China building second aircraft carrier: PLA colonel

Beijing (AFP)
March 13, 2015

China is building its second aircraft carrier, a senior naval officer has told media, the most explicit confirmation yet of a widely expected move that will boost Beijing's maritime power.

China's first aircraft carrier was a 300-meter (1,000-foot) Soviet-era vessel bought from Ukraine and commissioned in September 2012 -- at the time a milestone for the country's growing military might.

Since then "confirmations" from military and government officials of a second domestically built ship have been sporadically reported -- and often deleted shortly afterwards.

The news follows reports last week of another double-digit spending boost for China's military -- the world's largest -- during 2015, as the country pursues a series of territorial disputes with its neighbors.

Senior colonel Liang Fang said China "accumulated a lot of experience" from the first vessel, the Liaoning, and told Internet portal Sohu it had now taken the "next step".

"The reason we imported the first aircraft carrier is so that we could be capable of building our own in the future," she said.

"And now, just like what some media have revealed, that is what we have done -- built the second aircraft carrier," added the officer, a professor at the National Defense University of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Liang was responding to a question on senior PLA officers previously confirming the building of the vessel. Her comments were reported Wednesday from an interview on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, the communist-controlled legislature.

Beijing has rapidly expanded its military in recent years, rattling its neighbors and attracting the attention of the United States, which is making a foreign policy "pivot" towards Asia.

Last month, authorities in China's eastern Jiangsu province said in an online post that a local firm had won a contract to supply cabling "for China's second aircraft carrier", comments that were picked up by a local newspaper.

The report came just over a year after Wang Min -- the Communist Party secretary of Liaoning province, where China's first aircraft carrier is based -- said the country was already working on a second ship to be completed around 2020.

The "confirmations" of the second vessel appeared to have been removed from the Internet by government censors shortly after they emerged.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_building_second_aircraft_carrier_PLA_colonel_999.html.

Confidence in Ukraine's cease-fire hurt by arms violations

March 21, 2015

NOVOAMVROSIIVSKE, Ukraine (AP) — With cameras and clipboards in hands, teams of blue-jacketed international observers drive around the muddy countryside of eastern Ukraine looking for rocket launchers and artillery.

Their task is to verify whether government troops and Russian-backed rebel forces are removing heavy weapons from the front line in accordance with a February cease-fire deal. The success of the Organization for Security and Europe monitoring mission would lessen the chances that heavy fighting will resume in conflict that has already left more than 6,000 dead in a year.

Evidence is emerging, however, that the warring sides are leading monitors on a time-wasting game of hide-and-seek. Distrust between foes remains intense and anxiety lingers that a new flare-up could be just around the corner.

On Friday, an Associated Press journalist saw two tanks and two 120 mm guns being taken toward the front in rebel territory, near the separatist-held city of Donetsk. Two days earlier, Ukrainian troops were seen transporting a tank and a large-caliber gun in the town of Avdiivka, which also lies right on the front line.

None of the weapons should have been there. Under a peace deal laboriously negotiated between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, anything with a caliber of 100 mm or above should be pulled back 25 to 70 kilometers (15 to 45 miles) from the front.

The weapons withdrawal began the last week of February and both sides claim to have completed the process. But the OSCE says to make sure the pullbacks happened, it must know how many weapons each side has and where they are being stored.

"Some information has been provided from both sides, but we still need substantial information," said Michael Bociurkiw, the OSCE mission spokesman. On Friday, a group of inspectors in rebel territory traveled from Donetsk to Novoamvrosiivske, a village near the Russian border where AP journalists on Feb. 26 followed four trucks carrying Grad launchers to a cement factory.

In that same cement factory, monitors scrutinized dozens of tanks, rocket launchers and howitzers, eyeing serial plates, taking photos and writing down notes. Where serial numbers were scratched away, a photo was taken of that missing information.

In separatist areas, OSCE teams have to ask in advance for permission to visit sites they wish to see and they travel under the supervision of rebel fighters. "They have complained to us that they can move around freely on Ukrainian territory," one rebel fighter, who gave his name as Major Yegorov, told the AP in Novoamvrosiivske. "That is true, but on that territory there is no fighting. The war is here, in the southeast. So we control them because we want to provide safety for them."

It is unclear to what extent the OSCE teams are able to decide on their own where to inspect. On the road back to Donetsk after the Novoamvrosiivske inspection, fresh tracks on the asphalt in the Donetsk suburb of Makiivka appeared to indicate that a convoy of heavy machinery had passed through since the morning. The OSCE team drove past, but an AP journalist followed the tracks to find two tanks in a multi-vehicle convoy that included truck-pulled cannons and troop carriers full of rebel fighters.

On Wednesday, two days earlier, a Ukrainian soldier told an AP reporter, laughing, that a cease-fire agreement-busting cannon that was being taken toward the front had a "90-something mm caliber." The weapon was clearly more powerful than that.

Ukrainian military officials have at times conceded that they are refraining from a complete withdrawal of heavy weapons, citing what they say is rebel reluctance to do the same. "We will not withdraw all our weapons, as we have no confirmation that the same is being done by the enemy," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters March 11. "It would be wrong and criminal to leave our troops without any cover."

