provide the equipment needed.

Association Executive Secretary, Ama Ofori Antwi, said she was impressed by the event, but expressed disquiet about the attitude of some people during it.

Antwi told AA that some people had deliberately packed refuse in their homes only to bring it out on the National Sanitation Day to take advantage of the free refuse collection offered by waste-management companies.

"When the truck arrived, they started bringing out the refuse and dumping it inside," Antwi said.

"We were going to collect the waste gathered today, but we saw people come out with borla (rubbish) from their houses. People do not want to pay for such services," she added.

District assemblies across Ghana coordinated the campaign and provided the needed tools.

"Many people participated and it [the campaign] was very successful," Simpson Anim Boateng, the public health director in Accra, the capital of Ghana, said. "It will surely help prevent the cholera disease which has troubled us for the past months," he added.

He said he went around with his team to ensure that everybody participated, noting that he had to force some shoppers who were reluctant to participate to close down.

Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama took part in the exercise in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital.

Other senior government officials and ministers also took part in the event.

Even with this, Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Julius Debrah, the national coordinator of the campaign, was disappointed that not so many people showed up for the exercise.

"Some of the elites in this country don’t even see the need for the exercise," Debrah told AA.

"So people have their rights, but we will make the efforts and hope that people will join the campaign," he added.

He said he could not enter everybody's home and force them to join the campaign.

He added, however, that his ministry would continue to organize the exercise every month, despite challenges in mobilizing the public to participate.

"We would have loved that by the end of the first quarter of next year, we have a good country to show," the minister said.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/150067/ghanaians-embark-on-nationwide-cleanup-exercise.

Israeli parliament dissolves itself, sets election

December 08, 2014

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli lawmakers unanimously voted Monday to dissolve parliament, officially ending the legislature's term two years ahead of schedule and kicking off the country's election campaign ahead of a March 17 nationwide vote.

A week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government dramatically disintegrated, the 120-seat Knesset voted 93-0 favor of disbanding and ending one of the shortest serving parliaments in Israeli history.

Early polls show Netanyahu likely returning to power. But a growing coalition of anti-Netanyahu factions threatens to depose the longtime leader. Israel's government, which took office in early 2013, had been riven by divisions from the outset over major issues facing the country. Netanyahu's fractious center-right Cabinet had been bickering for weeks over the budget, a housing tax break and a bill that would enshrine into law Israel's status as a Jewish state.

Netanyahu is looking to secure a fourth term as premier by increasing support for his hardline Likud Party. He hopes to secure a strong majority for a "national bloc" that includes his traditional allies of ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's nationalist Yisrael Beitenu faction and the hard line Jewish Home party, which is strongly linked to the West Bank settler movement. This bloc tends to take a hard line in peace talks with the Palestinians.

In the last vote, the parties earned a combined 61 out of 120 seats in parliament. The majority proved too slim for Netanyahu to rule effectively and he was forced to reach out to two centrist parties, Yesh Atid and Hatnuah, to shore up his majority. Netanyahu's feuds with these parties led to his decision to fire their ministers and call a new election.

Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni appears to be on the brink of sealing an alliance with Isaac Herzog and his center-left Labor party. A poll published Monday showed the potential joint list surging past Likud to become the largest party in the next Knesset. But it would still likely need the support or either Lieberman or the ultra-Orthodox for Herzog to replace Netanyahu as prime minister.

No major damage in Philippine typhoon; 2 dead

December 07, 2014

LEGAZPI, Philippines (AP) — Typhoon Hagupit knocked out power, left at least two people dead and sent nearly 900,000 into shelters before it weakened Sunday, sparing the central Philippines the type of massive devastation that a monster storm brought to the region last year.

Shallow floods, damaged shanties and ripped off store signs and tin roofs were a common sight across the region, but there was no major destruction after Hagupit slammed into Eastern Samar and other island provinces. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of 170 kph (106 mph) on Sunday, considerably weaker from its peak power but still a potentially deadly storm, according to forecasters.

The typhoon, which made landfall in Eastern Samar late Saturday, was moving slowly, dumping heavy rain that could possibly trigger landslides and flash floods. Traumatized by the death and destruction from Typhoon Haiyan last year, nearly 900,000 people fled to about 1,000 emergency shelters and safer grounds. The government, backed by the 120,000-strong military, had launched massive preparations to attain a zero-casualty target.

