Rare 4th-century mosaic of chariot race found in Cyprus

August 10, 2016

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A mosaic floor dating to the 4th century and depicting scenes from a chariot race in the hippodrome has been uncovered, the only one of its kind in Cyprus and one of only a handful in the world, a Cypriot archaeologist said Wednesday.

Cyprus Antiquities Department archaeologist Fryni Hadjichristofi told the Associated Press that out of the many hundreds of ancient mosaic floors discovered around the world, only around seven depict similar chariot races at the hippodrome. What distinguishes this mosaic is its ornate detail and the fact that it depicts complete scenes from race in which four chariots, each with a team of four horses, are competing. This may be representative of different factions in competition with each other in ancient Rome.

"The hippodrome was very important in ancient Roman times, it was the place where the emperor appeared to his people and projected his power," said Hadjichristofi. The mosaic is 11 meters long and four meters wide (36 by 13 feet) but hasn't been fully uncovered yet. It's possibly part of a villa that may have belonged to a wealthy individual or nobleman when Cyprus was under Roman rule. The mosaic, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the capital Nicosia, also sheds new light on the ancient past of the island's interior, about which little is known.

Most of the important ancient finds on the island are located near the coasts, where cities and towns flourished in antiquity. The earliest village found in Cyprus dates as far back as the 10th millennium B.C.

A small piece of the mosaic was first discovered by an area farmer tilling his land back in 1938. Authorities marked the area, but full-fledged digs didn't proceed until almost 80 years later because of work at many other sites the Antiquities Department had prioritized, said Hadjichristofi.

Hadjichristofi said the area, abutting a river, has long been known for its fertile ground and bountiful orchards. Cyprus had been a wealthy island in antiquity, producing copper — from where according to a prominent theory the island got its name — timber from its then-ample forests as well as pottery, many examples of which have been found in neighboring countries, said Hadjichristofi.

"We know that Cyprus was once wealthy, the latest discoveries confirm this," she said. Last month, crews working on a sewage system in the coastal city of Larnaca discovered another rare Roman-era mosaic depicting Hercules' Labors.

Stretched US Air Force faces fighter shortage

Washington (AFP)
Aug 10, 2016

The US Air Force is facing a fighter pilot shortage as it scrambles to service an ever-growing array of air campaigns around the world, top officials said Wednesday.

The shortfall will likely rise to more than 700 pilots (from a force size of 3,500 fighter pilots) by the end of this fiscal year, and as high as 1,000 in two years time, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and the service's Chief of Staff, General David Goldfein, told reporters.

Goldfein said the situation was a "crisis."

Airlines are increasingly luring military fliers into the private sector, and many are choosing to leave due to the stresses of extended deployments overseas.

The shortage comes as America is engaged in air wars on multiple fronts, including in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. The US military relies heavily on its air dominance to wage war and avoid putting US foot soldiers in harm's way.

The Air Force also faces a shortage of drone pilots, but James said recruitment and retention in that sector had improved.

Officials are announcing a $35,000 bonus for drone operators who sign up under a new contract, and the military is using increasing numbers of contract workers to conduct non-lethal drone patrols.

"It is not all done yet but there is a lot going on," she said.

"We are well on the way to having 100 percent manning at our retraining units and having all those instructors in the schoolhouse means we are going to be producing more (drone) pilots."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Stretched_US_Air_Force_faces_fighter_shortage_999.html.

F-35 fighter program might face cuts: top US officer

Washington (AFP)
Oct 13, 2011

The US military's top officer signaled Thursday that the Pentagon might have to cut one of three planned models of the new F-35 fighter jet, citing budget pressures.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that while he believed a new fighter was vital he questioned whether a constrained defense budget could fund all three versions of the Joint Strike Fighter, including an aircraft able to take off or land vertically.

"I am concerned about the three variants and whether as we go forward in this fiscal environment, whether we can afford all three," Dempsey told the House Armed Services Committee.

The general said he was ready to "learn more about" the issue and to hear the views of the commandant of the US Marine Corps, General James Amos, a strong advocate of the short-take off, vertical landing (STOVL) version of the plane.