And Ukrainian authorities say artillery fire continues in sporadic clashes along the front line. Donetsk region police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said a resident of Avdiivka was killed Friday after a shell struck a home in the town.

In addition, neither side is willing to agree that tanks fall under the weapons to be withdrawn, although the cease-fire clearly envisions their removal. Monitors complain daily that they are not being allowed to travel freely. Sometimes they are made to wait at checkpoints, forcing delays, while in more extreme cases they are blocked entirely from reaching their destination.

Bociurkiw said even a short wait violates the verification process. "Any delays are unacceptable in our books," he said.

Leonard reported from Kiev, Ukraine.

Crimea exiles fight to keep Ukraine unity message alive

March 18, 2015

SHCHASLYVE, Ukraine (AP) — The tormentors stuck scotch tape to his eyes and locked him in a dank room. For 11 days, Andrei Schekun said, they beat him, shocked him with electrodes and scalded him with burning metallic plates.

He said the torture took place as Crimea voted in a referendum to secede from Ukraine a year ago Wednesday. Schekun's crime: campaigning to persuade his fellow Crimeans to reject absorption by Russia.

Schekun's crusade for Ukrainian unity, which he continues today in exile, began as pro-Moscow sentiment among the majority ethnic Russian population reached fever pitch on the peninsula. Demands for a split from Ukraine spiked within days of the February ouster of Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Although most Ukrainians resented the president with feverish intensity for his predatory rule, people in regions such as Crimea and eastern Ukraine, with dominant ethnic Russian populations, viewed him with more sympathy.

Russian state television stations already fed them a steady diet of stories about unrest being led by rabid Ukrainian nationalists bent on oppression of the Russian population. Ill-intentioned Ukrainians, the Russian networks warned, were poised to descend upon Crimea.

Schekun's activism in drumming up support in Crimea for the anti-government protests that toppled Yanukovych was enough to make him suspect. Soon flyers appeared in the courtyard outside Schekun's home in the Crimean town of Bakhchysarai describing him as a traitor.

"Everywhere in the district where we lived, they stuck up leaflets with his face, calling him a bloodthirsty traitor and a fascist, and all kinds of other things," said Schekun's wife, Lyudmila, speaking from their new home outside Kiev. Schekun, along with his wife and three sons, are among the roughly 20,000 people who Ukrainian officials say have left Crimea for the mainland since the region was annexed by Russia.

On March 9, one week before the referendum, plain-clothed policemen detained Schekun at a train station in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, as he awaited the delivery of Ukrainian flags and symbols. The group was from a self-described militia charged with ensuring the referendum on joining Russia proceeded smoothly.

"They thought we wanted to derail their referendum," he said. "They thought we were some kind of terrorist group or something." Pro-Ukrainian activism inside Crimea has become an even more dangerous proposition since then.

Last week, a small group of Crimea residents marked the day of Ukraine's national poet Taras Shevchenko by gathering outside his statue in Simferopol with Ukrainian flags. That minor act of defiance earned them 40 hours hard labor.

The peninsula's Tatar minority, whose leadership resisted Russian annexation, says it too has been subjected to intimidation that has ranged from petty official harassment to beatings, kidnappings and murder.

Speaking at a United Nations conference in Geneva on Monday, the human rights envoy for Ukraine's parliament, Valeriya Lutkovskaya, described Crimea as a "peninsula of terror." "People are afraid to express their opinion," Lutkovskaya said. "They feel fear for their life and future, fear to espouse their faith and speak in their native language."

According to the most recent census, carried out in 2001, ethnic Ukrainians make up one-quarter of Crimea's population. From a distance, exiles feel at a loss to help and say they are disappointed with the Ukrainian government's failure to keep Crimea near the top of its agenda.

"Unfortunately, there is at the moment no single government executive body that deals with Crimean matters," said Eskender Bariyev, a member of the Mejlis, a self-governing body of Crimean Tatars. With government initiative lacking, Schekun says it is up to activists like him to shore up the morale of Ukrainians still in Crimea: "They need our moral support," he said. "They need to hear us say 'We haven't betrayed you, we haven't abandoned you.'"

It's hard to keep up the fight in a rented apartment outside the capital. But Schekun remains upbeat about his mission. "We will not let the government forget," Schekun said, joined by his wife in emphatically finishing the thought, "that Crimea is Ukraine."

US air defense troops train fast deployment in Poland

March 21, 2015

SOCHACZEW, Poland (AP) — U.S. air defense troops are training rapid deployment of Patriot missile launchers in Poland amid concerns that the conflict between Russia-backed rebels and government forces in Ukraine is threatening the security in the region.

On Saturday, at a test range in Sochaczew near Warsaw, two U.S. soldiers demonstrated for reporters the procedure of emplacement of a Patriot launching station of 16 missiles, as part of their week-long exercise.

Some 100 U.S. troops and 30 vehicles from the 5th Battalion of the 7th Air Defense Regiment arrived in Sochaczew this week from Germany, where they are stationed, to train with Polish troops. The exercise is aimed at showing the U.S. Army's capacity to deploy Patriot air and missile defense systems rapidly within NATO territory.

