Palestinians seek Barak's arrest

September 28, 2009

A group of Palestinian families is attempting to have Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, prosecuted in Britain for alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip, lawyers have told Al Jazeera.

A lawyer working for the families will present their case at a magistrates court in London on Tuesday before British officials decide if it has the jurisdiction to decide the case.

Barak is due in Britain on Tuesday to address a meeting of the Labor Friends of Israel on the sidelines of the ruling party's annual conference. The families hope that an arrest warrant will be issued during his visit.

Michel Massih, the UK-based lawyer taking the case to court, said that he believed that the British government was obliged "to actively pursue people who are alleged to be involved in war crimes".

"One does not need, at this stage, to provide more than a basic prima face case and the suggestion would be that Barak certainly was in a position where he has to answer some of the allegations made about the commission of crimes by Israeli troops," he told Al Jazeera from London.

Gaza bombardment

More than 1,400 Palestinians, at least one-third of them women and children, were killed in Israel's December-January offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israel said the air, naval and ground assault on the territory was aimed at halting rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters.

Massih said that the case would be based on a number of sources of evidence, including reports by Amnesty International and other human rights organization and the UN investigation into the war.

After the UN human rights commission report, complied by Richard Goldstone, a South African prosecutor, was published, Barak condemned its findings as political and faulted its methodology.

"Although I am incensed by the Goldstone Report, I must admit that I was not surprised," he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "It is, more than anything else, a political statement - not a legal analysis."

'Punished and terrorized'

Goldstone's report said that the Israeli offensive had "punished and terrorized" Palestinian civilians as troops had failed to take precautions to minimize civilian casualties and in some cases had deliberately attacked them.

The report also accused Palestinian fighters of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity as they fired rockets into southern Israel.

"If the Israeli courts were themselves to investigate, there would be no need to have recourse to international tribunals," Massih told Al Jazeera.

"There are allegations of war crimes, there are families seeking redress and because these families are seeking redress they have asked the advice of lawyers in Palestine who have asked the advice of lawyers in the United Kingdom."

In 2005, human rights groups criticized British authorities for failing to arrest Doron Almog, an Israeli army general for whom an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes had been issued, when his aircraft landed in London.

Almog stayed on the aeroplane at Heathrow airport after apparently being informed that he could face arrest and was allowed to return to Israel.

Al-Shabaab beheads 'CIA agents'

Tue Sep 29, 2009

Somalia's most powerful militant group, al-Shabaab, has reportedly executed two alleged CIA agents in the country's restive capital, Mogadishu.

The group, which has publicly announced its loyalty to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, issued the execution order after finding the two men guilty of spying for the United States.

According to witnesses, the two men were shot dead early on Monday in al-Shabaab's Maslah camp in northern Mogadishu.

The development comes as government troops recaptured the strategic central town of Beledweyne, some 332 kilometers (206 miles) north of the capital.

Heavy Fighting erupted early on Monday after Somali soldiers carried out a pre-dawn attack on the town's western wing, forcing rebels loyal to another influential militant group called Hizbul Islam to evacuate their bases.

The number of casualties remain unclear, with some sources saying as many as 15 people, most of them militants, were killed in the attack.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered capital was the scene of more fighting, where at least 10 people were killed and 18 others injured, following fierce clashes between African Union troops and rebel forces.

Several artillery shells fired from both sides also slammed into residential areas, claiming an unknown number of civilian lives.

Rebel groups are fighting to overthrow a fragile western-backed transitional government in the Horn of Africa nation.

Violence has intensified in Somalia since an inland US operation angered the rebels, who have ever since vowed to retaliate with more attacks.

The US claims that the air strike had killed an alleged operative working for al-Qaeda.

Somalia has been marred by two decades of civil strife following the ouster of former dictator Mohammad Siad Bare in 1991.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/107385.html.

Hunger threatens 23m in East Africa

International aid group Oxfam says 23 million people are threatened with severe hunger in East Africa due to climate change.

“This is the worst humanitarian crisis Oxfam has seen in East Africa for over ten years,” Paul Smith Lomas, Oxfam's East Africa Director said in a statement on Tuesday.

Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda are the worst-hit nations by severe drought, whereas Sudan, Djibouti and Tanzania are also suffering ill effects.

This is while 'failed and unpredictable rains are ever more regular' across the region, Lomas says.

Thousands of animals have already succumbed to the drought, which is mainly blamed on climate change and global warming.

In Kenya alone, some 3.8 million people are in dire need of emergency aid, as deadly conflicts over diminishing water supplies intensify among pastoralists.

In Somalia, which has also been hit by a bloody insurgency, another 3.8 million people - around half the population - are dependent on food aid.

Over 13 million Ethiopians are also facing food shortages, the UK-based agency said.

The charity organization has already appealed for $15 million to help some 750,000 people in need of emergency food aid.

However, aid agencies operating in the region have suffered massive funding shortfalls this year, as developed countries tighten their belts in the face of the global financial crisis.

