NATO chief Rasmussen visits Turkey for strategic talks

Thu, 07 Oct 2010

Istanbul - NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen comes to Turkey Thursday for an official visit that is set to cover a wide range of strategic issues.

Rasmussen, who is on his second visit to alliance member Turkey, is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

High on his agenda is the issue of the alliance's new strategic concept, which is scheduled to be discussed at the upcoming NATO summit in Lisbon on November 19-20.

The new strategic concept is expected to update NATO's position regarding missile defence, nuclear policy, partnerships with other relations and regions, cyberdefence and relations with Russia.

According to a NATO spokesman, Rasmussen is likely to also ask Ankara for more Turkish military trainers in Afghanistan. Turkey currently has some 1,800 soldiers in Afghanistan. The country is in charge of the Kabul Regional Command.

The NATO chief is also expected to discuss the issue of increasing security cooperation between Turkey and the European Union. Rasmussen recently called on the EU to give Turkey a greater role in the European Defense Agency and to involve it in decision making on EU- led security missions, such as in Bosnia.

Military cooperation between NATO and the EU is currently hampered by the Cyprus issue. EU member Cyprus has vetoed any security cooperation with NATO, in protest of Turkey's continuing military presence on the northern third of the island. Ankara, meanwhile, has stood in the way of greater NATO cooperation with the EU in response to the Cypriot action.

EU national leaders on September 16 tasked Catherine Ashton, the bloc's foreign policy chief, with coming up with ways to improve cooperation with NATO.

Turkey has NATO's second largest army, but has also been dogged in recent years by questions about its commitment to the Western alliance. Ankara's improving ties with Tehran and its objection to sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have put the Turkish government at odds with several of its Western allies.

Turkey also recently held joint aerial maneuvers with China's military, something that has raised some concern in Washington. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is expected to visit Turkey on Friday.

Ankara had initially been a vocal opponent of the appointment of Rasmussen as NATO chief.

Turkish leaders said NATO's work in the Muslim world would be hampered by his appointment, since Rasmussen was Danish Prime Minister in 2006 when a series of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper caused outrage in Islamic society.

Turkey was also angry that Denmark had not taken any action to close down Roj TV, a pro-Kurdish satellite network operating on Danish soil.

Source: The Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/347569,visits-turkey-strategic-talks.html.

Jordanian women see slow gains on rights - Feature

Thu, 07 Oct 2010
Abdul Jalil Mustafa

Amman - Feminist organizations in Jordan expressed a mix of relief tinged with consternation after the government recently adopted new equality legislation.

Although the law is still pending approval from parliament, it is seen as updating an older code from 1976 - but still has too many loopholes to satisfy rights groups.

"We think the philosophy of bringing about radical changes in the personal status law - mainly providing for absolute equality between men and women - has not been fulfilled," Nadia Shamroukh, the deputy chair of the Jordan Women Union (JWU), told German Press Agency dpa.

She said men would retain their near-exclusive prerogative to divorce their wives, and the law would still permit the marriage of girls at the age of 15.

The law was drafted after three years of consultations with religious leaders, political parties, civil society organisations and academics.

But, even after the years of talks, the issue of getting married and divorced remains contentious, with the divide between the sides unbridged.

Chief Islamic Justice Ahmad Hilayel said that the legislation had an eye towards the stability of the family unit.

"This law is aimed at ensuring a strong bond within Jordanian families and protecting the rights of women and children as provided for in Sharia," said Hilayel, who heads the judges responsible for implementing Islamic law in the country.

Technological advancements over the last three decades, including using DNA for paternity testing, were added into the framework of the new law, the Islamic judge noted.

"We believe that divorce should be conducted inside a council to be attended by judges and witnesses rather than through a unilateral action by the husband which he carries out in the absence of the wife," the JWU's Shamroukh said.

Most controversial is the "khuloe" clause. The clause gave women the right to divorce their husbands, under certain circumstances, in return for financial compensation.

However, it was deleted from the new law, drawing objections from the feminist movement.
Helayel said the new law keeps the essence of khuloe, but the drafters simply removed the word itself, in order to protect the children of the women who invoke the law from social stigma, as it has negative connotations in Arabic.

For the womens' rights groups, however, husbands still retain too much power in divorce proceedings.

"The law does not guarantee any financial or property rights or compensation for women when they are divorced, although many married couples have shared rents, loans and other expenses," said Reem Abu Hassan, president of the Society for Protecting Family Violence Victims.

Shamroukh, however, noted one major positive change - allowing the divorced couple to see their children at home instead of at a police station, as was the case under the previous law.