The Patriot missiles are superior to Poland's air defense weapons. Poland's Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak and U.S. Ambassador Stephen Mull visited the troops on Saturday. Speaking in fluent Polish, Mull said that the U.S. is always ready to "defend and stand by Poland's side in times of need."

Siemoniak said that the exercise in quick deployment of Patriot missiles is a response to the "events in the East of Europe." In 2018, Poland is to be covered by a permanent U.S. air defense system to be built in Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile in Szczecin, on the Baltic coast, the NATO Multinational Corps Northeast held a ceremony to open the procedure of raising its status from low to high reaction readiness as it is preparing to command NATO's new rapid reaction force, the so-called spearhead.

Poland seeking submarine-launch cruise missiles

Warsaw (AFP)
March 12, 2015

Poland is seeking advanced cruise missiles to equip three new submarines it wants to acquire by 2030, the NATO member's minister of defense said Thursday.

Tomasz Siemoniak confirmed on Polish public radio that Poland had asked the United States about the availability of Raytheon's Tomahawk cruise missiles.

"Last year, I decided that Polish vessels should be able (to launch cruise missiles) and we are speaking to all those able to deliver this kind of weapon, including the Americans," he said.

Procedures to begin the submarine tender could be launched this year, the minister added.

If Washington greenlights the sale of Tomahawks to Warsaw, they could compete in the Polish tender against France's MdCN missile systems exclusively used to equip submarines made by the country's DCNS group.

Looking east to the bloody conflict gripping Ukraine, Poland has kicked off an unprecedented military spending spree worth some 33.6 billion euros ($42 billion) to overhaul its forces over a decade.

Its long shopping list includes an anti-missile shield and anti-aircraft systems, armored personnel carriers and submarines as well as combat drones.

The plans bring Warsaw in line with NATO's recommended defense spending level of 2.0 percent of gross domestic product.

Seventy multi-role helicopters top the list, a contract worth 2.5 billion euros.

To counter an upped Russian military presence in the Baltic and Black Sea region, NATO is boosting defenses on its eastern flank with a spearhead force of 5,000 troops and command centers in the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Poland_seeking_submarine-launch_cruise_missiles_999.html.

Macedonia premier denounces opposition leader over tapes

March 15, 2015

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia's conservative prime minister has denounced the opposition leader for attempting to "destabilize the country" and working for "foreign service interests" after the latter released taped conversations of what he says is new evidence of the premier's involvement in a real-estate lucrative business.

Hours after Zoran Zaev, leader of the main opposition Social Democratic Union, released the conversations, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski held a rally attended by thousands of supporters of the ruling center-right VMRO-DPMNE party Sunday to deny wrongdoing and proclaim he won't resign.

Zaev called for the government to step down, claiming corruption at the highest levels, including mismanagement of funds, control of the judiciary and media, spurious criminal prosecutions of opponents and illegal wiretapping of more than 20,000 people, including public officials, religious leaders and foreign ambassadors.

Greece fights German bailout demands with Nazi-era claims

March 22, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — It was 1943 and the Nazis were deporting Greece's Jews to death camps in Poland. Hitler's genocidal accountants reserved a chilling twist: The Jews had to pay their train fare.

The bill for 58,585 Jews sent to Auschwitz and other camps exceeded 2 million Reichsmark — more than 25 million euros ($27 million) in today's money. For decades, this was a forgotten footnote among all of the greater horrors of the Holocaust. Today it is returning to the fore amid the increasingly bitter row between Athens and Berlin over the Greek financial bailout.

Jewish leaders in Thessaloniki, home to Greece's largest Jewish community, say they are considering how to reclaim the rail fares from Germany — with seven decades of interest. "We will study the law and do our best to claim," the community's president, David Saltiel, told The Associated Press.

Such a move would suit the new government in Athens, which is trying to shift the public focus from Greece's current debt crisis to Germany's World War II debts ahead of Monday's first visit to Berlin by Greece's new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

While war reparations have been a staple demand of previous Greek governments, Tsipras' radical left government has made the issue a central part of the bailout negotiations with Germany. The Germans have dismissed such demands, saying compensation issues were settled decades ago in post-war accords.

Billions of euros in rescue loans from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund have saved Greece from bankruptcy since 2010. Germany, the largest contributor to the bailout, has been vocal in pressing Greece to cut back on government spending to bring its finances under control.

But the Greeks point out that, following its wartime defeat, Germany received one of the biggest bailouts in modern history within a decade of laying waste to much of Europe. Greece was among 22 countries that agreed to halve Germany's foreign debt at a 1953 conference in London.

Even some German politicians have called for a change of heart on the reparations issue. They argue that if Germany doesn't confront its World War II guilt, it cannot expect other countries to repay their more recent debts. The point has particular resonance in Germany because, in German, guilt and debt are the same word: Schuld.

Among the claims that Greece, or individual Greeks, might bring against Germany: — Tens, possibly hundreds, of billions of euros (dollars) in present-day money as compensation for destroyed infrastructure and goods, including archaeological treasures, looted by the Nazis from 1941 to 1944.

— Compensation for the estimated 300,000 people who died from famine during the winter of 1941-1942. — Compensation for the slaughter of civilians as reprisals for partisan attacks. One of the most infamous massacres took place in the Greek village of Distomo on June 10, 1944, when Waffen-SS soldiers killed more than 200 women, children and elderly residents. Another in Kalavryta in December 1943 involved German troops killing more than 500 civilians, including virtually all of the town's males aged 14 or over.

