Mass grave with 900 corpses found in Iraq

Diwaniyah, Iraq (AFP) July 6, 2011

Iraqi authorities uncovered a mass grave with 900 corpses near the central city of Diwaniyah on Wednesday, believed to be Kurds killed during the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, an official said.

The corpses were found in the Shanafiya region, 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of Diwaniyah.

"The corpses were buried in a trench. There were 900 bodies," said Dakhil Saihoud, provincial head of the Justice and Accountability Commission which investigates issues related to Saddam's regime.

"Initial indications show the remains are those of Kurds. They were transferred to laboratories in the city of Najaf to help in identification," Saihoud said. He said the corpses apparently dated back to the 1980s.

Last April, authorities said they had found another mass grave in Anbar province of western Iraq containing the bodies of more than 800 people, including women and children, executed during Saddam's regime.

During Iraq's 1980-1988 war with Iran, deserters were executed and the Sunni Arab dictator intensified a crackdown on Shiites suspected of sympathizing with Iraq's predominantly Shiite neighbor.

Kurds were persecuted because they were the main opposition to Saddam.

The number of people missing as a result of atrocities committed by Saddam, who came to power in 1979, is estimated at anywhere between 300,000 and 1.3 million, according to various sources.

Human rights groups believe there are hundreds of mass graves in Iraq of people killed during Saddam's rule.

Shortly after the 2003 invasion, the US-led coalition said there were 263 mass reported graves of people executed in Iraq under Saddam, including 40 containing evidence of systematic killings.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Mass_grave_with_900_corpses_found_in_Iraq_999.html.

Britain to pull 500 troops from Afghanistan: Cameron

WARNING: Article contains propaganda!

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London (AFP) July 6, 2011

Britain will withdraw a further 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, but will keep soldiers there in a training role until at least 2023, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.

His confirmation that the second largest foreign contingent in Afghanistan will be reduced to 9,000 came a fortnight after President Barack Obama announced a big drawdown of US forces in the war-torn country.

Despite concerns expressed by US and British military officers, Cameron said the withdrawal was possible because Afghanistan's fledgling army and police were increasingly confident as the West prepares to hand over security duties by 2015.

"Today I can announce that the UK will be able to reduce its force levels by a further 500 from 9,500 to 9,000 by the end of 2012," Cameron told the House of Commons.

The announcement comes a day after Cameron returned from a two-day visit to Afghanistan to meet British troops based in the troubled southern province of Helmand and to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

He added: "This decision is not only right for Britain, it is right for Afghanistan too. It has given the Afghans a clear deadline against which to plan and has injected a sense of urgency into their efforts.

"Having taken such a huge share of the burden, and having performed so magnificently for a decade, the country needs to know that there is an end point to the level of our current commitment and to our combat operations."

Britain has already announced the withdrawal of 426 auxiliary military personnel by February 2012.

But Cameron stressed that Britain's commitment to Afghanistan would endure after the last NATO combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.

He said Britain would lead a Sandhurst-style military academy for Afghan army officers "for 10 years starting from 2013."

He announced the creation of the academy during a press conference with Karzai on Tuesday but without giving a timeline for the commitment.

Western governments are heading for the exit door in Afghanistan, with Obama saying this month he would withdraw 33,000 US "surge" troops by the end of 2012, bringing total US forces there down to 65,000.

Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan ends this week while France, Belgium and Spain have also said they will soon bring home some troops.

US and British military commanders have expressed fears that bringing too many troops out too soon could hurt the delicate process of handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces.

During the trip Cameron was forced to cancel a visit to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand and one of the first towns due to be handed over to Afghan control, after a British soldier went missing from his base and was later found dead.

The mysterious death of 21-year-old Scott McLaren appeared to undermine Cameron's claim that security had improved enough for Britain to withdraw some troops soon.

McLaren was the 375th member of the British forces to die since the US-led invasion in October 2001, which came after the Taliban regime refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden died in a US raid in Pakistan in May.

But Cameron insisted that Afghan forces were now ready to take on the baton after international forces had "driven Al-Qaeda from its bases" and "halted the momentum of the Taliban insurgency."

"In many places across the country the Afghan National Security Forces now stand ready to begin the process of taking over security responsibility," he told lawmakers.

In Kabul, Cameron made a plea to the Taliban to lay down their weapons and join the political process, and pointed to the example of Northern Ireland where erstwhile bitter foes now share power.

Afghanistan on Wednesday said its troops had killed 276 Taliban-linked rebels in the past fortnight while the military lost 59 troops.

Defense ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi also claimed around 240 rebels had been captured.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Britain_to_pull_500_troops_from_Afghanistan_Cameron_999.html.

Tunisian Amazighs campaign for equal rights

Members of Tunisia's Amazigh community hope their language will be part of the country's new democratic constitution.