Palestinian factions close to unity

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal says a recent Egyptian-proposed initiative to heal rifts among Palestinian factions is a positive step toward reconciliation.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with head of Egyptian intelligence, Omar Suleiman, Meshaal said on Monday that the proposals pave the way for settling differences with the rival Fatah faction of Acting Palestinian Authority Chief, Mahmoud Abbas.

"Our meeting was extremely positive. We tackled many issues pertaining to this proposal and we think this proposal is a good basis to achieve Palestinian reconciliation", Meshaal said.

He added, however, that his resistance movement has suggested a number of changes to the initiative before signing the final draft in October.

The Egyptian proposal, aimed at reaching a national unity agreement, calls for the formation of an advisory committee to oversee Gaza's security and the release of political prisoners.

The committee, which would be headed by Abbas, would supervise the deployment of nearly 3,000 PA security personnel in Gaza to operate jointly with Hamas in the region to oversee the release of detainees from both sides, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

The initiative also calls for holding presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010. Hamas has repeatedly said that the vote must be held only after reconciliation is achieved.

Fatah, which rules the West Bank, and Hamas have been divided since 2007 when Hamas -- the democratically elected ruler of the Gaza Strip -- took control of the coastal territory.

Fatah has already agreed to the Egyptian proposal.

Armed attack leaves 3 dead in Istanbul

At least three people have lost their lives in an armed attack in Turkey's largest city, Istanbul, police and medical sources have said.

According to a report released by the Today's Zaman daily, a former convict identified as Ugur C. attacked a vehicle and opened fire on its three occupants in Istanbul's populous Kadikoy district.

Erkan Bektas and Ahmet Aksu were killed on the spot, while Ismet Keskin suffered injuries and was rushed to a nearby hospital in a critical condition. He later succumbed to death due to the wounds he had sustained in the lethal attack.

Police have cordoned off the area and launched a thorough investigation into the assault as the motive behind the attack remains unknown.

Turkey has seen armed attacks from a variety of groups in recent years.

The deadliest of such attacks took place in November 2003, when 58 people were killed by militants in suicide bombings outside two synagogues, the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul.

Philippine toll rises to 246 as new storms brew

By TERESA CEROJANO, Associated Press Writer

MANILA, Philippines – Rescuers pulled more bodies from swollen rivers and debris-strewn streets Tuesday, pushing the toll from flooding in the northern Philippines to more than 284 dead or missing, while two new storms brewing in the Pacific threatened to complicate relief efforts.

Authorities ordered extra police to be deployed to prevent looting in communities abandoned by fleeing residents, as frustration rose among those who have lost their homes or belongings.

Queues of bedraggled victims grew long at hundreds of aid distribution centers as floodwaters subsided further and more people went in search of food, clean water, dry clothes and shelter.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration — sensitive to criticism it did not give sufficient warning of the deluge or was too slow to respond — conceded it was overwhelmed but said it was doing all it could to help.

The homes of nearly 1.9 million people in the capital and surrounding areas were inundated by flooding unleashed by Tropical Storm Ketsana at the weekend, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said. Nearly 380,000 people have sought shelter in schools, churches and other evacuation centers.

The council said 246 were confirmed dead late Tuesday, with 38 missing.

Officials appealed for international aid, warning they may not have enough resources to withstand two new storms forecasters have spotted east of the island nation in the Pacific Ocean. One could hit the northern Philippines later this week and the other early next week, although meteorologists say that could change.

Ketsana, which scythed across the northern Philippines on Saturday, dumped more than a month's worth of rain in just 12 hours, causing the country's worst flooding in 40 years. The storm strengthened into a typhoon mid-Monday and crashed into Vietnam's central coast on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people, officials there said. Some 170,000 people were evacuated from its path.

In the Philippines, authorities rescued more than 12,000 people, but unconfirmed reports of more deaths abound, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.

Water that reached shoulder-depth in parts of the capital's streets on Saturday had subsided in many areas by Tuesday. People trudged through ankle-deep sludge to reach shelters where volunteers handed out bottles of water and other items. Elsewhere, people used shovels and brooms to begin mopping-up.

Many people complained the aid was too coming too slowly, and was not enough.

Arroyo said those who suffered had a right to complain but appealed to them to understand that the scale of the disaster was huge.

"We're responding to the extent we can to this once-in-a-lifetime typhoon emergency," she said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Arroyo opened part of the presidential palace as a relief center, where hundreds of people queued Tuesday for packets of noodles and other food donated by companies and individuals. At another center, Arroyo's executive chef cooked gourmet food for victims.

Arroyo and her Cabinet said they would donate two months' salary to the relief effort.

But conditions in many hard-hit areas remained squalid.

In the Bagong Silangan area in the capital, about 150 people sheltered on a covered basketball court that had been turned into a makeshift evacuation center for storm victims. People lay on pieces of cardboard amid piles of garbage and swarming flies, their belongings crammed into bags nearby.

Seventeen white wooden coffins, some of them child-sized, lined one part of the court. A woman wept quietly beside one coffin.

The storm left entire communities covered in mud, cars upended on city streets and power lines cut.