— Repayment of some 1.9 billion drachmas, around 50 million euros ($55 million) today, that the Jewish community paid as ransom to occupying authorities in 1942 in return for 10,000 Jewish men being held as slave laborers. The men were released only to be sent to concentration camps the following year.

— Repayment of an interest-free loan of 568 million Reichsmark (7.1 billion euros or $7.7 billion) that the Nazis forced Greece to make to Germany in 1942. — Returning the train fares that the Reichsbahn received for transporting Jews to their deaths. Historians disagree on whether the tickets were bought directly by Jews or paid by a special Nazi fund established with money stolen from Jews. They broadly agree that the money came from Holocaust victims.

Previous efforts to bring claims against Germany have ended in legal quagmires. In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights dismissed a lawsuit brought by four survivors of the Distomo massacre. The judges in Strasbourg, France, concluded that a German court hadn't discriminated against the plaintiffs when it rejected their claim on the basis that states can't be sued by individuals.

Germany insists that the 1942 loan should be considered part of the overall reparations issue. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, says that liability has been "comprehensively and conclusively resolved."

But a confidential legal assessment provided to the German parliament concluded that Berlin's liability wasn't so clear-cut. A Munich historian, Hans Guenter Hockerts, says the Greeks shouldn't be confident of winning any of their claims, but are on firmest ground in demanding repayment of the 1942 loan.

Even the Nazis felt bound by terms of that loan and paid back two installments before their occupation of Greece ended. The unpaid 476 million Reichsmark would be equivalent to at least 6 billion euros ($6.5 billion) today.

That figure dwarfs the war reparations actually paid by Germany since 1945, which include: — $25 million in goods shortly after the war; Greece says the proper sum should have been nearer $14 billion.

— 115 million Deutschmarks — equivalent to about $330 million today — as part of a 1960 treaty with Greece meant to compensate victims of Nazi atrocities, including Greek Jews. — 13.5 million euros (about $15 million) paid to former slave laborers from a fund established in 2000 by German companies and the government.

— 1 million euros ($1.1 million) paid annually for a "German-Greek future foundation" meant to fund remembrance and historical research projects. Gesine Schwan, who twice ran for president as the candidate of Germany's center-left Social Democrats, says the government's stance on new reparations payments is damaging Germany's image in Europe.

"It's embarrassing if rich Germany demands that poor Greece ... pay back debt," Schwan wrote in a newspaper column, "but isn't prepared even to discuss repayment of a forced loan that Nazi Germany took from Greece during the war."

Associated Press reporter Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece, contributed to this report.

Vote blunts rise of France's far-right National Front

March 23, 2015

PARIS (AP) — France's governing Socialists never expected to do well in Sunday's first-round local elections, and their strategy worked just as planned: Their conservative rivals took first place.

Before the elections for 2,000 local councils, the Socialists urged people to vote, hoping that turnout would blunt the rise of Marine Le Pen's far right National Front, even if it meant Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP would be the victor.

Initial projections from polling agencies gave the UMP party 31 percent of the vote compared with 24.5 percent for the National Front and 19.7 percent for the Socialists and their allies. Turnout was 51 percent, compared with about 45 percent in similar elections in 2011.

With little air of a man in third place, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was the first to praise the far right party's defeat. "This evening, the extreme right, even it is too high, is not at the forefront of French politics," Valls said. "When we mobilize the French, it works."

Le Pen was nowhere on the ballots themselves, but her National Front is trying to build a grassroots army of local officials to buttress her presidential ambitions in 2017. France's council elections are in two rounds, so victory Sunday determines which candidates can contest a second vote March 29.

The Socialists, which currently control the majority of the councils, are deeply unpopular after the government's failure to turn around France's economy. Both they and the UMP are torn by infighting, leaving the National Front something of an open field for the first round.

But both the Socialists and UMP, normally rivals, have issued dire warnings about France's future under a resurgent National Front, which is opposed to immigration, the perceived "Islamization" of France, and the European Union. Le Pen has tapped disillusionment with a stagnant economy and transformed the party from a pariah under her father, party co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, into one of France's most popular political forces.

Jockeying ahead of the second round started moments after the first-round results came in. Valls essentially called for voters to choose anyone running against a National Front candidate. Sarkozy, who like Marine Le Pen is eyeing the 2017 presidential race for a comeback, told supporters to abstain in the second round if a UMP candidate wasn't running.

And Le Pen demanded Valls' resignation for "trying to lead a campaign against the people, a filthy and violent campaign that stigmatized millions of French voters." One outcome is certain: Half of those elected will be women.

Instead of voting for individual candidates, the ballots contain tickets — one man, one woman — in order to overcome years of failed efforts to get more women into government. Currently, only 16 percent of council members are women.

Far-right party fighting for lead in France's weekend vote

March 20, 2015

PARIS (AP) — Discontented Socialists, frustrated conservatives and an eclectic array of others — from gays to political renegades — could be among those casting ballots for France's extreme-right National Front in local voting this weekend, elections that promise to solidify leader Marine Le Pen's position as one of the country's leading political figures.