"But I'll tell you, that's something we have to keep an eye on" and three versions of the aircraft "create some fiscal challenges for us."

Under a debt-reduction deal, the Pentagon must cut $450 billion from the defense budget over the next ten years, and the costly F-35 program is seen as a prime target for reductions.

The Joint Strike Fighter, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program ever. The project has faced chronic delays and cost overruns, with the vertical-takeoff model -- the F-35B -- coming in for the most scrutiny.

Britain, one of the countries participating in the fighter program, has decided to cancel plans to purchase the STOVL model and will instead buy the F-35C designed to land on aircraft carriers.

The Pentagon plans three versions of the plane: the standard F-35A that would replace the Air Force's F-16 fighter, the F-35C designed to land on naval carriers to replace the F-18 jet and the F-35B vertical-takeoff model that would supplant the Harrier aircraft flown by US Marines.

Former defense secretary Robert Gates placed the F-35B on "probation" in January after a spate of technical problems, saying the program had two years "to get it right" or face termination.

Asked at the hearing about the status of the F-35B, the new defense secretary, Leon Panetta, said the probation would allow for further testing to "give us a chance to see how it performs."

"And if it performs well, then obviously it'll be able to make the grade," he said.

The cost of building F-35 jets has mushroomed and defense officials have struggled to keep the price tag under control. Over the past decade, the cost per plane has doubled in real terms, according to the Pentagon.

The program's cost has jumped to about $385 billion, and the price of each is at roughly $103 million in constant dollars or $113 million in fiscal year 2011 dollars.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/F-35_fighter_program_might_face_cuts_top_US_officer_999.html.

Witnesses say South Sudan soldiers raped dozens near UN camp

July 27, 2016

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — South Sudanese government soldiers raped dozens of ethnic Nuer women and girls last week just outside a United Nations camp where they had sought protection from renewed fighting, and at least two died from their injuries, witnesses and civilian leaders said.

The rapes in the capital of Juba highlighted two persistent problems in the chaotic country engulfed by civil war: targeted ethnic violence and the reluctance by U.N. peacekeepers to protect civilians.

At least one assault occurred as peacekeepers watched, witnesses told The Associated Press during a visit to the camp. On July 17, two armed soldiers in uniform dragged away a woman who was less than a few hundred meters (yards) from the U.N. camp's western gate while armed peacekeepers on foot, in an armored vehicle and in a watchtower looked on. One witness estimated that 30 peacekeepers from Nepalese and Chinese battalions saw the incident.

"They were seeing it. Everyone was seeing it," he said. "The woman was seriously screaming, quarreling and crying also, but there was no help. She was crying for help." He and other witnesses interviewed insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals by soldiers if identified.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. mission, Shantal Persaud, did not dispute that rapes took place close to the camp. She did not immediately address why peacekeepers didn't act to prevent the rapes, saying she was looking into the issue.

The reported assaults occurred about a week after rival government forces clashed in Juba, forcing opposition leader Riek Machar from the city and killing hundreds of people. As a cease-fire took hold, women and girls began venturing outside the U.N. camp for food.

The camp houses over 30,000 civilians who are nearly all ethnic Nuer, the same ethnicity as Machar. They fear attacks by government forces who are mostly ethnic Dinka, the same as Machar's rival, President Salva Kiir.

As the women and girls walked out of the U.N. camp, they entered an area called Checkpoint, in the shadow of a mountain on Juba's western outskirts. That stretch of road along one side of the camp saw some of the heaviest fighting and is lined with wrecked shops and burned tanks. It is now inhabited by armed men in and out of uniform.

In interviews with the AP, women described soldiers in Checkpoint allowing them to leave to buy food but attacking them as they returned. "When we reached Checkpoint, the soldiers come out and called the women and said, 'Stop, please, and sit down,' so we stopped and sat down, and they took one woman inside a shop," a woman said. "Four men went inside the shop and they raped the woman while we three stayed outside."

In another incident, one woman said a group of soldiers pulled two women and two underage girls from their group and gang-raped them in a shop, with more than 10 men to each victim. One girl later died, she said.