Rhea Estuna, a 29-year-old mother of one, fled Thursday to an evacuation center in Tacloban — the city hardest-hit by Haiyan — and waited in fear as Hagupit's wind and rain lashed the school where she and her family sought refuge. When she peered outside Sunday, she said she saw a starkly different aftermath than the one she witnessed after Haiyan struck in November 2013.

"There were no bodies scattered on the road, no big mounds of debris," Estuna told The Associated Press by cellphone. "Thanks to God this typhoon wasn't as violent." Haiyan's tsunami-like storm surges and killer winds left thousands of people dead and leveled entire villages, most of them in and around Tacloban.

Nearly a dozen countries, led by the United States and the European Union, have pledged to help in case of a catastrophe from Hagupit (pronounced HA'-goo-pit), disaster-response agency chief Alexander Pama said.

The EU commissioner for humanitarian aid, Christos Stylianides, said a team of experts would be deployed to help assess the damage and needed response. "The Philippines are not alone as they brace up for a possible hardship," Stylianides said, adding that the European Commission was "hoping that the impact will be less powerful than a year ago, when Typhoon Haiyan left a devastating imprint on the country."

Two people, including a baby girl, died of hypothermia in central Iloilo province Saturday at the height of the typhoon, Pama said at a news conference. Two women were injured when the tricycle taxi they were riding was struck by a falling tree in central Negros Oriental province.

Displaced villagers were asked to return home from emergency shelters in provinces where the danger posed by the typhoon had waned, including Albay, where more than half a million people were advised to leave evacuation sites.

Nearly 12,000 villagers, however, will remain in government shelters in Albay because their homes lie near a restive volcano. Like many others in Albay, southeast of Manila, Marline Conde has lived a tough life dodging typhoons like Hagupit and seasonal eruptions of Mayon, the country's most active volcano.

The 50-year-old mother of six did not have to be moved to an emergency shelter ahead of Hagupit — she was already encamped in one with her family since October, when Mayon turned restive. "We have been evacuating for a long time because of Mayon, then typhoons," Conde said. "We have not gone home since then. The typhoon caught us here."

While officials expressed relief that the typhoon had not caused major damage, they were quick to warn that Hagupit — Filipino for "smash" or "lash" — was still on course to barrel across three major central Philippine islands before starting to blow away Tuesday into the South China Sea.

Several typhoon-lashed eastern villages isolated by downed telephone and power lines were out of contact, Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said. "It's too early to tell," Philippine Red Cross Secretary-General Gwendolyn Pang said. "Let's cross our fingers that it will stay that way. It's too close to Christmas."

Army troops deployed to supermarkets and major roads in provinces in the typhoon's path to prevent looting and chaos and clear debris, all of which slowed the government's response to Haiyan last year.

Unlike major storms in past years, many people readily left high-risk communities ahead of Hagupit, Soliman said. "Haiyan was the best teacher of all," Soliman said. "People did not need much convincing to move to safety. In fact, many of them volunteered to go."

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Pluto-bound spacecraft ends hibernation to start mission

07 December 2014 Sunday

After nine years and a journey of 3 billion miles (4.8 billion km), NASA's New Horizons robotic probe awoke from hibernation on Saturday to begin an unprecedented mission to study the icy dwarf planet Pluto and sibling worlds in its Kuiper Belt home.

A pre-set alarm clock roused New Horizons from its electronic slumber at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), though ground control teams didn't receive confirmation until just after 9:30 p.m. (0230 GMT on Sunday).

New Horizons is now so far away that radio signals traveling at the speed of light take four hours and 25 minutes to reach Earth.

The scientific observation of Pluto, its entourage of moons and other bodies in the solar system's frozen backyard begins Jan. 15, program managers said. The closest approach is expected on July 14.

Pluto lies in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy mini-planets orbiting the sun beyond Neptune that are believed to be leftover remains from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago. It is the last unexplored region of the solar system.

"It's hard to underestimate the evolution that's taking place in our view of the architecture and content of our solar system as a result of the discovery ... of the Kuiper Belt," lead researcher Alan Stern said.

Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has been a mystery. Scientists struggled to explain why a planet with a radius of just 740 miles (1,190 km) - about half the width of the United States - could come to exist beyond the giant worlds of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

"We wondered why Pluto was a misfit," Stern said.

In 1992, astronomers discovered that Pluto, located about 40 times farther away from the sun than Earth, was not alone in the far reaches of the solar system, prompting the International Astronomical Union to reconsider its definition of "planet."