Le Pen has been the single most visible presence in weeks of campaigning on city streets and in rural villages with a relentless message to voters fed up with traditional parties: We care about you, they don't.

For Le Pen, Sunday's election for more than 2,000 local councils is an important step in building a grassroots base critical to her ultimate goal: the 2017 presidency. "This is the big straight line to 2017," she said in a speech early this month in Paris. "There is no minor election, no minor vote."

The National Front decries immigration, fears Islam is uprooting traditional France and wants to withdraw from the European Union and euro currency. It's a hardcore line that Le Pen has successfully turned into a charm offensive for the disgruntled.

A poll published days ahead of Sunday's first-round balloting gives the National Front a leading 30 percent of the vote. That is just ahead of the conservatives and their allies, who measured 29 percent. It is leagues ahead of the 19 percent of President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party. The second round is scheduled for March 29.

The governing left, unable to revive stagnant growth or lower the 10 percent unemployment rate, did not need a poll to know where it stands. Divided within and out of favor with the party faithful, the Socialists are expecting a drubbing — the only question seems to be how bad it will be.

The spotlight beamed still more brightly on Le Pen this month when Prime Minister Manuel Valls voiced the unspoken fears of the mainstream political class, saying Le Pen could, indeed, win the presidency.

"I fear for my country," Valls said. "I fear it will get smashed against the National Front." The prime minister's bold declaration was a clear bid to lure voters, and give pause to those tempted to turn their backs on mainstream parties. Divisions within the left and the right could send voters to the proudly anti-establishment National Front, a scenario aggravated by a predicted high abstention rate — which favors upstart parties whose supporters are more fired up than the mainstream ones.

The National Front comes off a string of electoral success last year. It won control of 11 towns, took three seats in the French parliament and increased its seats in the European Parliament from three to 24 — more gains than any other French party.

Pollsters have predicted the National Front could even benefit from votes from disgruntled Socialists — the traditional arch-enemies of the far-right. Le Pen has moderated her message since taking over leadership of the party in 2011 from her firebrand father Jean-Marie Le Pen, to make it an attractive alternative to what she disdainfully refers to as "UMPS" — an amalgam of the conservative UMP party and the Socialist PS.

She has worked to scrub away the anti-Semitic stigma of the National Front — while relentlessly attacking immigration and Muslims who cling to their traditions, from eating halal meat to wearing the Islamic veil. She said Thursday she wants all mosque construction frozen until it is clear who finances them.

To draw in voters looking for a softer political identity than the National Front, Le Pen created what she called the "Blue Marine Rally" — an alliance of small anti-establishment parties. And she refuses the extreme-right label, calling herself and supporters "patriots."

National Front candidates vying for posts — many of them untested — range from party veterans to newcomers to her latest prize: Sebastien Chenu, a defector from the mainstream conservatives who co-founded a gay liberation movement.

The National Front now includes several gays in leadership posts. Chenu, running in Beauvais, north of Paris, said his membership shows that the National Front mirrors French society. "They tried to make people believe for years that those supporting Marine Le Pen were the marginalized," he told The Associated Press. "No, it's France in its diversity."

Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to this report.

Cruz becomes first major candidate to jump into 2016 race

March 23, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has become the first major candidate for president, kicking off what's expected to be a rush over the next few weeks of more than a dozen White House hopefuls into the 2016 campaign.

"I am running for president and I hope to earn your support," the tea party favorite said in a Twitter message posted just after midnight on Monday. Cruz will formally launch his bid during a morning speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, choosing to begin his campaign at the Christian college founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell rather than his home state of Texas or the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It's a fitting setting for Cruz, a 44-year-old tea party darling whose entry into the 2016 campaign drew cheers Sunday among fellow conservatives.

Amy Kremer, the former head of the Tea Party Express, said that the Republican pool of candidates "will take a quantum leap forward" with Cruz's announcement, adding that it "will excite the base in a way we haven't seen in years."

Elected for the first time just three years ago, when he defeated an establishment figure in Texas politics with decades of experience in office, Cruz has hinted openly for more than a year that he wants to move down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Senate and into the White House.

In an online video promoted on his Twitter account, Cruz offered a preview of his campaign's message. "It's a time for truth, a time to rise to the challenge, just as Americans have always done. I believe in America and her people, and I believe we can stand up and restore our promise," Cruz said as images of farm fields, city skylines and American landmarks and symbols played in the background. "It's going to take a new generation of courageous conservatives to help make America great again, and I'm ready to stand with you to lead the fight."

While Cruz is the first Republican to declare his candidacy, he is all but certain to be followed by several big names in the GOP, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and two Senate colleagues, Kentucky's Rand Paul and Florida's Marco Rubio.

The Houston Chronicle first reported details about Cruz's campaign launch. His move puts him into pole position among those whose strategy to win the nomination counts on courting the party's most conservative voters, who hold an outsized influence in the Republican nominating process.

"Cruz is going to make it tough for all of the candidates who are fighting to emerge as the champion of the anti-establishment wing of the party," said GOP strategist Kevin Madden. "That is starting to look like quite a scrum where lots of candidates will be throwing some sharp elbows."