But for Jordan's young women engering into wedlock, the new rules change little.

The language of the legislation first says men and women cannot marry until they are at least 18 years old, but then adds that girls can marry at the age of 15 under certain circumstances.

"We have placed many restrictions and the new law will only be applied in this respect in limited cases and once a panel of Sharia judges decides that such marriage is necessary," Helayel said.

According to official data, however, many young girls are permitted by religious officials to marry before 18. Of the 67,455 marriages registered in Jordan in 2008, around 9,000 involved girls aged between 15 and 18.

Some 907 of those ended with divorce.

"The girl at 15 is still a child and cannot shoulder the responsibilities of bringing up a family," said Lobna Dowani, with the Sisterhood Is Global Institute group.

While praising the positive aspects of the law, Dowani urged for greater protection of women and girls.

Source: The Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/347537,gains-rights-feature.html.

Nazzal asks Arab summit to break the siege on Gaza

07-10-2010

Al Qassam website-Damascus-Political bureau member of Hamas Mohammed Nazzal has asked the Arab leaders, scheduled to meet in Libya on Saturday, to agree on breaking the siege on Gaza and to open the Rafah crossing without any hindrances.

Nazzal, speaking at a ceremony in honor of the participants in the lifeline 5 aid convoy to Gaza hosted by resistance factions in Damascus on Tuesday night, also urged the Arab leaders not to give a cover for negotiations with Israel and to reject direct negotiations.

The Hamas leader renewed insistence on Palestinian constants, adding that the negotiations should not touch on those rights including the refugees, Jerusalem, borders, independent state, and water. He also called for rejecting Israel's demand for recognizing it as a state for the Jews.

Source: Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades - Information Office.
Link: http://www.qassam.ps/news-3545-Nazzal_asks_Arab_summit_to_break_the_siege_on_Gaza.html.

UAE’s planned renewable energy city gets its first residents

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

By W.G. Dunlop
Agence France-Presse

ABU DHABI - Abu Dhabi's planned Masdar City, which is to be the world's first powered solely by renewable energy, now has residents - students at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

"The total number of our students is about 170-175," said Fred Moavenzadeh, president of the environmental technology research-focused institute. "Of that, 100 of them, roughly, are here... living on the campus."

These are the first residents of Masdar City, of which the institute, which is still being expanded, is the first part.

The planned city, whose name means "source" in Arabic, will cost $22 billion (15.9 billion euros), cover six square kilometres and will eventually house 40,000 residents, its website says.

It is to be located about 17 kilometres from downtown Abu Dhabi. But for now, Masdar Institute's buildings are the only to have been completed, while a few others have been begun.

From a distance, the campus appears to be a single large, reddish-brown structure rising from the desert, with a small forest of construction cranes to one side. But up close, the details are striking.

The institute's Knowledge Center, which houses its library, has a curved roof with solar panels, and a front that is almost entirely made up of windows.

"All windows are shaded to prevent direct sunlight from reaching inside" to aid building cooling while still allowing natural lighting from indirect sunlight, said Hamza Kazim, the institute's vice president for operations and finance.

From the front, it looks like a giant snorkeling mask, with the main staircase housed in a glass cylinder that extends from the building even resembling the part of such a mask that covers the nose.

Students are housed in terra-cotta-colored buildings that form the outer ring of the campus. The curves and soft edges of the buildings give them an almost organic appearance.

They have solar panels on the roofs to collect energy and balconies shaded by latticework with geometric designs, echoing a traditional feature of Islamic architecture.

The institute's classrooms and laboratories are in a large, rectangular, futuristic-looking glass and metal building in the centre of the campus, which also has roof-mounted solar panels.

Its sides are covered by sections of long, rectangular air cushions with reflective stainless steel behind them, a design meant to reduce energy use. This keeps direct sunlight off the building, aiding cooling, and also reduces sunlight reflected onto the streets.

"Shaded walkways and narrow streets reduce glare and solar gain," Kazim said, while "the diagonal orientation of the streets and public spaces make the best use of the cooling night breeze and lessen the effect of hot daytime winds."

The campus also features a modern take on the wind tower, a traditional architectural feature of the region. The steel tower with a large pipe at its center catches breezes and funnels them to street level, providing cooling.

"I sometimes get the feeling that I'm in a spaceship in the middle of the desert," Moavenzadeh quoted one student's blog as saying about living on campus.

Masdar City will eventually be "a test-bed for technology" on which the institute is conducting research, said Moavenzadeh.

Director of the technology and development programme for 39 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is partnered with Masdar Institute, he joined the institute as president in July.