By Houda Trabelsi for Magharebia in Tunis – 06/07/11

Tunisians of Amazigh descent are calling for the inclusion of their culture in the country's new constitution.

"Amazigh is not just a language; it is a civilization as well as the history of Tunisia and the culture of the Tunisian people," Hajer Welhezi told Magharebia. "That needs to be secured by the constitution to protect it and to prevent any forced or voluntary extinction or eradication."

"It is the responsibility of each Tunisian to do so because it is a national treasure that all Tunisians have to value. It is time to stop talking about Amazigh as a minority. Only the Amazigh language is a minority not the people. Thus, defending and rehabilitating Amazigh civilization and its branches is not only a matter for the speakers of the language, it is a national affair," Welhezi said.

Activists are using social media to campaign for the inclusion of two articles in the new constitution. The first stipulates that Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state with Islam as its religion and Arabic as its language with a republican form of government. The second article calls on the government to recognize the Amazigh language and culture as part of the national identity and to work towards its development.

Badis Kachtilou, a young Tunisian of Amazigh descent, told Magharebia that the call for recognition was aimed at all Tunisians, including the government, political parties and civil society.

"It also asks them to step forward for their historical duty and work toward the inclusion of the two aforementioned articles in the new constitution of Tunisia, in order to make the future in post-revolution Tunisia a place where all Tunisians enjoy their lives without feeling excluded or marginalized," Kachtilou said.

He added, "Our Amazigh brothers in Morocco made great achievement and saw their language become part of the constitution as another official language, besides Arabic. According to the new constitution, the Arab identity of Morocco was abolished and replaced by an Islamic identity. The term Arab Maghreb was also dropped and replaced by Greater Maghreb."

"We hope that Tunisia will also achieve that," he said.

"Tunisian identity can't be summarized neither in one religion nor in one language," Ahmed Welhezi said. "It is a combination of this group of human beings sharing the same land and common history, and the North African Amazigh civilization and culture, sharing also the same aspirations, dreams, and all the likes that make a living people."

"We aspire to build a new Tunisia that is open, modernist, and tolerant. We are driven by a deep understanding of the particularities of our civilization and of its historical and geographical position," declared Mourad Zitouni, another young Tunisian. "Our people are not one or two centuries old but rather thousands of years."

Nizar Ferchichi said it was "necessary to recognize the cultural and civilization diversity".

"Some people want to summarize our national identity in one dimension that represents a certain era which enriched our history and civilization, so how can we force the Tunisian people to accept only the option of an Arab identity?" he asked.

"Amazigh is an indelible part of the identity of any Tunisian. Degrading, fighting, or denying that part of our identity would be treason of our country and our ancestors, and even worse it would be denying one's origin," Ferchichi told Magharebia. "Yes for recognizing a Tunisian Arab-Amazigh identity and no for eradicating and denying the Amazigh identity".

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/07/06/feature-01.

Morocco seeks to thaw relations with Algeria

2011-07-06

King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Tuesday (July 5th) expressed his "firm determination" to surmount obstacles to relations with Algeria, MAP reported. In a congratulatory message to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika marking the 49th anniversary of Algerian independence, the sovereign called for "a new dynamic to fruitful co-operation and active solidarity…worthy of two brothers and neighbors, as part of our Maghreb Union". He also affirmed his support for Algeria's efforts to achieve enduring security and stability.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/07/06/newsbrief-03.

Cassini Spacecraft Captures Images and Sounds of Big Saturn Storm

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 07, 2011

Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft now have the first-ever, up-close details of a Saturn storm that is eight times the surface area of Earth.

On Dec. 5, 2010, Cassini first detected the storm that has been raging ever since. It appears at approximately 35 degrees north latitude on Saturn. Pictures from Cassini's imaging cameras show the storm wrapping around the entire planet covering approximately 1.5 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers).

The storm is about 500 times larger than the biggest storm previously seen by Cassini during several months from 2009 to 2010. Scientists studied the sounds of the new storm's lightning strikes and analyzed images taken between December 2010 and February 2011.

Data from Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument showed the lightning flash rate as much as 10 times more frequent than during other storms monitored since Cassini's arrival to Saturn in 2004. The data appear in a paper published this week in the journal Nature.

"Cassini shows us that Saturn is bipolar," said Andrew Ingersoll, an author of the study and a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

"Saturn is not like Earth and Jupiter, where storms are fairly frequent. Weather on Saturn appears to hum along placidly for years and then erupt violently. I'm excited we saw weather so spectacular on our watch."

At its most intense, the storm generated more than 10 lightning flashes per second. Even with millisecond resolution, the spacecraft's radio and plasma wave instrument had difficulty separating individual signals during the most intense period. Scientists created a sound file from data obtained on March 15 at a slightly lower intensity period.

Cassini has detected 10 lightning storms on Saturn since the spacecraft entered the planet's orbit and its southern hemisphere was experiencing summer, with full solar illumination not shadowed by the rings.