Following his election to the Senate in 2012, the former Texas solicitor general quickly established himself as an uncompromising conservative willing to take on Democrats and Republicans alike. He won praise from tea party activists in 2013 for leading the GOP's push to partially shut the federal government during an unsuccessful bid to block money for President Barack Obama's health care law.

In December, Cruz defied party leaders to force a vote on opposing Obama's executive actions on immigration. The strategy failed, and led several of his Republican colleagues to call Cruz out. "You should have an end goal in sight if you're going to do these types of things and I don't see an end goal other than irritating a lot of people," said Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Such admonitions mean little to Cruz, who wins over crowds of like-minded conservative voters with his broadsides against Obama, Congress and the federal government. One of the nation's top college debaters while a student at Princeton University, Cruz continues to be a leading voice for the health law's repeal, and promises to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and scrap the Department of Education if elected president.

Last weekend in New Hampshire, one voter gave Cruz a blank check and told him to write it for whatever amount he needed. "He's awfully good at making promises that he knows the GOP can't keep and pushing for unachievable goals, but he seems very popular with right wing," said veteran Republican strategist John Feehery. "Cruz is a lot smarter than the typical darling of the right, and that makes him more dangerous to guys like Scott Walker and Rand Paul."

The son of an American mother and Cuban-born father, Cruz would be the nation's first Hispanic president. While in New Hampshire this month, Cruz told voters his daughter, Caroline, had given him permission to join the presidential race in the hopes that the family puppy would get to play on the White House lawn instead of near their Houston high-rise condo.

"If you win, that means Snowflake will finally get a backyard to pee in," Cruz said his daughter told him. To get there, Cruz knows he needs to reach out beyond his base. He is set to release a book this summer that he said would reflect themes of his White House campaign, and said in a recent Associated Press interview he will use it to counter the "caricatures" of the right as "stupid," ''evil" or "crazy."

"The image created in the mainstream media does not comply with the facts," he said.

Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott in Lynchburg, Virginia, contributed to this report.

Mass protests present big challenge to Brazil's Rousseff

By Brad Brooks and Stan Lehman, Associated Press
March 16, 2015

SAO PAULO (AP) -- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff faced the biggest challenge yet of her young and turbulent second term, as hundreds of thousands of protesters took to streets in more than 150 cities to demand her impeachment and an end to corruption.

The Sunday protests, organized by right-leaning groups on social media and held across the continent-sized nation, had none of the violence seen in massive anti-government demonstrations that hit the country in 2013 and lingered into the following year.

They add to the mounting pressure on Rousseff, who is facing both political and economic crises as Brazil's economy stalls and dozens of top political figures are investigated in a kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras, which prosecutors label as the largest graft scheme yet uncovered in the country.

The biggest protest was seen in Sao Paulo, where some 210,000 people gathered on a main avenue, according to the polling and statistics firm Datafolha. Large gatherings were also seen in the capital Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and the southern city of Porto Alegre.

Rousseff didn't appear in public, but government ministers held a nationally televised press conference in which they said they would introduce anti-corruption measures in Congress, action the president promised during her campaign for re-election in October.

"We are here to express our indignation with the government-sponsored corruption and thieving, and to demand Dilma's impeachment," said Andre Menezes, 35, protesting on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo.

"She may have not been directly involved in the corruption at Petrobras, but she certainly knew about it, and for me that makes her just as guilty and justifies her ouster," he added.

In Rio, police estimated 15,000 people marched along the golden sands of Copacabana beach, where they waved Brazilian flags and many openly called for a military coup to dissolve the government.

In contrast to the widespread violence seen during Brazil's 2013 protests, on Sunday the only conflict reported was police using tear gas and stun grenades to disperse a small group of protesters in Brasilia who authorities said were trying to enter the Congress. In Sao Paulo, police arrested about 20 young men who were carrying powerful fireworks and brass knuckles.

Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo defended the government, emphasizing Rousseff's record as a leftist guerrilla who stood up to Brazil's 1964-85 military regime — and who was jailed for three years and brutally tortured because of it.

Rousseff has said she fully supports peaceful demonstrations and Cardozo added Sunday night that the rallies "confirm that Brazil is a democratic state that allows for divergences, the existence of opposing opinions and that we're far from any coup option."

Much protester ire was focused on a kickback scheme at Petrobras, in which at least $800 million was paid in bribes and other funds by Brazil's biggest construction and engineering firms in exchange for inflated Petrobras contracts.

Top executives are already in jail and the attorney general is investigating dozens of congressmen, along with current and former members of the executive branch, for alleged connections to the scheme that apparently began in 1997 before Rousseff's party took power in 2003. Rousseff, a former chairwoman of Petrobras' board, has not been implicated and so far is not being investigated, though top officials from her administration, including two former chiefs of staff, are caught up in the inquiry.

The mass marches are another thorn in Rousseff's side, adding impetus to opposition efforts to thwart measures she backs in Congress.

Brazilian growth has been weak since Rousseff took office in 2011. The country likely entered a recession in 2014 and most economists surveyed by the Central Bank forecast negative growth this year. Inflation is rising and the currency has plummeted against the dollar in recent weeks, making life more expensive in a nation with a surprisingly high cost of living.