"I saw the men taking their trousers off and the ladies crying inside," said a middle-aged woman. As she spoke, she began to cry. "They said, 'This one belongs to me, this one belongs to me,'" she added.

Multiple Nuer women said soldiers threatened them because of their ethnicity or accused them of being allied with Machar. The women identified the soldiers as ethnic Dinka because of the language they spoke.

"One soldier came and he turned the gun to us. He said, 'If I kill you now, you Nuer woman, do you think there is anything that can happen to me?'" one woman said. She said the soldier slapped her before another soldier intervened, allowing her to escape.

The number of rapes that took place outside the U.N. camp was unclear. The AP interviewed more than a dozen witnesses of rapes or people who spoke with victims, both one-on-one and in small groups. The Protection Cluster, a group of aid workers that monitors violence against civilians in South Sudan, noted a "significant spike in reported cases was observed on 18 July when large numbers of women began leaving (the camp) to travel to markets in town in search of food."

The Protection Cluster said at least two victims are known to have died as a result of their injuries. Civilian leaders in the U.N. camp have given estimates ranging from 27 to over 70 rapes from the time that women started venturing out for food. The United Nations says it received reports of dozens of cases. A South Sudanese rights group, the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, said it is investigating 36 reported rapes.

Hospitals inside the camp received four rape cases last week, including an underage girl who said she had been gang-raped by five men and a woman who said she had been gang-raped by five men and beaten, according to medical staff who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The number of victims reporting to clinics is believed to be lower than the actual total because of the stigma in Nuer culture attached to rape. The rape of civilians has been a near-constant in South Sudan's civil war which began in 2013, with both sides accused of using sexual assault, based on ethnicity, as a weapon of war.

Army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang did not deny that rapes occurred after the latest fighting but said the military has yet to receive any formal complaints from victims. Witnesses and aid workers accuse the armed U.N. peacekeepers, who are mandated to protect civilians with lethal force if necessary, of failing to act.

The U.N. spokeswoman, Persaud, said the recent rapes were not limited to Checkpoint. "For a fact, uniformed soldiers were involved, heavily involved, in horrific acts of violence against civilians," Persaud said.

This is not the first time that U.N. peacekeepers have been accused of failing to act. Last year, over 1,300 women and girls were raped by government forces and allied militias during a scorched-earth campaign in Unity state, according to the Protection Cluster. Doctors Without Borders accused the U.N. mission of "complete and utter failure" to protect civilians there. The medical aid organization also blamed the peacekeeping mission over a government attack on the U.N. camp in the town of Malakal in February that killed about two dozen civilians. A U.N. investigation found confusion in command and control by U.N. forces.

In the latest clashes in Juba, residents of the U.N. camp accused peacekeepers of running away when the camp was shelled. Two Chinese peacekeepers were killed. Aid workers said they asked the U.N. to increase patrols July 17-18 along the camp where women were most vulnerable, but that patrols in the area did not begin until July 21.

The U.N. said in a statement it had increased patrols outside the camp in response to reported rapes. One local woman, Christmas David, who said she was beaten by government soldiers but not raped, said the limited patrols were not enough.

"When the U.N. is moving, (the government soldiers) just stop the women and tell them to sit down," she said. "When the peacekeepers leave the road, then they do the things."

South Africa's ruling party suffers biggest election setback

August 06, 2016

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's ruling party has suffered its biggest election setback since taking power at the end of apartheid a generation ago, with results from two of the country's largest cities still uncertain Saturday with less than 1 percent of votes left to be counted.

Final results of municipal elections were being announced at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). Races remained too close to call in the country's largest city, Johannesburg, and Tshwane, the metropolitan area of the capital.

Since South Africa's first all-race election in 1994, the African National Congress party has had widespread support on the strength of its successful fight against white-minority rule. But in this vote, it has been challenged by corruption scandals and a stagnant economy that has frustrated the country's urban middle class.

The ANC already has lost its first major black-majority municipality in this election, Nelson Mandela Bay, named for the ANC's star and the country's first black president. The opposition Democratic Alliance, which has roots in the anti-apartheid movement and was white-led until last year, won Nelson Mandela Bay after fielding a white candidate for mayor. The party's leader, Mmusi Maimane, also has predicted victory in Tshwane.