Those storms rolled through an area in the southern hemisphere dubbed "Storm Alley." But the sun's illumination on the hemispheres flipped around August 2009, when the northern hemisphere began experiencing spring.

"This storm is thrilling because it shows how shifting seasons and solar illumination can dramatically stir up the weather on Saturn," said Georg Fischer, the paper's lead author and a radio and plasma wave science team member at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz.

"We have been observing storms on Saturn for almost seven years, so tracking a storm so different from the others has put us at the edge of our seats."

The storm's results are the first activities of a new "Saturn Storm Watch" campaign. During this effort, Cassini looks at likely storm locations on Saturn in between its scheduled observations.

On the same day that the radio and plasma wave instrument detected the first lightning, Cassini's cameras happened to be pointed at the right location as part of the campaign and captured an image of a small, bright cloud.

Because analysis on that image was not completed immediately, Fischer sent out a notice to the worldwide amateur astronomy community to collect more images. A flood of amateur images helped scientists track the storm as it grew rapidly, wrapping around the planet by late January 2011.

The new details about this storm complement atmospheric disturbances described recently by scientists using Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. The storm is the biggest observed by spacecraft orbiting or flying by Saturn. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured images in 1990 of an equally large storm.

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Cassini_Spacecraft_Captures_Images_and_Sounds_of_Big_Saturn_Storm_999.html.

Somalia Islamists lift ban on aid agencies to help drought victims

MOGADISHU (BNO NEWS) — Somalia’s militant Islamist group Al-Shabab on Wednesday announced that they were lifting a ban on international and local aid agencies as a severe drought hits the country, RBC radio reported.

“Al-Shabab movement declares today that any aid agency could operate in Somalia whether it’s a Muslim or Non-Muslim agency if they do not hide some special purposes unlike the humanitarian”, the group’s spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mahamud Rage, said in a press conference held in Mogadishu.

“We are standing by to provide any assistance they need if their exact desire is helping the drought affected people”.

Al-Shabab imposed the ban in 2009, alleging the foreign aid agencies are pro-Somalia government.

The announcement comes as the Horn of Africa is hit by its worst drought in 60 years. The United Nations humanitarian agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), estimated that 10 million people across the Horn of Africa are facing a severe food crisis following a prolonged drought in the region.

According to the UN, more than 61,000 Somalis have arrived to Kenya this year alone; 27,000 of them in June. Somali refugees have also been fleeing to Ethiopia, as 55,000 have arrived since the beginning of the year. In addition, 26 percent of them arrived malnourished with the malnutrition rate among children estimated at three in five.

In total, there are more than 750,000 Somali refugees in countries in the region, mostly in neighboring Kenya (which hosts 405,000), Yemen (187,000) and Ethiopia (130,000). There also are about 1.46 million internally displaced people within Somalia.

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/wires/18634/somalia-islamists-lift-ban-on-aid-agencies-to-help-drought-victims/.

South Korea's PyeongChang elected as host city of 2018 Olympic Winter Games

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA (BNO NEWS) — The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday elected South Korea’s PyeongChang as the host city of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games in 2018.

The announcement ceremony took place in the 123rd Session of the IOC in Durban, South Africa. PyeongChang was selected ahead of the German city Munich and France’s Annecy.

“We have a simple vision. We want to help promote the Olympic movement, and grow winter sports to new regions and connect with new audiences,” said Cho Yang-ho, chairman of the PyeongChang bid committee. “We are glad that the IOC members understood this message and believed that the time was right to give us the Winter Olympics.”

PyeongChang won the bid after receiving 63 votes in the first round against 25 votes by Munich and only 7 by Annecy. IOC President Jacques Rogge congratulated the PyeongChang team and praised the high quality of their file and final presentation.

“PyeongChang presented a strong and inspiring project that enjoys massive support from the government and the public,” said Rogge after the ceremony. “I have every confidence that PyeongChang will deliver on its commitment and host excellent Games in 2018.”

This was the third attempt of the South Korean city to host the Winter Olympics but the first to be successful. It lost out to Vancouver, Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics and to the Russia’s Sochi for the 2014 edition by a narrow margin (3 and 4 votes respectively).

“PyeongChang will become a new winter sports hub in Asia, allowing athletes and young generations to practice winter sports at home, be exposed to the Olympic Values of Excellence, Friendship, and Respect, and pursue their Olympic dream,” added Rogge.

The Host City Contract will be signed shortly. This document sets out the legal, commercial and financial rights and obligations of the IOC, PyeongChang and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of South Korea in relation to the Olympic Games.

“PyeongChang’s inspiring project sets out to have the heart of the Olympic Winter Games beating in the mountains. The IOC looks forward to collaborating with them over the next seven years,” concluded Rogge.

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/wires/18637/south-koreas-pyeongchang-elected-as-host-city-of-2018-olympic-winter-games/.