Still, Brazil's top opposition political figures say impeachment is undesirable, because the president isn't accused of any connection to the Petrobras scandal, and because it could affect Brazil's stability.

Pedro Arruda, a political scientist at Sao Paulo's Pontifical Catholic University, said demonstrators have the right to demand Rousseff's ouster, "but the impeachment they ... demand has no legal foot to stand on."

At Copacabana, protester Sheila Alcantara said she recently had to close a restaurant she owned because of rapidly rising prices for electricity and food. "Never in my life have I heard of so much corruption, of so much money lost."

Brooks reported from Rio de Janeiro and Lehman from Sao Paulo. Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed from Rio.

Central African Republic: nearly all mosques destroyed

March 20, 2015

By: Agencies

Source: Cii Broadcasting

Almost all of the 436 mosques in the Central African Republic have been destroyed by months of vicious fighting between Christians and Muslims, the US ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday, calling the devastation “kind of crazy, chilling.”

Samantha Power spoke to reporters after a Security Council visit last week to the country. She expressed concern about an upcoming possible security vacuum as European Union and French forces pull out and a UN peacekeeping force is still not at full strength.

At least 5,000 people have been killed since Central African Republic exploded into unprecedented sectarian violence in December 2013. Nearly 1 million of the Texas-sized country’s 4.5 million residents have been displaced. Many of those who have fled are Muslim.

Power said 417 of the country’s mosques have been destroyed. She visited the one remaining Muslim neighborhood in the capital, Bangui, and described the residents as “a terrified population.”

Some Muslim women, afraid of leaving the community while wearing their veils, are choosing to give birth in their homes instead of hospitals, the ambassador said.

UN peacekeepers, French forces and a European Union military operation have tried to calm the violence. But Power said the last of the EU force of about 750 troops left the Central African Republic over the weekend, shortly after the Security Council visit.

“That’s a big dropoff in capability,” she said. Meanwhile, the French forces have announced a “substantial drawdown” by the end of this year. France had sent 2,000 troops to its former colony.

The UN peacekeeping force remains at about 80 percent of its planned strength of about 10,000, Power said. The UN secretary-general last month asked for more than 1,000 additional peacekeepers, and Power said the council is “very favorably disposed” to the request.

She said the combined forces have “averted a worst-case scenario,” but the country’s roving armed groups remain armed. She called that a deep cause for concern and said disarmament is a “huge priority.”

Source: Muslim Village.
Link: http://muslimvillage.com/2015/03/20/74094/central-african-republic-nearly-mosques-destroyed/.

Ring of light: Total eclipse over Svalbard islands in Arctic

March 20, 2015

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (AP) — Sky-gazers in the Arctic were treated to a perfect view of a total solar eclipse Friday as the moon completely blocked out the sun in a clear sky, casting a shadow over Norway's remote archipelago of Svalbard.

People shouted, cheered and applauded as Longyearbyen, the main town in Svalbard, plunged into darkness. The skies were clear, offering a full view of the sun's corona — a faint ring of rays surrounding the moon — that is only visible during a total solar eclipse.

A few hundred people had gathered on a flat frozen valley overlooking the mountains, and people shouted and yelled as the sudden darkness came. A group of people opened bottles of champagne, saying it was in keeping with a total solar eclipse tradition.

"I was just blown away. I couldn't believe it," said Hilary Castle, 58, from London. "It was just fabulous, just beautiful and at the same time a bit odd and it was too short," said Mary Rannestad, 60, from Minnesota.

A solar eclipse happens when the moon lines up between the sun and the Earth. This casts a lunar shadow on the Earth's surface and obscures the sun. During a partial eclipse, only part of the sun is blotted out.

Though some enterprising eclipse-seekers got exactly what they were hoping for, others were less lucky. A blanket of clouds in the Faeroe Islands in the North Atlantic blocked thousands of people from experiencing the full effect of the total eclipse.

The Faeroes and Svalbard were the only two places on land where the eclipse was total. About 20,000 visitors had traveled to the two remote island groups to watch the spectacle. Despite the clouds in the Faeroes, tourists and residents in Torshavn alike hooted and applauded as the daylight dimmed for about 2 minutes and 45 seconds.

"It was a pretty big disappointment not to be able to see the sun," said Janaki Lund Jensen, who had sailed from Copenhagen with 884 others to see the eclipse. Hotel rooms have been booked for years as thousands came to the Faeroe Islands to try to see the eclipse.

Sigrun Skalagard, in the northern parts of the Faeroes, said birds there went silent and dogs started howling. "Some people were surprised to see how fast it became dark," she said. A partial solar eclipse could be seen Friday across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. Britain's Met Office said 95 percent of the sun was covered in the Hebrides, Orkneys and Shetland Islands, and one percent less further south in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

In Copenhagen, the sun was 85 percent covered up while 80 percent was hidden in southern Sweden. Cloudy weather put a lid across large parts of the continent, making it hard to see the eclipse. However, a thin cloud cover allowed people in Stockholm to watch the eclipse without protective glasses, as the faint disk of the sun could be seen through the overcast sky.

The last total eclipse was in November 2012 over Australia. The next one will be over Indonesia in March 2016, according to NASA.

Gashka reported from Torshavn, Faeroe Islands. Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.