The Democratic Alliance already runs the city of Cape Town, the country's second largest and the only major South African city where blacks are not in the majority. It has been pushing hard to win supporters in other regions.

The Democratic Alliance angered the ANC last month by declaring that it was the only party that could realize Mandela's dream of a "prosperous, united and non-racial South Africa." Neither party appeared to have a majority in Johannesburg or Tshwane that would allow it to govern alone, raising the possibility of coalition governments. A more radical opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, contested the local elections for the first time and received 8 percent of the vote nationwide after promising measures it says will help the poor.

The ANC so far has received 53 percent of votes across the country, its lowest percentage ever, with the Democratic Alliance getting 27 percent. The results for the ANC could put pressure on President Jacob Zuma to leave office before his mandate ends in 2019, political analysts said.

In a statement Friday, the ANC said "we will reflect and introspect where our support has dropped." It retained support in many rural areas in a country where blacks make up 80 percent of the population.

The South African economy has stagnated since the global financial crisis in 2008, and the World Bank says the country has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. Scandals swirling around Zuma have also hurt the ANC. Opposition groups have seized on the revelation that the state paid more than $20 million for upgrades to Zuma's private home. The Constitutional Court recently said Zuma violated the constitution and instructed him to reimburse the state $507,000.

Many South Africans are also concerned over allegations that Zuma is heavily influenced by the Guptas, a wealthy business family of immigrants from India. The president has denied any wrongdoing.

Philippines' Duterte declares communist ceasefire

Manila (AFP)
July 25, 2016

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Monday announced a unilateral ceasefire with communist rebels waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies, saying it is his "dream" to end the rebellion.

In his first "State of the Nation Address" to Congress, Duterte called for the rebels to reciprocate as he laid the groundwork for peace talks due to begin in Norway next month.

"To immediately stop violence on the ground (and) restore peace in the communities ... I am now announcing a unilateral ceasefire," Duterte told lawmakers.

"We will strive to have a permanent and lasting peace before my term ends. That is my goal, that is my dream."

The communist insurgency has killed about 30,000 people since the 1960s.

The communists' armed wing, the New People's Army, is believed to have fewer than 4,000 gunmen today, down from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s, according to the military.

But it retains support among the deeply poor in rural areas, and its forces regularly kill police or troops while extorting money from local businesses.

Duterte, who assumed the presidency on June 30 after a landslide election win, said Monday it was time to stop the violence. "We are going nowhere and it is getting bloodier by the day," he said.

Duterte's predecessor Benigno Aquino revived negotiations soon after taking office in 2010 but shelved them in 2013, accusing the rebels of being insincere about a political settlement.

The talks collapsed after his government rejected the rebels' demand to release scores of their jailed comrades, whom they described as "political prisoners".

Duterte, who counts exiled rebel leader Jose Maria Sison as a friend, had said in recent weeks he was prepared to release 11 communist members to take part in the talks.

His aides have already held preliminary discussions with Sison and other senior communist leaders, during which they agreed to resume the peace process in Norway on August 20.

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines, one of the communist leadership groups, welcomed Duterte's ceasefire declaration and announced its readiness to reciprocate.

In a statement, it signaled it first wanted the amnesty for its detained rebels but that it expected this to happen by August 20.

Duterte describes himself as a socialist and was a student of Sison, a political science professor, at a Manila university in the 1960s.

They retained close ties as Duterte governed the southern city of Davao, where the communist insurgency once raged, for most of the past two decades.

Sison was forced into exile after peace talks failed in 1987 and now lives in the Netherlands.

Duterte said after being elected that Sison was welcome to return home.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Philippines_Duterte_declares_communist_ceasefire_999.html.

Thais vote on new constitution that could dilute democracy

August 07, 2016

BANGKOK (AP) — Thais voted Sunday in a referendum on a new constitution that critics say is tailor-made for the military government to stay in control for several years and entrench a new, quasi-democratic system that gives vast powers to appointed officials.