Masdar Institute's aim is to produce "engineers who are oriented towards" research and development - the kind that are needed given the Gulf region's wealth in resources and paucity of labour, Moavenzadeh said.

Students are therefore encouraged to spend no more than 50 per cent of their time taking classes, and to devote the rest to research, he said.

The institute offers various master's degrees, and introduced a doctoral programme this year. Masdar Institute's first class is to graduate in 2011, Moavenzadeh said.

All students are currently on scholarships, and about 20-25 per cent are Emirati.

While the 19th century was mainly one of focus on agriculture and the 20th centred on industry and development, the "21st century is going to be the century concerned about the environment," Moavenzadeh said.

Therefore, "the focus of our research is primarily on the issues related to the climate change, the environment, clean technologies, sustainable technologies", he said.

The Oil and Gas Year Abu Dhabi 2010 report put the emirate's proven oil reserves at 98.2 billion barrels - 95 per cent of the reserves of the United Arab Emirates, which are ranked seventh-largest in the world.

However, Abu Dhabi aims to be a center for renewable energy as well as petroleum.

By researching and investing in renewable energy, the emirate is seeking to stay in the business it knows, Moavenzadeh said.

"Energy is the business they know, and therefore by diversifying in the energy sector, they can produce results much faster than by going into something else."

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=30724.

Pakistan keeps border crossing shut

07 Oct 2010

Pakistan decides not to reopen border crossing used by NATO for supplies to Afghanistan in protest of deadly US attack.

Pakistan has decided not to reopen a key border crossing used by NATO for supplies to Afghanistan, despite a US apology for a helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers.

Abdul Basit, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that authorities were still evaluating the situation and a decision to reopen the Torkham crossing will be taken "in due course."

Hundreds of lorries have been stranded near the border or stuck in traffic on the way to the one route into Afghanistan from the south that has remained open.

Taliban fighters have taken advantage of the impasse to launch attacks against the vehicles. A driver was killed and about 70 fuel tankers were set on fire in attacks on Wednesday.

The crossing was closed to NATO convoys a week ago after a NATO helicopter entered Pakistani territory and killed the two border guards.

Both the US and NATO have apologised for the attack, saying the American helicopters mistook Pakistani soldiers for insurgents they were pursuing.

"We extend our deepest apology to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier Scouts who were killed and injured," Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to Pakistan, said.

'Warning shots'

Pakistani soldiers fired at the two US helicopters prior to the attack, a move the joint American-Pakistani investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times.

"We believe the Pakistani border guard was simply firing warning shots after hearing the nearby engagement and hearing the helicopters flying nearby," Tim Zadalis, NATO's director for air plans in Afghanistan who led the investigation, said.

"This tragic event could have been avoided with better coalition force co-ordination with the Pakistan military."

US and Pakistani officials had predicted the border crossing would be reopened in a matter of days, and the apology was could provide Pakistan with a face-saving way to back down.

NATO officials have insisted that neither the attacks on lorries nor the border closure have caused supply problems for NATO troops as hundreds of lorries still cross into Afghanistan each day through the Chaman crossing in southwestern Pakistan and via Central Asian states.

But reopening Torkham is definitely a priority for NATO because it is the main crossing in Pakistan, the country through which NATO ships the majority of its supplies into Afghanistan. Other routes are more expensive and logistically difficult.

Tense relations

Even if the border is reopened, underlying tensions will remain in the US-Pakistan relationship, especially over Pakistan's unwillingness to go after Afghan Taliban fighters on its territory.

In an assessment of operations in Pakistan's tribal areas, a White House report to congress said that Pakistani forces were avoiding "direct conflict" with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda.

It also said that the Pakistani military has moved against fighters in South Waziristan, but that soldiers stayed close to roads and operations were progressing "slowly".

"In my mind, there's no question that the Pakistanis walk both sides of the street," Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said.

The US has dramatically increasing the number of CIA drone raids in Pakistan's tribal belt, including two on Wednesday that killed 11 fighters in North Waziristan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

The Pakistani Taliban has vowed more attacks to avenge the drone attacks.

"We will further intensify attacks with the intensification of US drone strikes on us," Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban told the news agency AFP.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said: "The US air strikes are not a small matter anymore in Pakistan.

"Many people believe there is a tacit agreement between the US and the Pakistan government about these air strikes. It will be interesting to see how the government in Islamabad will handle the pressure over the matter," he said.

The US does not publicly acknowledge the drone strikes in Pakistan, but US officials have said privately that they have killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders.