The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue. Arroyo would issue an executive order within the week declaring a national holiday as "clean up day," the palace said.

The United States has donated $100,000 and deployed a military helicopter and five rubber boats manned by about 20 American soldiers from the country's south, where they have been providing counterterrorism training. The United Nations Children's Fund and the World Food Program have also provided food and other aid.

Iran says advanced missiles can target any threat

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran tested its longest-range missiles Monday and warned they can reach any place that threatens the country, including Israel, parts of Europe and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. The launch capped two days of war games and was condemned as a provocation by Western powers, which are demanding Tehran come clean about a newly revealed nuclear facility it has been secretly building.

The tests Sunday and again Monday added urgency to a key meeting this week between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany — an international front seeking clear answers about the direction of its nuclear program.

Iran's missile program and its nuclear work — much of it carried out in secrecy — have long been a concern for the United States, Israel and its Western allies. They fear Tehran is intent on developing an atomic weapons capability and the missiles to deploy such warheads, despite Iran's assurances it is only pursuing civilian nuclear power.

In the latest exercise, the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran's missile program, successfully tested upgraded versions of Iran's medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles, state television reported. Both can carry warheads and reach up to 1,200 miles, putting Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East and parts of Europe within striking distance.

The launchings were meant to display Iran's military might and demonstrate its readiness to respond to any military threat.

"Iranian missiles are able to target any place that threatens Iran," said Abdollah Araqi, a senior Revolutionary Guard commander, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

Iran conducted three rounds of missile tests in drills that began Sunday, two days after the U.S. and its allies disclosed the country had been secretly developing an underground uranium enrichment facility. The Western powers warned Iran must open the site to international inspection or face harsher international sanctions.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hasan Qashqavi, maintained the missile tests had nothing to do with the tension over the site, saying they were part of routine, long-planned military exercises.

That assertion was rejected by the United States and its European allies.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the tests "provocative in nature," adding: "Obviously, these were pre-planned military exercises."

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Christine Fages agreed, saying "these tests constitute a provocation, even as we have multiplied our offers of dialogue with Iran."

The latest controversy comes days before a critical meeting Thursday in Geneva between Iran and six major powers trying to stop its suspected nuclear weapons program — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

The prospect of more U.N. sanctions on Iran is a possibility, targeting specific people and facilities. "We're prepared to take additional steps," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.

Iran's new nuclear site is located in the arid mountains near the holy city of Qom and is believed to be inside a heavily guarded, underground facility belonging to the Revolutionary Guard, according to a document sent by President Barack Obama's administration to lawmakers.

Experts say they have found sites that appear to be military north of Qom, although there has been no confirmation from the U.S. government and Iran says the nuclear facility is south of the holy city.

A satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe and GeoEye shows a well-fortified facility built into a mountain about 20 miles northeast of Qom, with ventilation shafts and a nearby surface-to-air missile site, according to defense consultancy IHS Jane's, which did the analysis of the imagery. The image was taken in September.

However, Iran's Foreign Ministry has given a different location, saying Monday it was near the village of Fordo, which is about 30 miles south of Qom.

GlobalSecurity.org analyzed images from 2005 and January 2009 when the site was in an earlier phase of construction and believes the facility is not underground but was instead cut into a mountain. It is constructed of heavily reinforced concrete and is about the size of a football field — large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges used to refine uranium.

Allison Puccioni, a senior imagery analyst with Jane's, said Monday she could not reconcile the discrepancy between the location detailed in the satellite images and the site described by Iran's foreign ministry. But she said there was no question a massive facility was being hollowed out north of Qom.

"It's undergoing massive construction as we speak. The level of reinforcement and security is highly consistent with a strategic facility," she said in a telephone interview from Mountainview, Calif.

After strong condemnations from the U.S. and its allies, Iran said Saturday it would allow U.N. nuclear inspectors to examine the site.

The facility's military connection could undermine Iran's contention that the plant was designed for civilian purposes.

Israel has trumpeted the latest discoveries as proof of its long-held assertion that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. By U.S. estimates, Iran is one to five years away from having nuclear weapons capability, although U.S. intelligence also believes that Iranian leaders have not yet made the decision to build a weapon.

Iran is also developing ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead, although a U.S. intelligence assessment in May says the country is focusing efforts on short- and medium-range missiles like the Shahab.

That assessment paved the way for Obama's decision to shelve the Bush administration's plan for a missile shield in Europe, which was aimed at defending against Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Iran is not expected to have such a missile until 2015 to 2020, according to the report, which was described by a U.S. government official on condition of anonymity because it is classified.

The Sajjil-2 missile is Iran's most advanced two-stage surface-to-surface missile and is powered entirely by solid-fuel, while the older Shahab-3 uses a combination of solid and liquid fuel in its most advanced form, known as the Qadr-F1.

Solid fuel increases a missile's accuracy in reaching targets and is seen as a technological breakthrough for any missile program.

Experts say the Sajjil-2 is more accurate and has a more advanced navigation system than the Shahab.