In 2006, with New Horizons already on its way, Pluto was stripped of its title as the ninth planet in the solar system and became a dwarf planet, of which more than 1,000 have since been discovered in the Kuiper Belt.

With New Horizons approaching Pluto's doorstep, scientists are eager for their first close-up look at this unexplored domain.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/150079/pluto-bound-spacecraft-ends-hibernation-to-start-mission.

New NASA spaceship nails debut test flight

05 December 2014 Friday

A U.S. spaceship designed to one day fly astronauts to Mars made a near-bullseye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, wrapping up a flawless, unmanned debut test flight around Earth.

"It's hard to have a better day than today," NASA's Orion capsule program manager Mark Geyer told reporters after landing.

The cone-shaped capsule blasted off aboard a Delta 4 Heavy rocket, the biggest in the U.S. fleet, just after dawn from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Three hours later, it reached peak altitude of 3,604 miles (5,800 km) above the planet, a prelude to the most challenging part of the flight, a 20,000-mph (32,000 km/h) dive back to Earth.

Orion survived a searing plunge through the atmosphere, heating up to 4,000 degree Fahrenheit (2,200 degree Celsius) - twice as hot as molten lava - and experiencing gravitational forces eight times stronger than Earth's.

Over the next few minutes, a total of 11 parachutes deployed to slow Orion's descent, including three gigantic main chutes that guided the spaceship to a 20-mph (32 km/h) splashdown 630 miles (1,014 km) southwest of San Diego, California, at 11:29 a.m. EST (11:29 EST).

Details of the spaceship's performance, especially how it weathered surges of radiation as it passed through the lower Van Allen radiation belt, will come after data recorded by more than 1,200 onboard sensors is retrieved and analyzed.

"I'm sure we're going to find some very interesting things," Geyer said.

The point of the flight, which cost NASA about $375 million, was to verify that Orion's 16.5-foot (5-meter) diameter heat shield, parachutes, avionics and other equipment would work as designed prior to astronauts flying aboard.

NASA has been developing Orion, along with a new heavy-lift rocket, for more than eight years. The design of the rocket has changed, leaving Orion sole survivor of the canceled Constellation lunar exploration program to become the centerpiece of a new human space initiative intended to fly crews to Mars.

NASA has spent more than $9 billion developing Orion, which will make a second test flight, also without crew, in about four years.

A third mission, expected around 2021, will include two astronauts on a flight that will send the capsule high around the moon. Since the end of the Apollo moon program in 1972, astronauts have flown only a few hundred miles above Earth.

"We've ... finally done something for the first time for our generation. It's a good day," said Mike Hawes, Orion program manager with NASA prime contractor Lockheed Martin.

Orion's debut flight originally had been slated for Thursday but a problem with the rocket, built and flown by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed and Boeing Co, delayed the launch one day.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/149966/new-nasa-spaceship-nails-debut-test-flight.

Iran plans to tax religious foundations

2014-12-04

TEHRAN - Iran's parliament has adopted a law to tax religious foundations and military-linked companies, a first for the Islamic republic that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, media reported Thursday.

The government is seeking to tighten spending and raise taxes to offset the negative effect on the state budget of sharply lower oil prices and international sanctions.

The revenue resulting from the new law could amount to 10 billion rials (more than $377 million at the official rate/307 million euros), said the budget committee's Mousalreza Servati, cited by the reformist Shargh newspaper.

The money raised from the foundations and army-linked businesses that control large parts of the economy would go towards building schools in disadvantaged areas, a lawmaker was cited as saying.

Media outlets said the new legislation refers in particular to the Astan Qods Razavi Foundation, which manages the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite imam, in the northeastern city of Mashhad, which draws millions of pilgrims each year.

It also mentions EIKO, which the United States says is a network of 40 companies run by the office of the supreme leader in control of billions of dollars in investments.

"Given the fall in the country's oil revenues and the continuation of this trend for next year, it is necessary to obtain alternative income," Gholam-Ali Jafarzadeh Imenabadi, another budget committee member, was quoted as saying.

But the law is unlikely to take effect, according to MP Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi, cited by the Tabnak news website.

The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic and its first supreme leader, exempted Astan Qods Razavi from taxes, Pourebrahimi said. Only his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can annul such decisions, which he generally refuses to do, the lawmaker explained.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69197.