Pakistani authorities have reported 24 attacks since September 3 which have killed more than 140 people.

Source: Al-Jazeera.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia/2010/10/20101078849195792.html.

Hungary counts human and ecological cost of toxic sludge spill

Wed, 06 Oct 2010

Budapest- Two days after a huge spill from a waste reservoir in central Hungary, village streets and vast swathes of countryside were still red on Wednesday with a thick layer of poisonous silt.

The cost of the clean-up will run into billions of forints, or tens of millions of dollars, state secretary for the environment Zoltan Illes said.

The walls of houses in the villages of Kolontar and Devecser are stained red, as high as 2 metres. They bear witness to the scale of the torrent that washed through these rural settlements, leaving four dead and dozens requiring treatment for chemical burns.

Three insurance companies announced that they plan to send on Thursday delegations to the affected area to begin assessing the scale of the financial damage wrought by the leak, the mayor of Devecser told the state news agency MTI.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents of the worst affected villages are waiting to find out when, if ever, they can return to their poisoned homes.

The Hungarian chemical firm Borsodcham announced it was donating tons of hydrochloric acid to help with the clean up operation.

Government scientists are attempting to neutralize the alkalinity of the red slurry before it flows into tributaries of the Danube river.

The slurry was dangerously caustic due to the sodium hydroxide that is used to extract alumina from bauxite ore, environmental chemist Gergely Simon told the German Press Agency dpa.

It not only burned the skin of many who came in contact with the mud, but also kills plant and animal life, said Simon, who works with the environmental pressure group Clean Air Action Group.
The slurry also contains dangerous heavy metals such as lead and cadmium.

Hundreds of tons of calcium sulphate, essentially plaster of Paris, have been rushed to the area and poured into the Marcal river and elsewhere in a bid to coagulate the mud and prevent it from flowing into the Raba, a tributary of the Danube.

While immediate emergency work is aimed at stopping the spread of contamination, the clean-up of the villages and countryside will take months at least, environment secretary Illes told the news website of the Hungarian fire service.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of polluted topsoil may have to be removed and disposed of safely, Illes said.

Interior Minister Sandor Pinter announced on Tuesday afternoon that the "immediate danger" had passed in the area around the MAL Magyar Aluminium factory in Ajka, 150 kilomteres south-west of the capital Budapest.

Work to repair the damage caused by what many are calling Hungary's worst-ever environmental disaster is just beginning.

Source: The Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/347475,cost-toxic-sludge-spill.html.

Spain ups pressure on Venezuela over Basque separatists

Wed, 06 Oct 2010

Madrid - The Spanish government Wednesday stepped up pressure on Venezuela to investigate allegations that members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA received weapons training in the Latin American country.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told the Venezuelan ambassador to Spain that Madrid wanted a more intense cooperation, including "immediate and concrete" action on Arturo Cubillas, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said.

Cubillas is a senior official at the Venezuelan agriculture ministry whom Spain wants extradited, charging that he is the ETA representative for Venezuela and nearby countries.

ETA suspects Xabier Atristain and Juan Carlos Besance, who were detained in Spain last week, named Cubillas as one of the people who had trained them in the use of weapons in Venezuela in 2008.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government adopted a tougher line after the opposition and commentators accused it of being soft on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose government denies any links with ETA.

Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba had said there was no evidence of the Caracas government being involved with the possible training of ETA activists in Venezuela.

Caracas has promised to investigate the allegations made by Atristain and Besance. However, Venezuela has earlier failed to comply with Spanish extradition requests for ETA suspects.

Venezuelan ambassador Isaias Rodriguez said Tuesday that Cubillas could not be extradited because he had obtained Venezuelan nationality.

Spanish judge Eloy Velasco meanwhile intensified his probe into alleged links between ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Velasco, who has charged 13 ETA and FARC suspects with joint crimes including plans to kill high-profile Colombians in Spain, believes the two armed groups have cooperated in Venezuela under the protection of the Chavez administration.

Velasco ordered Spanish police to interrogate nine former FARC members in Colombia. The nine would be asked to identify ETA activists from photographs, the judge said.

Velasco also requested information on the contents of the computer of FARC commander Mono Jojoy, who was killed by the Colombian army in September, and on the statements made by Atristain and Besance.

Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzon, who was visiting Madrid, said his country's police and judiciary were prepared to cooperate with Spain in whatever way was needed.

ETA, which is regarded as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, has killed about 850 people since 1968 in its campaign for a sovereign Basque state.

Source: The Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/347476,pressure-venezuela-basque-separatists.html.