European far-right politicians in Russia to support Putin

March 22, 2015

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Nationalist supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin brought together controversial far-right politicians from across Europe on Sunday in an effort to demonstrate international support for Russia and weaken European Union commitment to sanctions imposed on Russia over its role in Ukraine.

Putin's critics pointed to the irony of St. Petersburg, his hometown, welcoming neo-Nazis as Russia prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

The meeting drew about 40 protesters, who held signs denouncing fascism, and about eight of them were detained by police. Among the more prominent Europeans at the gathering was Nick Griffin, the expelled former leader of the anti-immigrant British National Party, who accused the U.S. of aggravating the confrontation in Ukraine, where more than 6,000 people have been killed in fighting between government troops and Russia-backed separatists.

"The people running the U.S. and their puppets in the European Union are doing everything they can, whether deliberately or just by stupidity, to drag us into a terrible war," Griffin said. He spoke out against the EU sanctions, as did Udo Voigt, a senior figure in Germany's neo-Nazi fringe National Democratic Party, who was among several members of the European Parliament who attended the St. Petersburg gathering. Griffin lost his seat in the EU body last year.

Roberto Fiore, leader of Italy's far-right party Forza Nuova, and members of the neo-Nazi Greek party Golden Dawn also were among the approximately 200 participants. The Russian nationalists who participated included Alexei Zhuravlev, a member of Russia's parliament, and Cossacks. Many Cossacks, descendants of the czarist-era horsemen who defended Russia's borders, have fought alongside the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The participants had planned to sign a resolution at the conclusion of the forum, but the hotel where they were meeting was evacuated because of a bomb threat and they dispersed.

Georgians hit by fallout from trouble in Russia, Ukraine

March 21, 2015

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — For Mariam Matiashvili, Georgia's crumbling tourist trade is a health risk.

The 64-year-old woman spends much of her meager pension of 150 lari ($68) a month on medicine and has long lived off selling cheap jewelry at a flea market to tourists, mainly from Russia and Ukraine. Now, the number of visitors is shrinking due to the economic crisis in those countries and people like her in this former Soviet republic are feeling the pain.

"There were some signs of life in January, when suddenly some tourists from Russia, Ukraine and Poland appeared, but since then it's been a complete catastrophe," said Matiashvili. Some days she makes five lari from tourists, sometimes only one.

Georgia, a mountainous nation in the South Caucasus, relies heavily on wine exports and on tourists attracted to the mountains and beaches that for decades made the country a favored holiday destination for the Soviet elites. While tourists might ordinarily be enticed as Georgia's currency sinks, making travel cheaper, many of those who visit Georgia come from countries facing their own economic problems.

Georgia's currency, the lari, has lost more than 20 percent of its value against the dollar since August — but Ukraine's hryvnia currency has lost about 60 percent against the dollar and the Russian ruble roughly 50 percent.

Due to the economic tensions, tens of thousands took part in an opposition-led protest Saturday in the capital, Tbilisi. The demonstration was peaceful, despite the bitter political divide between the government team formed by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream party and supporters of former President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose party has been in opposition since losing the 2012 election.

Those at the protest spoke bitterly of their dashed economic hopes. "In the last elections, I voted for Georgian Dream; their promises were very pretty. But now it's become clear that they've fulfilled almost nothing," said demonstrator Tina Khomeriki, a 35-year-old teacher.

The government, led by Ivanishvili ally Irakli Garibashvili, insists the crisis has been talked up by political opponents and sensationalist media and is not the result of policy failings. "I think that really an artificial hysteria has been created, especially by the media," Prime Minister Garibashvili said last month in a notably pugnacious response. "We have to calm, normalize and stabilize the situation. I want to say that we're doing everything to correct the situation as quickly as possible."

While it has been 24 years since Georgia voted for independence from the Soviet Union, the country retains close business links to Russia and Ukraine. As the war in eastern Ukraine, international sanctions against Russia and the sinking price of oil price worldwide have ravaged the economies of those two countries, Georgia has become collateral damage.

While the falling lari has made many imports more expensive, it has fallen by less than the Russian ruble over the last year, making exports to that key market more difficult. One affected industry is Georgian wine, long renowned in neighboring countries, and which has started to attract the attention of European and American connoisseurs in recent years. Despite producers branching out, Russia and Ukraine remain the top two wine export markets. In January and February this year, exports to Russia were down 85 percent and those to Ukraine fell by two-thirds.

Paata Sheshelidze, director of the Institute of Economic Freedom, said the economic difficulties have been made worse by government policies, including regulations and taxes that he said have restricted development of the private sector. The weakening of Georgia's currency, he said, was largely due to an increase in the money supply to cover budget expenses.

The currency turbulence has also had a devastating effect on those Georgians who took out foreign-currency loans in search of lower interest rates. Igor Khuchua mortgaged his apartment to fund a bakery, but now, at 66, he faces being made homeless. Despite getting help from the bank to restructure his debt, Khuchua sees no way out.

"I've basically lost my apartment. I took out a loan on it to open my business, but the lari's fall has had a negative effect," he said. "I can't blame anyone. I took the risk myself, but the situation's objectively worsened with the fall of the national currency."