The junta, which came to power in a May 2014 coup and ordered the constitution rewritten, says the new version will usher in a new era of clean politics and stable democracy in a country chronically short of both in recent years, sometimes sliding into violent internal political conflict.

Still, the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a retired army general, used its sweeping powers to ban political rallies, independent campaigns against the draft constitution and virtually no debates on it. Opponents say this was done to ensure that people would have little knowledge about the constitution's provisions, even though 1 million copies are claimed to have been distributed to the public in a nation of 64 million people.

More than 100 people who tried to campaign against the referendum on social media have been thrown in jail, and open criticism has been made punishable by up to 10 years in prison. "If people cannot speak their minds freely or take part in political activities without fear, how can they meaningfully engage in this referendum," said Josef Benedict, Amnesty International's deputy director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

At a polling booth in Bangkok where Prayuth voted, officials displayed an empty ballot box to reporters and sealed it before letting the first voter — a young woman — enter the booth. She first registered at a desk and signed a paper before casting her ballot.

"Come out (to vote) because today is important for the future of the country. This is your duty and this is part of democracy, of an internationally-recognized process," Prayuth told reporters after voting.

People are being asked to check "yes" or "no" for the constitution and related provisions on the ballot paper. Final results are expected late Sunday. The main criticism of the draft constitution includes at least five years of a transitional period and a 250-member appointed Senate that includes the commanders of the army and other security services. A deadlock in the 500-member elected lower house could trigger a selection of a prime minister who is not an elected member of parliament.

Also, emergency decrees enacted by the junta without any parliamentary consent remain valid. So-called independent bodies, stacked with conservative appointees, would hold "disproportionately broad and unchecked powers" over elected politicians, said the international human rights consortium FIDH and the Union for Civil Liberty in Thailand.

"If you say 'yes' to the constitution, it means you agree with the content of the constitution ... what makes matters worse is you also give legitimacy to the coup, to the coup makers," said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of Kyoto University in Japan.

Pavin, a Thai and a vocal critic of the junta, told The Associated Press that a victory in the referendum would give the junta the reason to tell the world "don't you dare criticize us anymore because we have the legitimacy."

Even if Thais vote "no," the military will remain in control for the foreseeable future. Prayuth has promised to hold elections next year, without elaborating on how that would happen if voters reject the draft constitution.

Thailand has endured 13 successful military coups and 11 attempted takeovers since it replaced absolute with a constitutional monarchy in 1932. If passed, this would be Thailand's 20th constitution. Leaders of the latest coup say sometimes violent political conflict made the country ungovernable and that military rule was necessary to bring stability. It set up hand-picked committees to draft a charter that would enshrine its declared goal of reforming politics by eliminating corruption.

But others believe the draft constitution has a different aim: to weaken allies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the central figure who has roiled Thai politics since 2006. Thaksin's political machine has easily won every national election since 2001, relying on the support of working-class and rural voters who benefited from his populist policies. Leading the other side is Thailand's traditional ruling class and royalists unnerved by Thaksin's political support, especially as it contemplates its future. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose righteous rule has anchored the kingdom since 1946, is 88 and ailing.

The army ousted Thaksin in a 2006 coup, after his "yellow shirt" critics took to the streets and accused him of abuse of power, corruption and disrespecting the king. He has lived abroad since 2008 to avoid prison for a corruption conviction that he says was politically motivated. The 2014 coup ousted his sister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was elected prime minister in 2011, but buffeted by protests sparked by legislation that would have pardoned Thaksin.

Those who brought Thaksin down now seek to weaken major political parties, which would ensure that real power stays in the hands of what is dubbed the permanent bureaucracy: the military, the courts and other unelected guardians of the conservative bloc.

Analysts say the new constitution would make it easy to disband parties, keep politicians in line, impeach politicians, and enforce a coalition government of weaker, smaller parties. Chaturon Chaisang, who served in the Cabinets of both Thaksin and Yingluck, told the AP that his biggest objection is that "the draft charter will not allow Thai people to determine the future of this country."

Associated Press journalists Grant Peck, Jerry Harmer, Tassanee Vejpongsa and Penny Wang in Bangkok and Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this report.